Battle Cry

Game Review

by Lars Boye

Avalon Hill/Hasbro has published ‘Battle Cry’ an ACW board game designed by Richard Borg. The game comes with a battle board on which are printed 13 x 9 large hexes. The total playing area is about 70 x 45 cm. It is divided into 3 areas: centre and left and right flanks. There are 46 double sided hex tiles with terrain features (hills, woods, rivers, buildings, fields, rocks and a bridge) and 6 breastwork counters. Each of the 15 scenarios includes a set up map that tells you how set up the terrain for that battle.

The playing pieces are 112 figures in blue or grey plastic (approximately 20mm. scale). Each side has the following units: 10 infantry (4 figures each), 3 cavalry (3 figures each), 3 artillery (2 stands with a gun and a gunner each) and 3 generals. One figure in each unit and each general has a flag (Union or Confederate) attached to it. The number of units in play depends on the scenario.

The rules are simple, only about 10 pages with many illustrations. The rules are ‘card driven’. There is a deck of command cards that regulates what you can do. There are combat cards like ‘Probe left (2 units)’, ‘Skirmish centre (1 unit)’ or ‘Attack right (3 units)’. And there are special order cards like ‘Roll for reinforcements’, ‘Sharpshooters’ or ‘Force March’. Each side is dealt a number of command cards, depending on the quality of their overall commander. At Antietam Lee gets 5 and McClellan 3. This way Lee has more options, and is more likely to have the right card for his plan available.

When it is your side’s turn, you play one of the cards from your hand, activating a number of units. You then move the active units. After movement you can attack with the active units. If you played a ‘Probe left’ card, you could activate 2 units on you left flank. At the end of your turn you draw a new card and the other side now goes through the same steps. Infantry and artillery moves slower then cavalry and generals and artillery cannot move and combat in the same turn. All hexes have the same movement cost, but units must stop if they enter some terrain hexes. They cannot combat on the turn that they enter woods or towns. (This simulates the extra time it takes to move through and deploy there.)

Combat is very simple. The attacker rolls a number 6-sided combat dice, depending on distance. Infantry has a range of 4 hexes, rolling 4, 3, 2 and 1 dice. Cavalry has a range of 1 hex and rolls 3 dice. An attached general adds one die to this. The 6 sides of the combat die show one of the unit types (infantry twice), a generic hit or a retreat flag. To hit you need to roll the target unit’s type. If an artillery unit is attacking a cavalry unit 3 hexes away, it will roll 3 dice. If they come up cavalry, infantry and retreat, then the cavalry unit loses one stand and is retreated one hex. When the last stand in the unit or a general is lost, the opponent gets the ‘flag’ stand. You win by collecting 6 flag stands from your opponent.

The scenarios are easy to set up and can be completed in an hour or two, even if you play both sides. As the scenarios are not always balanced, playing them solo can be an advantage. Though among my many games the South has both won and lost the Pickett’s Charge scenario (3rd day of Gettysburg), depending on the flow of the cards and my plans. This scenario starts around 2PM, when the Southern artillery bombardment ends and their infantry attack begins. The North still has to move their guns and some of their infantry units forward from where they took cover from the bombardment. In the game where the South lost, the flow of the game was quite historical, with a few of the Southern units reaching the fences before they were forced to retreat. In the game where the South won, they started out with a Force March card and the North also had problems getting the units in action, but it was close run. Both sides had 4 command cards in their hands.

The scale of the game is not defined. The Antietam scenario covers the whole battle. The Shiloh scenario only covers the battle for the Hornet’s Nest. This is not reflected in different movement or combat ranges. But then, this ‘feature’ is seen in much more complex war game rules too.

Playing it solo means that you know both hands. But if you do not look at the new card that is drawn at the end of the turn, you have to worry about the unknown card in your opponent’s hand.

It is easy to fiddle with the game and make up new scenarios, add new features or change rules that you do not like or just want to experiment with. There are already four new scenarios on the www.grognard.com website. There are also variant hex tiles you can download for printing and suggestion for variant rules. The scenarios contain several variants themselves. Like a unit starting with fewer stands to represent the previous day’s combat or a cadet infantry unit with a range of only 3 hexes. If you have two copies you could use a customized command deck for each side. And you could combine the two boards for bigger battles.

There has also been some talk about variants covering other periods. The basic mechanism is very general, and the board is flexible, so it is a question of deciding on the type and quality of the different units and finding the figures for the period. I have made some simple AWI, Napoleonic and Colonial variants. For the Napoleonic variant I use 6mm. Heroic & Ros figures. They are based for the Napoleon’s Battles rules, using cm. instead of inches. I just use a stand for each Battle Cry figure. I use 1/72 scale plastic figures for the other variants.

Alternatively you could use a rule set like Volley & Bayonet instead of the Battle Cry rules. If you use cm. instead of inches you have got a scaled down 6 by 4 feet war gaming table and the figures that comes with the game matches the Volley & Bayonet bases (a 4 figure infantry or a 2 figure cavalry unit equals a Volley & Bayonet 3x3 cm. brigade stand).

Battle Cry is more than just a beer and pretzel game. Clearly it does not give you the detail of more detailed ACW games, like the great Civil War Brigade series from The Gamers. But if you are looking for a simple ACW game, with interesting rules, it is a good buy. It is a simple, fun and fast game to play, with lots of scenarios and quality components. The use of cards represents the command and control problems and uncertainties very well. The combat system is elegant. The use of the combat dice is a very simple way of representing a much more complex combat results table.

And who knows, you might even get your family or friends to play it.

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