This is the only expansion I have for BL, the rules provided in this expansion provide NO guidance ( for me) on how to use these cards??

I have one spear,one halbrieder, two arbalastiers and a hornblower card. I take it the side who owns these units gets these cards but after that, what do you do with them??

Can they be played once per game or once per turn?

Are they to be used along side a command card or in addition to a command card?

Thank you for any help you can give or a link that explains it. I have searched and turned up nothing

I meant to say, should they be played along side a normal command card or used as a replacement for a command card you would normally issue? Meaning instead of be able to play say '2 units on left' that turn you can only use the spearmens ability of 'replace one or two blue banner foot units with an identical number of spearmen'

Thanks!

I'm not 100% sure (but, say, 99%), as I don't own Call to Arms, but I think these cards are meant to be used with the "Call to Arms" expansion, where you use these cards to replace some units by specialists. So, in your example, you would first field an army, and then replace one or two blue banner units with a spearman.

When you do not use Call to Arms, you just play the scenario's provided with the expansion, and order all units per banner colour.

So, in summary: the cards are not used in game, but for the CtA expansion. When ordering, you can order expansion units as any other unit.

Hope that's clear enough.

Silver,

I really appreciate the response! I get that these are to be used in CTA expansion and the bookelt comes with some scenarios.

If I take one for example 'The battle of cracy' it calls for the french to initially get 3 arbalestier squads to be fielded.

There are two arbaletier specialist squads that read 'replace one or two blue banner units with an identical number of arbaletiers' & replace up to three green archers with an identical number of blue banner arbalastires'

So you are saying that at the begginning of the game, I have the OPTION to replace some of the already fielded units according to the card rules above?

In that case, maybe I was wrong about which players gets to use these cards..

There are 5 cards, does each player then get the ability to use these specialist cards to supplment his army?

Thanks so much!

These are specialist cards and can be used at the start of any scenario from the base game or any expansion. First you set up your armies per the scenario. Then each player picks any two specialist cards (or more if you both agree to it) and replaces units in their armies with those units detailed on the specialist card. I don't remember the rule off hand but I think it states that the person who goes first gets to select a specialist card first. A specialist card can only be used once so your opponent cannot use the card you select too.

I like specialist cards because they allow me to choose the units I like to play the most. They also keep things more even between both sides so one side does not gain a significant advantage when selecting specialist cards.

Awesome 14cross!

That makes sense to me and sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks all for explaining this to me so I can finally use this expansion!

hjohnso2 said:

hjohnso2, I think that you misunderstood what 14cross said. He described the Call to Arms rules when creating a scenario.

The Specialist cards are meant to be used ONLY when creating a Call to Arms scenario. If you are playing a pre-made scanario you cannot use them in any way! {at least not officially, some players like to use Specialist cards in pre-made scenarios but this is considered a "home rule", it's not official}. Since you own the 100years war expansion, you have only 5 Specialist cards and I wouldn't recommend using them that way though. Just ignore them or buy the Call to Arms expansion in order to use them.

FragMaster said:

Yes and no. I know that you cannot use specialist cards except when using Call to Arms. But, If your opponent agrees, you can unofficially use the specialist cards with any scenario you choose. We have done that a few times when we have wanted to use units that the scenario did not call for. Your opponent just has to agree that you will use specialist cards.

It is a little more than "unofficial", but I suppose not quite "official", in that it isn't in a rulebook - however, using Specialist cards with any scenario in a manner such as what Chris is suggesting is certainly encouraged by the designer. It came up a few times in the DoW forums.

toddrew said:

With BattleLore, you can say that everything is encouraged by the designer.

The problem is that the 100years war scenarios already use the new units so if a new player gets confused {trying to figure out who gets the Arbalestiers for example, the player that has them in a pre-fixed position or the player who got the Specialist card} and tries to use the Specialist cards in the way it was mentioned above he'll get stuck. Then another question ensues, rules conflicts occur etc.

I believe that a new player should play the game "by the book". After a few sessions he'll feel confident about the original rules and then he can experiment with any "semi-official" rules.

FragMaster said:

Using a war council of greater than 10 total levels is not encouraged by the game designer The intent of my post was to bring a little more legitimacy to what 14cross had posted, that it wasn't simply a houserule, rather an "endorsed variant", if you will.

"The problem is that the 100years war scenarios already use the new units so if a new player gets confused {trying to figure out who gets the Arbalestiers for example, the player that has them in a pre-fixed position or the player who got the Specialist card} and tries to use the Specialist cards in the way it was mentioned above he'll get stuck. Then another question ensues, rules conflicts occur etc. "

If specialist cards are decided to be used in a non-Call to Arms game, one of the ways suggested to do so is:

Set the game up according to the particular adventure's guidelines. Then have the player who is going first choose and activate one Specialist card, player 2 chooses and activates 2 Specialist cards, player1 chooses and activates 1 Specialist card. If it has been decided that only 1 card per side will be used, stop after each side has selected one. If it has been decided that more than two cards will be used (2 is the suggested number, mostly for reasons of simplicity and balancing resources), after taking two continue alternating between players either in the "each takes two" manner or "every other selection" manner.

There won't be any rules conflicts, however there is a resources problem that may arise if players require a particular unit to have the "official" figures for that unit. When a player chooses to select a particular Specialist card if the unit(s) targeted for addition to the adventure have already been placed, players have to be in agreement about how to handle that. Proxy is my favored solution, but the way the language on the cards and rules booklet handles such situations is: tough, no unit available, can't place one.

"I believe that a new player should play the game "by the book". After a few sessions they'll feel confident about the original rules and then they can experiment with any "semi-official" rules. "

I agree with you there