Players: 2
Time: 45-60 minutes
Difficulty: 5 (of 10)

The Components

BattleLore comes in a tall square box that is absolutely packed with stuff:

• 1 map
• 46 tiles
• 200 miniatures
• 2 lore cups
• 10 card holders
• 60 command cards
• 60 lore cards
• 42 summary cards
• 2 war council sheets
• 24 loremaster markers
• Various other markers
• 12 battle dice
• 2 rule books

Map & Tiles: The map is a simple six-panel linen-textured map. It's printed with hexes which just show grassy plains. There's also some space on the sides for you to place victory points. Divisions running through the map divide it into three parts: right, center, and left.

The details of the map are constructed with hexagonal tiles, which are placed on any non-grass spaces for a specific scenario. They're all double-sided cardboard hexes printed with full-color terrain. Most are hills, forests, and rivers, but there are also some special "landmark" terrains which have a ton of variety. Some players had some trouble making out what a tile was when it was under a pile of troops, but this gets better through play.

Finally, a few square tiles can be place atop rivers to mark fords and bridges.

Miniatures: BattleLore comes with huge piles of miniatures which mark the players' units. There are at least 14 molds: 1 bowman, 3 swordsmen, 2 horsemen, 4 goblins, 3 dwarves, and 1 giant spider. The goblins and dwarves each have special bases to help pick them out, while the spider is a huge unit that takes up a hex, so you'll never confuse it with anything else.

When you're playing the game, units each contain three or four figurse. Each unit has a single "banner bearer" who defines which player the unit belongs to and what type of unit it is. The banners are all colorful and attractive. They're vertical for France and horizontal for England. They show a color which largely defines the unit: green, blue, or red. They also mark what type of weapon the unit uses: short sword, mounted long sword, bow, or crossbow.

Overall the banners are good looking, and mostly work. It's really easy to make out the quality of the unit (by its color) and what weapon it uses--though in bad light I sometimes had to squint to make out the difference between green and blue English units. The differences between the English and French banners are entirely obvious if you take a good look at them, but it's not an immediately visceral difference. Five games in I still sometimes get confused about who owns which unit if I'm not paying attention.

For the most part each particular type of unit, as defined by a banner, also has a specific miniature mold, and you could carefully make sure that each unit was made up entirely of the same miniature. This isn't technically necessary because the banner actually defines everything, and it's also a pain to do--unless you figure out a good storage mechanism for all your miniatures which actually segregates them by type.

As is, the miniatures come pretty tightly packed in some plastic cases, and some percentage of them (particularly the horses) were warped when I pulled them out of the pack. Apparently hot water is the best tonic for this: it loosens up the miniatures so that you can then bend them back into shape. Overall, it's not a major problem, but it is notable.

Other Plastic Bits: The game also comes with two lore cups which you use for holding lore tokens. It's a convenient method to hide your count of tokens from your opponent without needing a big screen.

Plastic card holders help you keep all your cards visible to make it easier to decide what you're going to do at any time. They're a very nice touch.

Cards: The cards are all medium-to-heavy in weight. One deck of cards includes army commands, another includes special lore powers, and a third deck summarizes most of the rules.

The command cards are fairly simple, and either graphically show which units you can move or else provide text describing special moves.

The lore cards have a ton of info on them, including cost, when to play, and who is affected by them. They're very carefully designed with lots of icons and specific descriptions and as a result are very easy to use despite the fact that they offer a lot of variety.

The summary cards help make them game work. Several of them summarize the way that units fight, while the rest each list the special properties of a terrain or of a creature. As a result you can lay them in front of you and quickly reference everything during play. There are two of each card, one for each player, which is a very nice feature.

War Council Sheet: A cardstock sheet which displays the various people who can be helping you (and who control your use of lore cards). There's spaces for commander, warrior, rogue, wizard, cleric, creature, and guest. The idea is that you take a stack of loremaster markers equal to the value of that loremaster and stack them on your sheet. I don't find that method particularly nuanced, as it's not easy to see how many are in a stack at a glance, but nonetheless the council sheet provides a nice focus. It also lists most of the lore rules on it, and on the back side has a beginner's council for when you're learning the game.

Markers: The game features numerous other markers, all made of cicular, linen-textured cardboard. There are markers for lore, which you'll collect during the game, plus markers for poison, webs, and other special effects caused by lore masters or creatures.

Battle Dice: 12 wooden dice, each marked with a green helm, a blue helm, a red helm, a yellow sword and shield, a black flag, and purple lore crystals. All of the marks are slightly indented so that they won't wear off the dice, and the use of a different color for each face makes them easy to distinguish (though again I sometimes confuse green for blue, though not vice-versa).

Rulebook: The main rulebook for BattleLore is an intimidating 80 pages, but that's mainly because the rules have been carefully written. Each page features large type and is colorfully illustrated with tons of pictures, making this one of the most approachable rulebooks I've ever seen. The rulebook is also divided into sections so that you can learn as you go. The first 33 pages cover the basic rules. Further, the last 20 pages are essentially an appendix including both a reference for all the terrain and a glossary of all the game terms, in case you have queries during play.

The other book is a 24-page adventure booklet. This centers on 10 different scenarios which you can play, and which I'll discuss more momentarily. It's also essentially a tutorial for the game. The first adventures provides the most basic set of rules possible, then each additional adventure builds on that, so that you can learn the game slowly and comfortably.

Box & Trays: The box is a standard square box, but 50% taller than usually. It's also absolutely filled. There are three trays in the box. The bottom one has well-designed spaces for all the cards, dice, and cardboard bits, while the top two trays are for figures. I find it mildly painful to sort through the trays for the figures, and the trays also tend to squish the figures as noted above. I'd like to find something better to store all my miniatures in, but if I did I'm not convinced it would fit in the box afterward.

I haven't mentioned the theme of the game yet: it's essentially a fantasy-world version of the Hundred Years' War. Thus far I don't find it that particularly engrossing, but I nonetheless have fun marching the armies against each other. We'll see if it gets more exciting as it's developed more.

All of the cards, hexes, and markers in the game are beautifully produced and easy to use. The figures are nice, and the qualms I have with them mainly have to do with their storage. As such I've given BattleLore a full "5" out of "5" for Style. It's a somewhat expensive game, but you definitively get your money's worth with the pile of high-quality components inside the box.

The Gameplay

BattleLore is a tactical wargame where your object is ultimately to destroy your enemy's forces.

Scenarios: Each game of BattleLore is based on a scenario. There are 10 in the book, and there will probably eventually be more online and in various printed supplements.

Each player chooses a side in a scenario--English or French. The scenario then defines what troops each player gets, where they're deployed, what terrain is on the board, how many cards each player gets, and what the victory conditions are.

Troops. There are, as noted elsewhere, at least 14 different molds in the box, and therefore at least that many types of troops. Care has been taken, however, to try and make the mechanical distinctions between different troops simple and obvious. Generally: each troop is either infantry or cavalry which broadly defines its movement; each unit is green, blue, or red which further defines its movement and its damage; and each unit has a weapon which further defines when it hits.

Movement and the dice you roll for damage can be pretty easily summarized in a chart:

*Can move 1 space and attack or 2 spaces and not attack.

Weapons can have special effects and are the only unit difference that you really have to memorize:

** Every shield after that first one hits.

Terrain. Terrain is pretty light in the scenarios. Apparently armies like to fight in the open. Rivers block movement, woods stop movement, and hills don't affect movement. Each terrain also has a dice cap for attacking into and attacking out. This typically means that units on terrain are somewhat protected, but also less effective, as described in "Combat" below.

Cards. Each player receives a hand of 4-6 command cards.

Cardplay: Command cards broadly define what a player can do on his turn. Each command card either shows where a player can move units or what types of units he can move--or sometimes allow various special moves.

The board is divided into three areas--right, center, and left--and usually a command card will allow a player to activate one or more units in one or more of these areas. For example one card might let him activate 3 units in the center, another might allow 2 on the left, and another might allow 1 each in the left, center, and middle.

Other cards might allow the player to activate 1 or more red units, to have all his archers fire, or to activate his mounted units.

A player selects which units he is going to activate, and then optionally moves them, following the movement limitations for the various units and any restrictions based on the terrain.

Afterward any unit which was activated with the command card (whether they just moved or stayed in place) can attack.

Whenever a player uses a command card, he gets a replacement at the end of his turn.

Combat: Melee units can only attack adjacent units. Ranged units can attack units at range if they have line of sight. In each case the player throws one or more dice, initially defined by the unit type, possibly modified by cards, and possibly capped by terrain.

Each die face that shows the color of the defending unit is a hit. Yellow shields may or may not be hits, depending on the weapon. The retreat face may cause a retreat, and lore does nothing (for now). The defender removes one figure from the unit for each hit it took. If the unit is entirely destroyed the attacker takes the banner figure as a victory point.

Note that figures in a unit are essentially "hit points". You can't split up units and you can't combine them. When a unit gets heavily wounded, you'll probably try and get them out of battle--and your opponent will really try to kill it.

Retreat. Flags force a unit to retreat, typically one space per flag. This is bad for any number of reasons, as noted below.

Morale. However, retreats can be affected by morale. If a unit is bold, it gets to ignore one flag. Even better, it gets to "battle back". If a bold defending unit isn't destroyed, and if it doesn't retreat, then it gets an immediate attack back against its attacker.

Units usually become bold through support: if a unit has two other friendly units adjacent to it, then it's bold (making it much more dangerous to try and break an enemy line than to attack it from the side).

Special Tactics. If a defending unit vacates its space, either because it was destroyed or because it retreated, then the attackers can sometimes do special things. Infantry can move into the vacated space. Cavalry can move into the vacated space, then move an additional space if they want, then do a second attack. You really don't want to retreat in the face of cavalry, and thus you really want to be bold when you defend against them.

Putting it Together: The above outlines the basic game of BattleLore in pretty broad terms. Each turn you play a card, you move units, you make attacks, possibly you get attacked back, possibly you get to move further and/or attack more, and then you draw a card. There's a large amount of strategy & tactics to all this, centered on careful management of your cards, and careful movement of your troops to keep people supported, to take advantage of your opponent's lack of support, and to generally go strong where your opponent is weak.

However there's a lot more to BattleLore than that ...

The Advanced Game: The advanced game introduces lots of additional nuances.

Mercenaries. Two additional races are introduced. Dwarves are always bold and have the only crossbowmen in the game. Goblins rush into battle, allowing them to move more and still attack, but also are more likely to panic, forcing them to retreat 2 hexes per flag, and sometimes take casualties on the way.

The goblins also have the coolest figure in the box, a lizard-riding cavalry man.

Creatures. These are different types of special units. They're each unique. They require extra hits to kill and they each tend to have special powers which go off when they roll lore icons on their combat dice. There's only one creature in the game, the spider, but Days of Wonder has also released the promotional earth elemental and hill giant figures, and is likely to release more creatures in the future.

The War Council. In a more advanced game each player can have a war council which is a group of 5 advisors, each of whom has a specific level of power, from 1 up. The commander defines the number of command cards you get to play with, from 3-6 (depending on his level). All the other LoreMasters allow you to make use of special lore cards.

Before each advanced game a lore deck is constructed based on the composition of the two players' lore councils. Depending on whether neither, one, or both players has the warrior, rogue, wizard, and cleric on their council, 5, 8, or 14 of the matching type of card are shuffled into the lore deck.

Each player now also has a collection of lore. He gets one to three lore tokens at the start of the game, and now gets one additional lore whenever he rolls a lore face on a combat die (if it isn't used for some other purpose). Further, at the end of each turn a player gets to draw 2 lore tokens and/or lore cards.

The lore cards are each keyed to one of the council members. Each has a lore cost, from 1-13 and each has a special effect, some of which improve if you have a higher level LoreMaster of the appropriate type.

For example, "Commune with Nature" is a 5/cleric which is played with your command card and allows all of your ordered units to ignore terrain movement and battle restrictions for the turn.

"Cry Havoc" is a potentially devastating 9/warrior card which you play alongside your command card. All your ordered units do 1 die of damage for each warrior level above 1 and also now hit on lore results.

Generally, the lore cards and lore points become another resource to manage.

Landmarks. Finally, landmarks are special terrains with special powers. Most of them are associated with specific LoreMasters, and you get to use them when you have a 3rd level LoreMaster on your council. They all tend to make units Bold, and also have additional powers.

For example the "Rogue's Den" allows you to open a secret passage to a wooded or hilly terrain and then move units through that for a cost of 1 lore each.

Winning the Game: Each game usually goes until a player has achieved 5-6 victory points. This is typically done by killing that many units (and thus taking their banner bearer as a VP), though some scenarios could have special objectives.

Relationships to Other Games

BattleLore is a modular card-driven tactical-level war game that allows for the play of predefined scenarios in an hour or less (really!).

It is also the fourth game in Richard Borg's Commands & Colors series which include Battle Cry (set in the Civil War), Memoir '44 (set in WWII), and Commands & Colors: Ancients (initially centering on Romans vs. Carthage, and expanding out from there).

BattleLore is the only non-real-world release in the bunch. Though all the games theoretically allow for players to create their own scenarios, in BattleLore that possibility feels real because you don't have to try and constrain yourself to real-world events.

BattleLore is also the most complex of the four games (though not the most difficult).

That first reveals itself in the numerous types of units, a feature shared with C&C:A. However unlike C&C:A, where the units are a somewhat unruly mess that you have to constantly reference to figure out their powers, in BattleLore the different units are carefully organized in categories that make it easy to memorize broad details and thus figure out exactly what a unit does.

The complexity also reveals itself through the additional, orthagonal systems of the war council and creatures. Each allows for a considerable amount of new play, but these choices largely run in parallel to the standard questions of which command cards to play.

As a result, BattleLore is both easier to learn and play than the other complex C&C game, Commands & Colors: Ancients, even though it has a few additional systems. It is, however, a more complex and less introductory game that Memoir '44, which is also produced by Days of Wonder.

The Game Design

The C&C system has always been a strong design. The games are pretty light, and luck can have a large influence on card draw and on die rolls. However, they're also exciting, colorful, and fun. There has always been chance for real strategy in these games, as you figure out which fronts to press on, based on the strengths of your hand, and as you calculate risk vs. reward for whether to make a gutsy move or not. Unlike some war games, C&C games constantly keep moving forward, with little opportunity for sides to dig into elongated trench warfare.

BattleLore really shows off and improves upon all the strengths of the C&C games.

First of all, it provides a lot more opportunity for strategy. As noted, lore becomes a whole new resource to manage. I was initially afraid that the lore cards might introduce more chaotic luck to the game, but instead they improve the strategy, as you try and plan in advance for how you're going to use these powerful one-shot effects.

The support mechanism really makes for a different, more strategic game too. You now have to strategically keep your troops together and at the same time try and break your opponents' troops up and whittle away at their edges. I still don't have this risk-reward calculation down, as I've more than once made an attack on a supported enemy troop, failed to rout it, and thus had to face a nasty battle-back that I deeply regretted.

(Overall Richard Borg seems to have an excellent head for designing game mechanics which model real-world activities. In BattleLore Borg has created mechanics which force a successful player to either clump his troops into triangles or else move them forward in mighty and imposing lines which his opponent must then try to break.)

Second, BattleLore really has an impressive amount of variability. I played 5 games of BattleLore prior to writing this review, which is more plays than I usually give a game pre-review, and I still wasn't able to test out all the systems. In particular: I never used dwarves (and thus didn't use crossbows); I never used any of the landmarks; I never played with a variable war council (where you get to select which LoreMasters you want at setup); and I never got creatures onto the board. I'm confident that I was able to play enough of the game to give it a good solid review, but I'm awed by how much I didn't get to see, not even including the inevitable supplements.

Third, BattleLore really shows off the power of good development. Development is often ignored by the gaming public, but it's ultimately the game publisher's job to round all the corners of a game design, to help make everything hold together, and to provide the simplest game possible without actually getting rid of any mechanics. Development is often the difference between a good game and a great game.

Comparing BattleLore to its close predecessor Commands & Colors: Ancients, it's entirely obvious how much good development work was done by Days of Wonder. The more carefully organized units, the precise glossary of turns, and the creation of unified systems like morale all point toward a lot of care taken to make sure that the game was easy to play and consistent. It's well done, and here it does indeed make a good game great.

The C&C games impress me because they appeal to a much wider demographic than normal war games. Heck, I don't like normal war games, but I think these game are great to play. My wife has also regularly played Memoir '44 with me, and although she's not confident with all the rules of BattleLore yet, she's remained willing to play as I've worked on this review.

Without doubt BattleLore receives a full "5" out of "5" for Substance. It's an excellent light fantasy war game.

Conclusion

Richard Borg's newest tactical war game, Battle Lore really shows off the strengths of his Commands & Colors gaming systems, now in a more complex, but also much better polished form. This new game allows for tons of strategy and more importantly fun, all upon the fantasy battlefield.

In consulting DriveThruRPG we've come up with a number of products which we think might be related, but some might be inaccurate because the name, BattleLore, is so short. Nonetheless, take a look, as purchasing through the RPGnet Store helps to support RPGnet.