Tips & Tricks… Faster Battles
In the base rules for both the Combat Cards and the Fantasy Cards, distances are given in terms of relative categories (e.g. short, medium, etc.) rather than actual measured quantities (e.g. inches, centimeters, etc.). This allows battles to be scaled proportionally to the battlefield being used without affecting the rules or tempo of the game. This means almost any scale of miniatures can be used on almost any size battlefield.
Sometimes though, folks want to fight out their battles at a little bit faster pace. Maybe they don’t have a lot of time and they want get into the action as quick as possible. Maybe they are teaching a new player the game and fear a slow moving battle might not capture the new player’s imagination – or spark their interest in playing again. Or maybe, due to the specifics of a particular scenario, the battle would end up being a plodding move through terrain by slower units rather than the exciting attack it should be.
Whatever the reason for playing a quicker game, the solution is simple – just adjust the distance categories to better suit the circumstances!
In both the Combat Cards and Fantasy Cards, you normally use the shortest side of the battlefield as the starting point for determining the actual measured distance in each category. The length of the shortest side is set as a Very Long Distance in the game. Half of that amount is then the Long Distance, half of the Long Distance is the Medium Distance and so on.
To speed up game play, simply set the length of the longest side of the battlefield as the Very Long Distance. In turn the Long Distance will be farther, the Medium Distance will be longer, and so on – the ultimate result being every unit will be able to move and attack farther during its turn.
(If you happened to be using a symmetric battlefield with all of the sides the same size, then just select some distance longer than the existing battlefield edge to be the base Very Long Distance and go from there.)
By making this little adjustment the battle will flow much more quickly, units will cover more ground and the fighting will start much sooner. And even though the battle will now progress much faster, no rules modifications are necessary – nor will the integrity of the rules will be lost by doing this. Units will still have the same ranges and movement relative to each other.
So if you ever find yourself short on time, or long on the desire to have a fast-paced showdown, give this simple tweak to either game a try. It’s easy to do, and should give you just what you are looking for…
