BCS is one great Clever Mechanic

Greetings Grant, 

   I hope you enjoyed the trip to Iceland. You picked the right time of year. My wife and daughter went in the wintertime a few years ago, hoping to see some Northern Lights, but not only was it cold, but also overcast. Sometimes you can't plan everything. They were there for a volcanic eruption, which was cool.

   I'm writing in answer to your request to your audience to suggest wargame special or clever mechanics. I was very surprised you did not mention Dean Essig's BCS series. In watching your various game overviews before, I've come to the conclusion that you might not have any BCS games in your library. Maybe I'm wrong.

   As you may remember, but probably not, I've been wargaming since the late sixties and early seventies. I remember subscribing to S&T when they were in their 'teens and Fire & Movement when it was single digits (boy that was a good magazine). That's all by way of me saying I'm not a noob when it comes to various wargame mechanics. BCS totally blew me away, and was one of the most difficult game systems to grok I've come across, not necessarily because of the rules themselves (but early game instructions were poorly written), but because of the systems introduced by Dean to better simulate how actual military formations operate, fight and take causalities. It is the first to display , in its own method and without stating so, John Boyds OODA loop. Dean uses what I think of as a poorly named process, the "SNAFU" roll. I prefer to think of it as the "battle tempo" ability that a well supplied, rested and full strength unit has over say a fatigued and understrength unit. It is a quite unique method of showing the spiral a unit under pressure can undergo on the battlefield, and how, through good management, a leader can gain benefits through husbanding a units assets.

   There is no CRT in the classic sense.  There are three different combat resolution tables, Barrage, Engagement and Combat. The table one uses are based on the type of combat unit doing the attack. There are five different types of combat, Engagements, Attacks, Shock Attacks (aka overruns), Attack by Fire and Barrage.

   Unlike most games, when a unit takes a "hit", the combat value doesn't change as in other games, where say the unit is flipped to reflect a weaker defense and attack factor. Steps are reduced, which may or will lead to a gradual or rapid diminishment of combat power.

   Dean introduces the concept of support units, being either separate roaming independent armor units or attached armor support, being abstractly represented by an increase capability for a normal leg unit. This is representative of how those anti-tank assets were actually used during the war. And when attached, the leg units gain zocs against armor units, where as before, leg units can't stop a "hard" or armor unit from passing by.

   As Dean even stated in his copious designer notes, armor units aren't just fast and strong infantry units. The game forces one to use the different types of units differently, or you'll suffer the consequences. Each type of unit affects the battlefield differently. You can't win the game with just armor or just leg units. The game mechanics and design highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the three primary arms on the battlefield, infantry, armor and artillery. 

   The use of scout/recon units is portrayed here unlike any other game I've seen. These units harass and delay enemy forces, but when "caught", are weak and don't last long. One envisions "sniping" on enemy columns, blowing trees to block road advance etc. Its a neat way to accurately reflect these small but vital assets one has in the TOE.

   The game uses "Objective Hex" markers. Again, the snafu roll can give you none, one or two of these, which are necessary to engage in any kind of offensive combat during your turn. There are three results to the snafu roll, Fail (you can't attack or move any of that formation's units), Partial (you get half your movement allowance and can only attack enemy units close to one objective hex) or Full, where you can place two objective hex markers (sometimes both on the same hex) with full movement allowance. These objective hex markers simulate the concentration of effort that formations are called upon in real life. You can't willy nilly attack across a broad front with all your units wherever there is an enemy unit. Real headquarters focus on specific objectives. One can think of gaining two objective hex markers as a well prepared HQ operating inside the enemy's OODA loop. This mechanic forces the game player to think like a real division or battalion commander.

   While this game does not count supply points (ala OCS), and turn the game player into a logistician, it does force you to think like a commander, and provide for Lines of supply, or what the game calls MSR (Main supply Routes). As in real life, of primary concern to a commander is where his supplies are coming from. Does he have a dedicated "road" that he can advance up and supply from behind. What happens when two formations intermingle their supply routes? Chaos! The game reflects this aspect of modern combat by rewarding good planning.

   Units generally have a "Deployed" and "Move" side, simulating a unit advancing to combat, spread out and ready to fight, and the move side that has a higher movement allowance but also a lower combat power.

   I'm sorry for going on so long, and no, I don't work for MMP or The Gamers, I'm just totally blown away by the mechanics of this system and have gained an understanding of the underlying concepts of combat that Dean was trying to simulate with this system. I came to this game through Arracourt, and quickly bought up the rest in the series. I won't kid you, the game is so different from anything that I've seen that came before it, that the learning curve for an old wargamer is quite steep. My gaming buddy and I would play it over and over, each time realizing that we had done something incorrectly, and that way finally feel confident that we were getting ahold of the system overall. Gamers new to wargaming might not have those difficulties as they have no preconceived notions of what a wargame ought to be, (What's a CRT?). I very much like the turn sequence where its got allot of back and forth. On your turn you move five to ten units of a formation, then it's your opponent's turn to move five or ten units. Unlike a game like OCS, or East Front Battles, where one side's turn can take over an hour, it's ten or fifteen minutes per player activation. A much more enjoyable playing experience.

   I don't know what you'll do with this letter. I hope you'll give BCS some consideration for the next installment of "Clever Game Mechanics". Keep up the good work, I very much enjoy your enthusiasm for wargaming, and as I've told you before, you've caused me to purchase at least one game due to your obvious enjoyment of it, Eagles of the Sky. If you'd like to try a bit of Arracourt via Vassal I'd be willing to try to introduce you to it (I am a Noob when it comes to Vassal, so I'll need some hand holding there). I've used Vassal for some solitaire GMT US Civil War (another great game).

    Grant, keep up the good work, it's very much appreciated by me. Thank you!

Steve Jantscher