Re: FMA Battalion

on 4/9/01 10:19, Andy Cowell at andy@cowell.org wrote:
 
>> At least to me the almost double blind nature of most of their games
are
>> refreshing.	They're not completely double blind in that you see
where your
>> opponents units are, just not how big they are or which ones are
which.
> 
> So, they're fancy Stratego?

In a sense.  Usually all units have a chance of hurting each other
though
(you probably already guessed this but just to make sure I though it
worth
mentioning).  For example - in the two American Civil War games they
have a
block might represent a division of infantry, a brigade? of cavalry, and
a
company of artillery (I may have these sizes mixed up a little - the
infantry I'm sure about though).  Unless the opponent gives away special
natures of the unit by strategic movement (moving cavalry faster on the
strategic board for example) you're really not sure what you might be
facing.  These units may also not be full strength, a factor determined
by
which side of the block is on top (some units have a strength from 1-3
or
4).  A full strength unit might be worth 2 or more depleted units of the
same type in combat.  It's also possible to have some idea of the
strength
of your opponents local units by remembering something about them from
recent battles but beware counting too much on it because your opponent
may
have provided some of their reinforcements to bolster a unit or two
since
the last time you saw them.

All in all a nice system generally and very open to using the various
games
as a slightly abstracted way of resolving strategic scale movement for
other
game systems IMHO.

Kevin Walker
sage@chartermi.net