Setting aside movement distances/speeds, for now, the particulars of maneuvering troops on a battlefield, and the time required to do so, has always proven to be a point of fascination for me. How could such a relatively small force of dismounted cavalry withstand more than double its numbers of infantry for over two hours, on the first day of Gettysburg? How ought this then be best modeled or simulated in wargame rules?

One of the greatest obstacles for wargaming is the “God’s eye view,” where the players see everything and know everything and thus most games come down to how luck or change effect the outcomes of player decisions. Some rules balance this by requiring a die roll to move one or more units at once, both Black Powder and Fire and Fury being two examples of this. Sam Mustafa’s Grande Armée allows players to move all their units, but the actual distance moved by each brigade base of miniatures is modified by the roll of a d6.

There is nothing inherently wrong with either system, but neither “feel right” or at least completely correct to me. Sam Mustafa’s Blücher approaches this matter quite differently, with players not knowing exactly how many moves they have (but their opponent does), and they spend their movement allowance until their opponent says “stop.” I do like this as it takes away some of the concretely known and replaces it with a general knowledge of about how many moves one could make in a turn. Yet, this still does not fully scratch the itch, so to speak, in that combat happens outside of movement, as though it does not occur within the same space of time.

What my system attempts to do is “spend” combats and movement within the same space of time, where both distinctly occur within a single phase of the game.

The process is by using tactical cards, some of which are for combat and others for movement. Each card has an action or actions and an associated time cost. The active player, as the leader of his force, may choose to play a directed movement card, ordering a division of his choice and all of its brigades, for a greater time cost than that of a simple advance card, which costs less time, but at the risk of not being able to move some of its brigades. Combat cards also have a cost, but here the defender can play a combat card, which also spends time.

Once the active player plays a combat card and the defender responds (or not), that combat is resolved and the defender now becomes the active player and may choose to play a movement card or a combat card. Should either player play through the allotted time (more on that later) for the turn, the turn ends. Also, should both players choose to pass, instead of playing a card, the turn ends.

For example, a turn has 12 time-segments remaining. The active player decides to make a directed move, with a time value of 5, he then selects the division that he wants to move, and moves those brigades. As his last card played was for movement, he is still the active player and there are 7 time segments left in the turn. He now plays an Assault card, costing 3 time-segments, allowing up to three brigades of the same division to fight a combat. The non-active player, as defender, chooses to Hold, costing 2 time-segments. This tactic allows the defender to change the facing of a unit in contact with an attacking base, which the player performs. This leaves 2-time segments for the turn.

As a combat card was played by the active player, he now becomes the inactive player. The former defender is now able to play a movement card or a combat card, if the card has a time value cost of 2 or more, then the turn will end after the card action is resolved. If the now-active player chooses to play a combat card with a time value of 1, such as Feint, then there will be 1 time segment available for the first player, who will now become the active player once again, to play a final movement or combat card. Or he can pass.

If there is 1 time-segment remaining in the turn, a card of any time value cost can be played by the active player. A defender can always play a combat card as a response to an attack, even if the attacker’s combat card used the last of the time-segments for the turn.