Have you ever wondered how battles from the American Civil War might have gone differently, were you in command? No? Well, that is a sort of specific thing to wonder. But if you’re wondering now, try the game Battle Cry!
Battle Cry has a number of battles you can play, setting up the board with appropriate troop starting places and terrain tiles for each. The terrains all have slightly different effects — if you move into the woods, for example, that unit can’t battle or move further that turn, but anyone attacking a unit in the woods gets 1 less battle die to attack with.
What are battle dice? Well, let me back up and explain the units, first. There’s infantry, which can move one space per turn and battle; cavalry, which can move three spaces per turn and battle; and artillery, which can move one space per turn or battle. There’s also generals, who can attach themselves to a unit to give the unit an extra battle die when attacking.
So… what are battle dice? Well, when a unit attacks, you roll battle dice to determine how many enemy pieces they hit. Each die has five symbols — infantry, cavalry, artillery, crossed swords, and a flag, with infantry appearing twice. For each roll that matches the enemy unit, you remove one piece. Crossed swords counts as a wild die, and a flag forces the enemy unit to retreat one space back towards their side of the board (or be eliminated, if they have nowhere to run). The amount of dice you roll on an attack is determined by what kind of unit you’re attacking with, and how far away the target is. Cavalry have three battle dice, but can only attack from an adjacent hex. Infantry and artillery have longer ranges, four and five respectively, but decrease in battle dice the further away the enemy is. So, for example, if I used an infantry unit to attack a cavalry unit adjacent to them, I’d get to roll four dice — if, however, the cavalry I was attacking were three hexes away, I’d only get to roll two. The target also has to be within line of sight, which means that a straight line between the centers of the two hexes must be unobstructed by any other units or terrain that would impede it (hills, for example).
The units you can move/battle with (order) on a given turn are determined by cards. How many cards you have in hand depends on the map you’re playing, but in every case you play first, resolve, and then draw at the end of your turn. Cards can have fairly small effects, like “order 1 unit or general on the left flank” (the board is split into two flanks and the center), or significantly larger movements, like how Mom opened our last two games: All Out Assault, which lets you order every unit you have. Yeah, sweet initial draw, right? For the record, I still won the second of those games.
You win the game by being the first player to capture six flags — each unit has one, as does each general, and it’s the last piece of the unit to fall.
Battle Cry is a fun two-player game, balancing the strategy of battle with the luck of the draw and the dice, and providing an accompanying history lesson for each map you play.
