One of the things that struck me was the fact that there is a plethora of ways in which cards can be used to simulate different capabilities in army types, command capabilities, and to show the shift and flow of initiative, but that they rarely seem to be used. What I hope to do is whet your appetite with a few ideas, and perhaps get you to try cards in a game. To go beyond the structures of the simultaneous or alternate move systems. Before I begin, I must let you know that I will refer to the 'Spear and Shield' rules written by myself and Phil Barlow, quite a lot as it is with these rules that much of our experimentation has been done. This means that I'll be giving our rules a 'free plug', so to speak, but I hope you don't think that's the sole reason I wrote the article. It's just a fortunate by-product.

Removing Control

The first thing that any card system does is remove complete control of his army from the player. Having said that, I can imagine some of you saying. "NO WAY! The little beggars don't do what they're told now." O.K., but what soldier ever really does? After 18 years in the army, I know that any officer that believes he has total control of his troops isn't really in command of reality. Even when you have every imaginable problem nailed down, every contingency planned for, and the troops are 100% behind what you're trying to do, something will happen to show you that you don't have control.

However, on the table-top, these annoying happenings don't appear. No unit drags it's feet and causes a traffic jam as your reserves rush to the front. The cavalry can launch their charges with the blissful reassurance that the unit to their front will sidestep in time to open the right sized gap in the line for them, And your archers/arquebusiers/musketeers will feel safe in the knowledge that before the enemy cavalry can move again they will get their turn to react.

Using cards stuffs all this up. Sure, if their card hasn't been drawn, the blokes above will move before the cavalry. But if it has, whose card will come up next? Should you move cavalry up in support, or take the chance that the enemy card will be drawn after your infantry's? And when engaged in battle, now you'll have to leave the appropriate spacing between units, because who knows if you units will move in the order you want them to. With cards they probably won't, but under simultaneous and alternate systems they will, because no one gets in the way. Viola, instant command and control problems that require planning to minimize. Bewdy, isn't it?

Opening Up Options

And for most people, that's where the advantage and disadvantages of cards end. But cards can open up a lot of other avenues. One of the optional rules we use in 'Spear and Shield,' (S&S), when using cards for individual units, is the 'Continuing Charge'. A unit whose card is drawn, and only cavalry or camelry can use it, declares a continuing charge and executes the charge. But it does not have to make contact at the end of its move, unlike most rules.

Instead, the unit's card is placed to one side and at the end of the turn, instead of being shuffled into the deck with the rest of the cards, units conducting continuing charges are shuffled separately, and drawn first. The net result is that those units hold the initiative for the turn as they act before any other. A tactic that has made its appearance in our club games is the use of a reserve of cavalry in a second line to counter these continuing charges. As cavalry has become more unpredictable, a counter is needed to either plug the gap caused or to follow up one's own successes.

Light cavalry, when you marry up the increased striking range given by a continuing charge, with their great mobility, become the potent threat used by Alexander, rather than a speedy, ineffectual annoyance. And placement on the wings for most cavalry makes sense as they now need to be unhindered by slow-moving infantry who will probably get in their way.

Rome vs. Germanic Tribes

The most important benefit, though, is in the way that some armies' superior command and control can be simulated. For example, let's look at the old Rome versus Germanic Tribes conflicts. Usually outnumbered, the Romans were consistently able to better their opponents in set-piece battles. Even when ambushed, a Roman force was no easy matter for the Germans to handle. One of the prime reasons was that the training of the Roman forces allowed them to coordinate their forces and thus achieve concentration of force at critical areas or reliefs in place when needed, whereas the warbands has no real ability to coordinate their efforts or change their plans with a changing situation.

To reflect these inabilities and allow the Romans to do as well as they did historically, various devices have been tried. Arbitrarily splitting troops into 'REGULAR' and IRREGULAR' types and carrying out a plethora of 'reaction tests' was used by WRG 6th, for example. Artificially enhancing the capability of the Roman in regards to combat and morale was also tried in some rules. But because they use simultaneous or alternate movement systems with all the units of the armies moving in a generally coordinated fashion, there is no way to reflect the organizational superiority of the Romans.

Tribal Flexibility?

Using cards can do this. The Germans will have each warband represented by a separate card, and will move, fight or whatever when the units' cards are drawn. Conversely, each Roman LEGION will have a card, and the cohorts/maniples plus supporting troops ALL MOVE when the card is drawn. Now, there is a mechanism to allow the Romans to coordinate an attack on one warband with three cohorts, or relieve the hard pressed Princepi with fresh hastatii while the tribesman must fight his warbands as separate entities.

Some will argue that this will give the tribes more flexibility as it allows more opportunities for the larger number of cards the Germans have to be drawn. In practice, the ability to coordinate his units and force the initiative overcomes the advantage given by the greater number of cards. The German is forced into a historical model of piece-meal attacks against a coherent force that requires him to look for other advantages, such as terrain or surprise to give him a better chance of success.