Dear Readers:

I don’t want to overstep, or come off as a shill (I have no connection to Too Fat Lardies), but I have to tell you about these new WWII skirmish rules, Chain Of Command, from Too Fat Lardies.

These are the best skirmish rules I have ever read. They are revolutionary in the way that SAGA was when it came out. Like SAGA’s battleboards, the “blinds” phase, along with the dice activation and “Chain Of Command” dice will totally change the way you look at WWII gaming.

It’s a “platoon plus” game – you’ll have an infantry platoon plus support – maybe an additional squad, or off table artillery, or a tank, mortar, etc.

Before the game proper starts, there is a “blinds” phase. This is a short mini-game that establishes where each player can place their “jump off points”. The jump off points are where you can deploy your troops. So – you start the game proper with no troops on the table, and you deploy them at your jump off points when you wish.

This solves the “all my troops are known and within 12 inches of my table edge” boring deployment issue. Your opponent doesn’t know exactly what you have until you deploy it on the table. By deploying from a jump off point, you start a lot closer to the enemy than the table edge. Jump off points also enable ambushes and resupply, and are vulnerable to being overrun by the enemy.

This blinds mechanic, all by itself, is revolutionary. All modern games should use this.

Next is the dice activation. You roll several D6 (usually 5) and the result tells you what you can activate – a team, a squad, a leader (who can activate his squad, or give other commands) etc. A roll of 5 on a die also increments your Chain Of Command die. When this gets to 6, you can take special actions that have a greater impact on the battle.

Chain Of Command from Too Fat Lardies. My 15mm Germans are about 1/3 done. You can use your Flames Of War figures as based, or your 28mm Bolt Action figures (but I’m a big 15mm fan, so…)

Too Fat Lardies made a series of videos explaining the game.  They are excellent, and I love their terrain!