On Saturday I met Andi for some nice hours of wargaming. We tried a custom variant of Richard Borg's Command & Colours system using 28mm miniatures on a hexless map with normal wargaming terrain and and a selfmade Command Cards Deck. I'm working on this variant since several years but didn't find the time so far to try it. We played two games based mainly on the Memoir'44 rules on a map with randomly placed terrain. Andi fielded his Warhammer Dwarves (4 units of Dwarf warriors, 2 units of Dwarf Shooters, 2 units of Slayers, 1 unit of Longbeards, 1 unit of Dwarf cannons, 1 Dwarf King and 1 Demon Slayer), I fielded my Lord of the Rings Riders of Rohan (4 units of Riders of Rohan, 4 units of Warriors of Rohan, 2 units of Archers of Rohan, Theodred and Erkenbrand). Both games were very close and both times Andi won (by 6:4 and 6:5). We used bases of 10cm x 8cm for the units and single figures to represent life points. Because our rules were based on the Memoir'44 rule system for modern warfare some elements of classical and medieval warfare (like battlelines and batteling back) were missing and should be added when playing next time in a Fantasy/Classical/Medieval setting.
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| Ready for a hexless variant of Richard Borg's Command & Colours. |
The hexless play worked very well. Even without the elegant and stramlined hex-system of the original rules that works totally clear and without any questionable situations, there weren't any bigger problems arising on measuring, movement, line of sight, batteling and fleeing. I the end the gameplay resolved similar to any other tabletop with comparable results in the end. The Command Card Deck I created was based on another idea I had for this variant of the C&C system. Two thirds of the cards were ordinary order cards like in any other of the C&C series. The other third comprises special activation cards marked with 1 to 3 Command Points. Each faction were given distinct orders before the games started that could be activated using those Command Points. Those distinct orders reflected faction specific tactics like "dig in" and defensive actions for the Dwarfs and fast "hit and run" actions for the Riders of Rohan.
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| We were happy how good the hexless gameplay worked. |
Overall I'm totally happy with the hexless play as well as the faction specific orders. Gameplay worked as well as I hoped for and we had a lot of fun with the rules and the game. Both rule variants should also be adaptable for all thinkable settings like Warhammer 40.000 for example.
