By now I have played several games, both one versus one and multiplayer. So far I have kept to the rules as written. The multiplayer rules are Ok, but everyone I play with agrees that teams would be more natural.

While we are waiting for news anyway I thought we could talk about unofficial game variants on multiplayer. What variants have yoy tried? How did it work out? What would you do different next time?

I have played teams several times with groups of four, and we have split it up by order versus destruction in two opposing armies, each army controlled by two allied players. Each player thus commands one regiment and has an allied regiment on their side. Command cards are selected by each team, so the players agree on those they like best for their team as a whole. In game, command cards are also discussed by the team before they are played. Disk activations were discussed and agreed upon by players, as was movement and so forth.

This variant worked out well and was a lot of fun. It did have a bit more discussion in between turns and activations since partners were working together to determine the best course of action, but overall this did not add too much time to the game length. It helped that we were all experienced players, and generally agreed on the best courses of action quickly. It also worked out well as a teaching technique for new friends, as they were able to dive into the action with an experienced teammate to help them make decisions and plan strategies. It is our go-to method of play if we have more than three players, and sometimes we play this way when we have three. In that case, one player commands two regiments alone, and the other two split control of a single army.

This is the same plan I have for my next multiplayer game. Good to hear some opinions on the shared command cards, because that is most tricky part about playing in teams. How do you handle distribution of activations?

Have you tried team games where players have their own set of command cards? I suppose they would need to have complete sets of 4 cards for the variance, but either 1 or 2 regiments each.

I have the feeling some sort of contested objective(s) would do wonders for multiplayer games, especially in free-for-all.

We tried team games where players had their own set of command cards, but you are correct that each player needs more than two if you do it this way and they are only allowed to activate their own disks--otherwise you end up with sub-par activation choices too easily and the game is frustrating for all of the players. The exception is if allied players are each controlling their own army of two regiments, in which case you can easily give each player a full hand and separate activations, but then the game is massive.

As I said above, what worked best for players who are sharing a double regiment army was allowing them access to a single hand of four command cards, as this most closely mirrors the actual game. In terms of activation distribution, players worked together to activate disks from either allied regiment. So if I play "my" command card, I could activate my allies' disks as well as my own if I chose to do so. This is especially critical if one player suffers heavy casualties in his regiment or gets his troops out of position or pinned, allowing him to still contribute with command cards by activating friendly disks in a better position.

Again, this most closely mirrors the real game. Limiting players to activating only one regiment in the army with certain cards would change the game too much from my prospective. It would be like having a single player create a two regiment army and then forcing him to assign two cards to each regiment and only letting him activate disks from that regiment with those cards.

So in our games, players pretty much choose all command cards and activations together, but final say on which disks were activated went to the player who "controlled" the card in case there was any dispute. It worked great for us!