Expanding Battle Lore 2nd Ed

By andsymo, in BattleLore

Posted at
Posted on the geek but thought it was worth posting here to get people's thoughts:


Been playing and thinking alot about ]Battlelore 2nd Ed lately. When Fantasy Flight announced the 2 expansions for Battlelore 2nd Ed, I was kinda bummed. What I wanted was new factions to change up the experience and new figures. But I’ve been thinking about it more and the expansions give Fantasy Flight the ability, as they have done so successfully with their LCGs, to evolve and refine the core experience around what works and is fun. This model lends itself extremely well to BLSE.


Here’s why - BLSE is an enjoyable take on the C&C system. With only 3 figures per unit and the defending unit's mandatory battle back, combat plays faster and harder than its older C&C siblings. But it's the objective rather than unit focus that is BLSE's biggest point of difference. Tactically the objective structure encourages deploying units that are strong at camping on an objective then deploying units that can support the camped unit. You also to have ‘objective breakers’ – units that can remove an opposing unit and take its objective position.


Not readily apparent is that this focus makes BLSE a front loaded experience. It is critical that you digest both your, and your opponent’s objectives then work out how best to deploy units than can hold your objectives, take opponent’s objective and units that can support those goals. BLSE is a toy where the work is in wind up. It's then just a matter of setting it loose. In contrast, other C&C games, with a unit destruction scoring mechanic, the strategic focus is ingame and dynamic, constantly adapting and shifting as units take damage becoming new priority targets.


So how does this affect the expansions? Ultimately, BLSE’s objective focus is also its weakness. There are only so many ways units can be deployed and objectives held and taken. It takes some plays but ultimately the objective system will be assimilated and mastered. However, the play itself suggests new options.


I would love the new units in the expansions to refresh the objective system. For example, mages who can move objectives, perhaps units that can destroy objectives or units that generate new objectives. How about objectives that have limited VP or objectives that then activate new objectives? These ideas are just the first cabs off my mental cab rank but with the right constraints these would bring the shifting dynamic emphasis of unit targeting to the objectives in BLSE. With new objectives triggered a new race begins.


Playing these dynamic objectives would trigger a new round of design thoughts. The possibilities are incredible. And this is not even considering the mechanics of new factions.


Let’s hope this is what Fantasy Flight is thinking. I see an exciting new model that would make BLSE a juggernaut. A boardgame, that through its expansions has the ability to grow in the same way Netrunner and Game of Thrones LCGs have.


Fingers crossed.

Posted at

Interesting post, thanks for sharing your ideas about the game .)

Generally speaking, I think that swapping / moving / destroying objectives could be fun, but it's also a huge pain rules-wise and strategy-wise that could end up in rather a big mess. One of the strongest points in Battlelore is that you need to understand the Scenario, foresee the troops possibly mustered by your opponent, and fnd out the trategic key to beat the game. This could become easy with the core set only, where basically you have 10 unit types involved and you know more or less what the other will do; this becomes a lot more complex in the coming two expansions, and not only because of the new units (and not only because among these units there are casters). I cannot add details, since the two army packs have not been released yet, sorry, but trust me when I say that they add a lot more content to the game.

Battlelore sounds like an easy game, but actually it's not. Rules are easy, but the game becomes more and more difficult as the knowledge players have of the game gets bigger. Last night we played a Scenario and spent 10 minutes on the opening move. When people start playing, they usually think Archers are meh. Then they realise how for instance Flanking works, and that three Daqan archers ordered by means of Darken the Skies may attack enemy units gaining bonus from Flanking and rolling 27 dice. Not so weak. Or the Chaos Lord. Many think it's horrible, but actually it's perfect to wipe Rune Golems away from VP banners in buildings. Or Daqan. Many think they are too weak when compared to the Uthuk; then they discover that they cannot play Daqan as if they were Uthuk, and they start winning game after game.

As for the new factions vs expanding the existing ones: I think (already posted that? maybe, in case apologies for being overly talkative) that it was rather logic FFG expanded the existing before going elsewhere. It's market that implies that (if you present a third option before expanding the first two, then maybe people will get only the third option; in this way many more will probably get the two army packs and keep on hoping on a third, fourth, n-th faction).

I don't have any idea of what's next after the two army packs (and neither have I any idea of whether there will be something), but the existance of the Scenario editor, the two coming expansions, the release of Battlelore: Command and the idea that Terrinoth seems to offer so much in terms of races, factions, creatures, seems to leave a big space for hope. Not so sure the game will be a juggernaut, but I hope it'll keep on growing and gaining more and more tactical and strategic depth.

Edited by Julia
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Thanks for your detailed thoughts. I agree with pretty much everything you say, Julia. Absolutely the pleasure of Battlelore is exploring and learning to coordinate units to achieve the best outcomes. Personally, I love archers in the new edition as the x2 fire makes them excellent support units rather than easy VP targets in the original version. However, once you understand the rules of unit synergies, you are still rushing and camping static objectives.

While there is definitely a rules cost to making the objectives more dynamic and it is definitely for more advanced play, I don't think it would have be too messy. Strategy-wise it would require more adaptive, on the fly tactical thinking and could help in cases where some games can be over before the 16th victory point is earned.

Edited by andsymo
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Hmmm. I see what you mean. Actually, you reminded me of one of the scenarios in Battlelore: Command: you have to protect a caravan from being destroyed during its journey from the western to the eastern side of the battle field. I think this kind of objective could be similar of what you're talking about, right?

This would totally be interesting in BSED; and I imagine (but that's actually a pretty big leap of faith from my side) that if designers saw that for the app, then there's hope to see that for the tabletop version as well. Fingers crossed :)

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What you say is extremely interesting. I think it is a part of the reason why they made a scenario builder.

It would be easy to take some cool ideas from Command and put them in the scenario builder (or just try those ideas and refine them). For the scenarios, we can do a lot without any new stuff from FFG. On their side, they only have to give us new components, like new units.

Of course, those handmade scenarios would not be perfectly balanced, but most of the scenarios of Memoir '44 are not. It is ok for fans of the game because that's how story went. We can try those new ideas, even if they are not balanced, to have new experiences with this cool system, or to make stories (flesh out the story of Terrinoth, instead of WWII).

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Yup, I agree on the balance things. Most of battles in the history were not balanced at all, and having some scenarios favoring this or the other side could be both challenging and fun to play. If you fail while the odds are against you, well, you'd probably expect that; but if you win? Man, that's sweet :)