One of the primary design goals of Piquet was to illustrate that command of troops over thousands of years has remained essentially the same. That is, the essential purpose of command of any armed body of men was to destroy the functional cohesion of the enemy by force of arms and moral strength. While the capabilities of armies increased as the command structures available became more refined and articulated, the essential qualities of a good commander remained constant: good battle planning, tactical control, and efficient use of time and resources.

The Command Group officer casting in Piquet represents more than one individual. This casting represents the officer, his staff, adjutants, aides, etc. At the scale of representation shown in Piquet, the command group officer casting represents a much more abstract visual depiction of overall command ability than is typically seen in traditional games.

Officer Check

Piquet represents the function of officers via the use of the "Officer Check" card in the sequence decks. Historically efficient and better commanded armies tend to have more "Officer Check" cards than average or poorly led armies. The officers of the wargame army can carry out several functions on the "Officer Check" card if they choose to do so. The primary tasks available to the tabletop officer castings are (in no particular order):

1) Rallying Disordered/Routing Troops
2) Maintaining/Regaining control of command group
3) Superseding command of a command group
4) Attaching to an individual unit
5) Officer casualty representation
6) Major Morale aid

By spending an impetus point and a morale chip, any officer within can attempt to rally a disordered or routed unit that is within his command radius. This can only be attempted on the officer check card. Routed troops are difficult to rally: the rally attempt is not only made more difficult by their routed status, but it can be difficult to have an officer casting within command radius to make the attempt. One of the important functions of officers in Piquet is to rally disordered troops before they rout. Routed troops cost morale points, impetus points, and cards at the start of each turn. In this case, an ounce of prevention is very useful!

The tactical control of an officer's command group is represented by the officer's ability to bring out of command units back into command. Command groups consisting of many units can move for a single impetus point. If command has broken down due to combat effects or tactical requirements, an officer can bring individual units back into command to dramatically improve the efficiency of the command group. A single impetus point to move 10 units in command is much more efficient than using 10 impetus points to move 10 out of command units.

Remember, every impetus point that is wasted moving out of command units could instead be used to press the attack or organize a defense (use that precious impetus to get to the cards you REALLY need). The attempt to bring units back into command costs an impetus point per unit, and is modified by officer quality, etc. as shown on the leadership table.

In a situation where the tabletop army commanding officer has a command group with an officer of less than ideal quality (!), he can supersede and take command of that command group (in effect temporarily taking over command of the subordinate officer's command group). This is a situation that is not too common - typically the commander in chief should be spared from the possible risk of becoming a casualty. In addition, as long as the commander in chief is personally controlling a command group, the entire army is penalized by losing a card from their sequence deck at the start of each turn.

Desperate Situations

Officers can be moved to and attached to individual units. This is an action that is best left for only the most desperate of situations (the final attack, last ditch defense,...). The unit benefits from the commanding officer's close physical and moral presence (up 1 in melee and morale), but the penalties for taking control of a unit at the subordinate officer's level are fairly severe. If an officer does take over control of a unit, every unit in the command group becomes out of command, and the officer's chances of becoming a casualty are much greater.

Remember that officers at the Piquet level of representation are used to show an abstract command structure - they are best suited to organizing and sorting out the command group - not leading a "death or glory" charge!

Unfortunately, one of the situations also represented by officers in Piquet is the random loss of command on the battlefield. Any time any unit in an officer's command group has suffered any hits, the officer must roll for survival by beating the sum of the units suffering losses with the roll of a D20. In an abstracted form, this models the events commonly seen in battle reports - sniper shooting an officer, the odd random musket ball finding the mark, the bounding cannon ball, the horse throwing its rider, etc. Loss of an officer can be very damaging - every unit in the command group becomes out of command, and an additional card is removed from the deck at the start of the turn. Note that the officer's location doesn't matter. Bad luck and circumstances sometimes combine with deadly results.

When the battle has progressed to the stage where the Major Morale card is in effect, quality officers and a supply of morale chips is vital. The Major Morale check is first taken by the Commander in Chief, and if successful, the morale testing is finished. However, if the C-I-C fails, the test cascades down to each command group officer. If the command group officers are successful, the test halts for their command groups.

If unsuccessful, the test then proceeds to each unit in the command group. As long as morale chips are present (the army has not taken an irretrievable amount of damage), officers are extremely useful in shielding their units from Major Morale tests and failures. Think of this as the staffs galloping throughout the command, inspiring them and holding things together. If successful, the units continue to believe in the cause - if unsuccessful, the units have obviously decided that the great man in command doesn't know what he is doing and that they are better off on their own!

Officers have a much greater affect in the battle's outcome than may first be noticed. Maintaining command (bring units back into command) and morale (rallying units) are vital to tabletop success. How and when you choose to use your officer's capabilities is up to you - choose wisely!