Review

Field Command

Board Wargame


Field command is a board wargame with miniatures for the general gaming audience. It applies quite a few ideas from miniature gaming: written orders, 3-D terrain elevation, the effects of woods, height advantage and plastic miniatures. Both side place all their troops on the board with a screen between the sides to hide the opponent's placement. Orders are written for each piece and all are moved. Conflicts are resolved using a Paper/Scissors/Rock scheme. In some ways it is reminiscent of Stratego as the rankings of the figures determine combat winners except only the lowly guerrilla fighter able to take out the top general.

The physical design is excellent with a 3 dimensional board having various elevations and nicely cast plastic figures. The base shape of the figure indicates their strength vs an opponent.

My major gripe is that the designer went to a lot of trouble to make a beautiful presentation of this game and then totally destroyed it with his choice of figures. All the figures, whether infantry, skirmishers, mounted cavalry or "guerrillas" are the same figure - which seems based on an early Austrian line infantryman with helmet. Since there had to be different castings to have different bases, why did he not go all the way and have the correct figure to represent each arm?

I feel that this is a major flaw that regulates the game to the non-historical gamer. I would hesitate to have my kids play it if I were trying to teach them the nuances of Napoleonic battle unless I was to paint up a figure set with the correct uniforms or at least spray paint figures that indicate the differences between the combat arms of the period. $30 - $40 at most toy and game shops. - DICK BRYANT

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