For those nothing list who don't engage in "social media", Richard Clarke revealed on Facebook today that they are working on a version 2 of Chain of Command. They apparently did preview some aspects at Ebor Lard this weekend. Here is the text of Richard's announcement.?
Morning all. Well, the Chain of Command cat is out of the bag and it’s creating more noise than we anticipated. When Alex asked if he could mention the news about a second edition we had reached a point where keeping it a secret any longer was going to be impossible anyway as we are now at the stage in the development process where we are talking the game round the shows getting reacting from the gaming community. We did run “nearly v2” at Lard Workshop in Nottingham a few weeks ago, but we came out with some nonsense about testing ideas for a 1945 supplement. This weekend at Ebor we couldn’t maintain the illusion any longer and said “Right, this is it, what do you think”.
And then great chum of Lard and a man who has been an important part of the playtest group so far, Alex from Storm of Steel well and truly outed us by dropping “a subtle hint” (my arse!) on his ever-popular YouTube Channel.
So, we’re not ready to make a full announcement, but the worst thing we felt we could do was allow rumour to replace facts. As a result, here are some facts about what you can expect from Chain of Command v2. What follows is in several parts, this being Part One.?
Firstly, I need to stress that the game is the effectively the same. Everyone who has played CoCv2 has said very strongly, “This is Chain of Command”. John Savage, the author of What a Cowboy has also been part of the playtest development group. Indeed, his CoC Vietnam game run this weekend at Ebor Lard used many of the changes in the rules. John, far more erudite than me, said the following:
“No need for existing fans/players of CoC to be worried about CoC2. The core engine is remaining very much in place but with some nice added extras. It’s still very much the brilliant game we know and love but now with some more interesting decisions, more options and a bit more interactivity! The core forces will remain very much the same. After all it’s a ruleset very much rooted in history and a British platoon of 1944 is still a British platoon of 1944 and is not going to change. It also gives TFL the opportunity to consolidate all the rule changes introduced in the Blitzkreig and Far East supplements as well as the FAQ. All of which makes further handbooks such as the Pacific and Arnhem easier to produce.
I’m really liking what I’ve seen so far and I’m absolutely certain that fans of CoC will very much be fans of CoC 2!”
And that just about sums it up. Most importantly it explains why we are producing v2 now. The truth is that we have been aware that we wanted to do a second edition since before COVID. The changes that you see in the 1940 handbook and the Far East Handbook have all come from the process of working on v2. So, the good news is that they are already “v2 compliant”. Indeed, the structural changes in v2 mean that all the existing Pint-Sized Campaigns will still work perfectly well with the second edition. We will simply produce a set of notes to guide you through any suggested change which will really just be about troop ratings.
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Our plan was to produce the Pacific Handbook immediately after the Far East Handbook. However, when putting the Far East book together it became clear that we needed to include all of the core changes in that which we had already included in the 1940 Handbook. That duplication took up a fair chunk of pages and didn’t actually add anything to the overall canon of CoC knowledge. What became equally clear was that when we produced the Pacific Handbooks we’d need to duplicate all of that again AND also duplicate the Far East rules before we got down to adding the new rules for amphibious landings and tunnels and cave warfare. If we had to duplicate EVERYTHING every time we produced a new handbook it would make everything ridiculously bulky and increase the cost of the product for no real benefit. That goes for the Arnhem too, which is why we had to pause on that and why focussing on the second edition has become top priority.?
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With that in mind, six months ago we expanded the v2 playtesting to a larger group who were all experienced players of v1. With them on board we have finished off what has been a five-year process and developed the rules through where we are now; what I call the “show and tell” stage. This is where we put the game in front of the general gaming public and watch them play and, as usually happens, try to break the rules by creating some weird and wonderful situation that we had never considered. It’s also a chance to see what they like and what they don’t like. And that’s the point where keeping the project under wraps is almost impossible.
PART TWO
Version 2 is Chain of Command. It is not a complete rebuild but it does contain some exciting new stuff that we feel enhances the game play. So let’s look at what is the same, what has changes and what is new.??
What is the Same? What has changed?
95% of the game is the same, but that doesn’t mean we have just cut and pasted from the original. The rules have had a re-write, informed by the FAQ and by trawling the forums and chat rooms to see what people have had questions about; what worked and what didn’t.??
To give some historical context, TooFatLardies was a business that happened accidentally. We were just a couple of gamers who published a rule set and found that some people liked what they saw and wanted more. It’s been a long journey from where we began to where we are now. When we produced the first edition of the rules we were undoubtedly amateurs, learning as we went along. The first edition was typed out in Word and sent to the printers, something that horrifies me now that we have a full design studio here running all the latest publishing software.??
If you look at our more recent products, such as General d’Armee or What a Cowboy, you will see rule books that a light-years away from Chain of Command v1. We are obviously aware that what we produced way back in 2012 was not up to the standard of what we now produce. In itself, that was a reason to look at tidying up the text, clearing up any anomalies and just making the rules easier to navigate. However, that in itself was not sufficient for a second edition. If a new version was going to happen, it was an opportunity to see how the rules had evolved over the years, reflect those changes and also address areas where, frankly, we could do better.??
As I’ve already said, at its heart 95% of Chain of Command remains. When you roll your Command Dice everything remains the same in terms of what you can do. However, things like the Red Dice are now in the core rules. When you move, it’s exactly the same but with a few opportunities in there to react and respond to what your opponent is doing. These small but important changes are in there to make the game more interactive and dynamic. When you shoot, it’s the same, but the rules for Green troops are now those seen in the Far East Handbook and make for a far better game. I’ve long said that Green and Elite were always an unfortunate afterthought and something that badly needed addressing. That’s now the case, with the variable Force Morale trackers allowing units to be represented in more nuanced ways than the blunt instrument of Green Regular and Elite.?
What has changed
In rewriting the rules, we have looked at the structure of the book and made some important changes to the way everything is laid out. We have attempted to collect together all of the rules covering one aspect of the game in one place. So, where the section on how infantry activate and deploy was previously in a different section to how AFVs activate and deploy; this is now all in one place. That extends across other areas such as movement and Shock too, so finding things should be easier to achieve. Obviously, this will be helped by a comprehensive index of the type you see in all of our more latest rule sets too.??
As well as the revamped text, we have addressed such hoary old issues such as mortars, completely rewriting that section to replace it with a much more nuanced mechanism which still hold true to the reality of the battlefield, but will not see it as a ubiquitous choice. There are times to use mortars and time when they are not the right tool for the job. Flamethrowers have been tweaked as well to make them still in credibly effective against infantry positions but far less effective against armour.
Some changes were also needed where the rules were not easy to apply. The system of damage to armour was more complex than we wanted. I wrote the rules and after a thousand games I still needed to check the tables to see the outcome of hist on a tank. I was very keen to maintain the range of outcomes, but wanted a method that meant no tables needed to be looked at. Streamlining like this retains the flavour of the game but makes playing easier.
PART THREE
What is new?
The new stuff is probably the most exciting bit for us. I’ve seen several comments saying “Why do a v2, when the first edition wasn’t broken”. I totally sympathise. However, not being broken is not the same as cannot be improved. There were some areas where we felt that there was room to add in some small changes that enhance the rules rather than change what is already there.??
At the heart of Chain of Command are the national characteristics based on how troops of different nations were trained, like “Machinengewehr” for the Germans and Marching Fire for the US. We love these two as they bring tangible benefits but we do find that they are not being used as much as we’d like. Working on the Far East Handbook really gave us a chance to examine how we can use these characteristics to enhance the differences between the different nations. The Japanese have a real arsenal that they can use to try to gain an advantage on the battlefield in the early phase of the war in the Far East. The use of Chain of Command points to trigger some benefits was a mechanism introduced in that Handbook that presents the player with more command decisions to make. However, what is important is not to over-use these. So, we have added a limited choice of options linked to national Characteristics that we feel really enhance the game. For example, a Soviet SMG squad can spend a number of Chain of Command points to use a tank as a Jump Off Point in that Phase. It’s a tiny change that really allows that unit which was previously hampered by its short range to behave in an historical manner. However, rather than. just being a national characteristic that they can do at will, there is a cost involved. So rather like the ambush, you use it at the time and place where it will have maximum effect.??
In addition, we have enhanced the national characteristics centred around firing with a potential boost that makes them more attractive but doesn’t create a game imbalance. For the British, Five Rounds Rapid is now a much more attractive option due to the introduction of a bonus that may kick in, depending on what they roll, as opposed to simply giving them more firing dice.??
These same bonuses also apply to ambushes and weapons firing H.E. rounds, from hand grenades up to the King Tiger. Again, I must stress that this is not just beefing them up with extra dice, but it is using the dice the player rolls when firing to determine the outcome. It just unlocks the potential for a “big bang” from and ambush or a round hitting the target smack on the nose.??
But fear not, tanks are not King. Tanks are actually now at a greater risk if they operate near enemy infantry without their own infantry support. The old rules for anti-tank mines and grenades were a bit woolly, as were the rules for stuff like rifle grenades. We’ve taken the opportunity to get these right and make them much more useable as a result. What’s more the rules for what was Covering fire have now been revamped. These are a key tool that could always be used but was so often overlooked as the rules for them were tucked away in one or two sentences. We have given what we now call Suppressing Fire much more importance and tanks can now “brass up” an enemy position or just a piece of terrain they see as a threat.??
That reflection of historical precedent is very much at the heart of the game. “Mines in verges” is a new support option for the Germans, White Phosphorous grenades for clearing buildings in Arnhem, proper smoke screens from the 2” mortar as opposed to a dozen blobs of smoke chucked around like confetti. It’s all about making the connection with WWII even stronger.
PART FOUR?
Will the Army lists change? Can you still use your existing forces? These is some small tweaking, but largely this is just adjusting number of crew on weapons rather than changing the number of figures you need. Something are gone, so the German infantry platoon doesn't get the Panzerschreck, but it can always select one as a support choice. In broad terms, all of the exisiting army lists still work, which is the huge advantage of designing a game based on real unit sizes.? ??
Will some points values change? Yes, we have tweaked the way points are calculated but around the median that is almost unnoticable., Where our German platoon loses the Panzerschreck, the platoon is also a lower force rating, so generally everything comes out in the wash.
Some support weapons points have been changed. Not much is more expensive, but some stuff is cheaper. Flamethrowers no longer come in an Engineer section (thank goodness! That was always an oversight and not intentional). There are some new options such as "Replen Points" from which to get additional ammo for your mortar, PIAT, grenades etc.
One major change is to the scenarios. The scenarios were always intended to represent six distinct phase of battle, from initial contact or patrols, through the outpost line, the main line of defence, the break into the enemy position and attempted break out and on to the final objective. However, whatever the name of the scenario, the way to win was always to reduce your opponents force morale to zero. The objective was actually often irrelevant. Now we have retained the six phases of battle but rewritten the scenarios so that capturing an objective is important as a way to defeat your opponent. If you capture the objective it will accelerate their drop in force morale but usually allow them limited time for a counter attack.
PART FIVE?
That's all for now as I am off to fit a new racking system in the storage depot. Fire away with any questions. I'll answer them when I get bored with assembling metal shelving.
Regards
Andrew Holmes
ronanr
martyn simpson