Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to play the CWB series with a variety of gamers. While the game system itself is not overly complex, the command rules are something that many people have not seen before. I've noticed quite a few gamers fail to get the best possible results out of their armies, simply because they didn't understand how to make the command system work for them. After explaining to newcomers where they could have done better, and cackling at experienced players because they didn't do better, I decided to write this article. It's meant for the newer players, but even experienced gamers may find a new way of looking at things.

Planning

You want a plan, not initiative rolls. One of the most important items you need before you start of any game is an overall battle plan. The old "let's lurch forward and see what happens here" mentality is not going to win many games.

Similarly, if you give out a lot of orders which have discreet, but ultimately uncoordinated, goals you are going to find the other guy on the territory that counts at the end of the game. Whether you an analysis of the historical commentary, a careful evaluation of the terrain and the armies involved, or just think back to the last eight times you played the game, you should have an overall plan of battle to guide all the orders which you will issue during the game. My best battles are the ones where I wrote almost no orders after the initial set.

Take some time to get your battle plan thought out. It is necessary to have the overall intentions figured out, but you also need to think through the specifics. How does each corps fit into the plan? Where will they be positioned? Do they seize ground, hold the flanks, or act as a reserve?

If you have an idea of where each element fits, it becomes easy to write orders for all of them. In a set-piece scenario the setup will often dictate this to you, but in a meeting engagement this can be very important.

We all know that few plans survive contact with the enemy, but it is easier to modify an existing plan of action than it is to make one up on the spot, implement it, and then expect it to work longer than a few hours. With a plan, your army is in purposeful motion rather than scrambling to follow its commander's whims. If all your opponent can come up with is "Hey, I get a new corps this turn! Where shall I plug it in?" while you already have a plan of action for your reinforcements which will mesh them with their neighbors, you are way ahead.

Orders

Orders are hard to write well until you have had some practice. One of the biggest problems I've seen is orders which are too limited. This is probably familiar to most people. A corps moves forward to a crossroads or other landmark and stops. The other side saw it coming and fell back to better terrain. This corps takes five turns to get new orders, and then it lurches forward again. By this time the decisive point has moved to the other side of the map, and the corps has become a sideshow.

Alternately, this lurch telegraphed a threat to important terrain which needs defending. While the corps was waiting on orders, the enemy moved up reinforcements and artillery, and the corps gets slaughtered. I once saw a Union corps in a game of Perryville take ten hours to move one mile in five hex increments, and it never did get into battle.

Orders have to be written so that they allow enough movement to follow through. I often set an objective which is behind the opponent's line, with a couple of way points and pauses to regroup built in (e.g. "Attack through Henry House and seized Snodgrass Hill"). This lets me specify the axis of attack and ensures that I don't do the old ten hexes-stop, ten hexes-stop routine on the way to an important piece of real estate.. Units which stop on the way to an objective allow the enemy time to react, while an attacking army that remains in motion is hard to counter and even harder to predict.

Write orders that do what you want them to do. You want Hancock to hold Cemetery Hill at all cost? Write that into the order. You want McCook to delay in front of the Lafayette Road, avoiding a full engagement until he is behind the road? You want Longstreet to make a demonstration at Devil's Den, an attack intended only to get the other player's attention? Write it into the orders. It is easier to follow the orders if you are explicit in what you want, and it avoids nasty comments from the other side of the table after the game. Note that you had to have an overall plan in mind to write the last two orders: delaying actions and demonstrations happen to support the rest of the battle while minimizing casualties, not because you think they are a neat idea.

Place the army commander where you need him most, so he can issue IPV orders at the crucial moment. This is not always where the thick of the action is, as I have learned many times while playing with that awesome pair, Bragg and Polk.

For example, in the meeting engagement scenario of Perryville, Hardee can hold Perryville and its all-important bridges by himself. With his rating of 3, he is not likely to suffer a defense failure or be stuck in place for long when an opportunity arises to his front. On the other hand, I have often found myself with the opportunity to move Polk (rating O) around the left flank of the Union army and destroy them in detail. It worked because I sent Bragg with Polk, so that any last minute objective changes or especially Corps Attack Stoppages could be hastily remedied with IPV orders.

As a corollary, units that are likely to fail an Attack Stoppage roll but that you want to keep attacking should already have orders on hand to remedy the situation. If the attack fails, they just wait to accept the new orders and get going again. The army commander should be there, but have the orders out and waiting on acceptance rather than waiting in the form of a yet-to-be-issued IPV order.

Timing and Coordination

Try to ensure that you issue orders so that everything meshes together. Pick a time for everything to actually happen, or key the execution of the order to the slowest commander ("Everyone attack when Burnside finally moves"). This gets more units in motion at once and is harder to deal with, as well as ensuring that supporting elements are in place at the right time. Think ahead so that all the necessary orders do get issued and can be implemented as soon as possible.

Don't forget the other side has plans too. Understanding your limited ability to react to enemy moves is the key to CWB. If you are like Grant, always more concerned about what you are going to do to the enemy than what he is planning to do to you, you run the risk of letting the other side dictate the pace of the battle. On the attack, get units in motion and hit before anyone can react. Order the reserves in early so they can exploit any gains before the other side can get orders to its reserves. Plan for several formations to move at once, and use the roads to move quickly.

On defense, have reserves ready with orders to move in support of the most likely trouble spots. Pay attention to the other side's actions, since early moves may telegraph intentions soon enough for orders to be issued or modified. It is better to have reserves with orders than without, since if they are wrong they can be changed and if they are right they allow speedy actions. The goal is to force the other guy to react to your moves, always a step behind, not the other way around.

Orders in Your Face