I am starting this thread to register the most important things that bother me about the Call To Arms expansion. While I believe that Call To Arms is overall a nice expansion because of the specialist cards, it still has some issues that detract from its value and this is a great pity as this expansion had the potential to be really great. Hopefully a house-rules variant can be devised that addresses theses issues and does justice to CtA.

Issue #1: The three deployment decks are practically identical. Each of the three deployment decks A, B, C is practically indistinguishable from the others. So when, as a player, I am given the option to "chose a deck" my reaction is "Hugh?". I would have expected the decks to have a slightly different flavor, e.g. one deck fielding more mounted units, the other fielding more foot units (but heavier in armor to compensate for the lack of cavalry), the other fielding more ranged units and so on. You get the idea. Instead, what one gets is three practically identical decks. So, there is really a reason why the three decks are given the generic names "A", "B" and "C". Some have attempted to rationalize the design and have claimed that there are really "subtle" differences between the decks. No there aren't. That is, there are statistical differences but there is no subtlety about them, just randomness.

No only does this issue render parts of the setup process moot, it also undermined my confidence as a customer to the former owners of the brand. When I am promised a system to field customizable armies I expect just that. It doesn't have to be a point-based system (and I can see why) but the current implementation falls WAY short of that promise.

Issue #2: This really stems from #1. Not only are we given three identical decks to chose from, we also have two different ways to make this "choice": impromptu or organized, thereby multiplying by 2 the (already large) number of different way to play the game, splintering player groups even further.

Issue #3: Pattern-sensitive deployment and rules. I never understood why the deployment cards had to specify a pattern for the exact grid position of each unit and not just the type and number of units. I also never understood the vanishing units rules when there is no space on the baseline. What is the rationale behind these rules and how do they add to game play? Wouldn't it be far better and more thematically correct to let the commanders deploy their available troops as they see fit within the deployment area or subject to some other general restrictions? Wouldn't that result in a richer playing experience?

Issue #4: Feudal Levy. The less said about Feudal Levies the better. I cannot describe the commercial practice of dubbing generic replacement tokens "feudal levies" and promoting them on the box cover as if they were some new game mechanism in a way that will not risk my banishment from this forum. I hope that the new owners of the brand aspire to a more honest relationship with their clientele.

Constant Whinner said:

A more experienced player could probably answer this better, but here's my take.

Call to Arms does disappoint a little, but I think it does so based on some faulty assumptions that Days of Wonder made when they designed it. Remember, DoW never thought that players would buy every expansion--they thought people would buy the one or two they liked most, and leave it at that. So, it looks like it would function best as the ONLY expansion for a single base game. Maybe that's incorrect.

But regardless, the CtA rules explain that the two sets of A-B-C decks were intended to allow each player to choose one deck from each camp and have enough figures to put all of them on the board. I never thought one deck was "more powerful" than another. They just look like they were to provide more options/randomness. The levy tokens were just to cover the holes--holes that don't come up if you own two copies of the base game.

I haven't played enough to really get into differences between impromptu and organized, and can't remember the rules now. It seems like this, too, goes to the number of expansions the player owns versus how many DoW thought they would own. Different rules available for different levels of investment in the game.

The patterns? I go back and forth on this, but mostly I'm fine with it. The biggest part of gameplay seems to lie in the tactical decision making--how well you do with what you're given. That's why we're given pre-made scenarios. CtA tries to give the player some control, but mostly wants to set up a scenario that will be different from the last one chosen. It also keeps the "playing field" closer to level, with veterans and novices having the same strategic choices in deployment, no matter how familiar they are with unit abilities.

Without the pattern-deployment, players might, no illogically, choose the same patterns over and over again. Maybe there would be lots of discussions over best formations to start with, but it sounds dull when we're working with the limitations of a small hex-map and not a large open battlefield. Maybe there's a layer of realistic simulation in the enemy not letting you get into the formation you want before they engage, and both players have strong and weak positions at different places on the battlefield. If you don't like the patterns, my suggestion is to not use them. BattleLore is super-easy to house-rule. Maybe you can still draw the CtA cards, but don't follow the pattern--just use those units on the card and put them within the available hex-grid of each section. That way, you can set up those 3-4-5 units however you want and take advantage of terrain however you like. You'll still have the use of only those command and lore cards you get, though.

In short, if you don't like it, play without it, or in a different way. Come up with your own rules/restrictions for how units deploy. Then let everyone here know how it went, what worked and what didn't. As they say, "It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

Lord Cleander said:

Bingo. This is why the Call to Arms mechanism fits in well with the overall game.

That said, the version of Call to Arms that we currently have is well suited for the base game and handles a few expansions okay with the specialist cards, but will really shine once there are faction/race specific Deployment decks for each of the factions/races developed within the game. Right now, Call to Arms can handle the available units with the mercenary approach provided, but there are enough goblin and dwarf units to justify their own decks as well as a stand-alone human decks. As new factions/races are introduced, they should be accompanied by Deployment decks.

And that said, there are in fact, very real (although, yes, subtle) positional and compositional differences between the A, B, and C decks of respective banners. Ultimately those differences lead to increased odds of particular army positions and compositions, and the main impact that a player will have over the set-up will be through responding to the resulting set-up (both of ones own forces and ones opponent's) wisely with the use of Specialist Cards and War Council set-up.

I do agree with some of the issues you raised, but I like CtA for a number of reasons.

regarding issue 4, the given specific pattern on the cards makes set-up time faster (which is one of the key attractive points of BattleLore in general: it is a quick war game to play) but as mentioned, you can just use the units in the cards and set them up the way you think best.

As for the difference between the decks, I tend to randamoly chose one or two and shuffle them. But as you can guess, I focus on shortening the setup time. And I don't see it as effecient to look through the different patterns and try to analyze them before choosing.

As for the levey tokens. Only once I played in organized mode with levey tokens as indicated in the rules. It did cost both sides to loose 2 units completely (it was an Epic CtA, organized mode). But most of the times, we avoid using the levey tokens by fitting banners from the specialist units and fitting figures that look similar. In other words, we assume we have more than one copy to field as many units as we want. (this works well with our 3-player mode)

One of the biggest advantages that I made use of the CtA cards, is the three player mode that I have developed and have been playing it for a while. I would not have been able to create a 3-player mode with out the CtA cards. I do plan to post all about this experience and how I developed it and improved the rules to make it a very enjoyable experience.

Although, I do enjoy more a senario that has been tested and supposedly ballanced, CtA gives us a little of change especially that nothing new has come out in a long time.

I do hope in future expansions more scenarios will be developed that are diverse, ballanced, and include a variaty of speciality units. And I do think that the game would grow while heavily depending on the CtA mechanism.

sheetyfadi said:

I would love to hear more about your three player variant. We play with a three player variant as well and have developed our own deployment decks for race specific armies. We also play on a custom three player board. I've tried to post a pic of the board on BBG but it was rejected for some reason. Perhaps you can start another thread detailing your 3 player variant?

Full disclosure: I have only played CtA once.

It's important to realize that CtA is a method to create random scenarios, and not a method to create custom armies. Based on the idea of fast set-up, I don't mind the patterns.

As for the feudal levies, yes, DoW blew that one. It's a band-aid, but it was marketed as a feature. Bad decision.

The three different decks have differences that are too subtle, IMO, but DoW needed to make it work w/ the base game as far as numbers of units. In retrospect, they should have handled this one differently, but it might be tough w/in the confines of the game as we know it.

If we're throwing out a wishlist, I'd like to see a version of CtA that is similar to the Kingdoms expansion for Battlefield: Fantasy Warfare. That includes not only terrain, but also scenarios with various victory conditions.

tkostek said:

Decks for terrain generation would be great.

I know they are very unofficial but if you follow the link in my sig and down load the zip file you'll find my deployment cards (non epic) which give about 120 combinations (add in CtA arms and I'll bet you can get more combos than you can shake a stick at).

Chris

oshfarms said:

For what it is worth, I talked to Mr. Borg almost 2 years ago about random terrain and he hinted that there was something in the works, but it would probably need a couple of years to surface. Dunno how the change to FFG affected things, but there is at least hope.

I must say that I like the way Call to Arms allows you to customize your side. I don't mind the formations that I start with and I usually play with the organized version of the rules. It is much quicker than trying to choose out the perfect army through points and I like how quick I can customize my forces with the specialist cards. I would say this product is a must have for Battlelore fans.