All about Band of Brothers

August 7: WELCOME TO THE UNIT!

On September 4, 2021 Worthington Publishing will be launching on Kickstarter the next title in Jim Krohn’s BAND OF BROTHERS SERIES – OLD BREED SOUTH PACIFIC. 

Box Cover

Band of Brothers is a fast-playing game of squad level combat in WWII.  The rules are very simple (no combat charts are needed) with very few exceptions to remember and yet the game is meant to be all encompassing and will include infantry, tanks, and artillery.

Based on years of research, the game system uses a unique suppression mechanic. There are no longer two unique states for a unit, but varying degrees of suppression. This allows suppression to accumulate from multiple fire sources and means that the unit will not take a morale check until it is asked to do something. You will never know for sure how your units will respond until they are needed.

Although casualties can be caused by artillery and heavy weapons (which makes them prime battlefield targets), squads will never cause significant casualties shooting at range at dug in, first line troops. Their goal is to fire and maneuver. Sections of the enemy force must be pinned down and eliminated from up close. The system itself forces this realistic play. In a similar fashion, the system rewards you for spreading your troops out and other realistic game play.

Along with Old Breed South Pacific, we will be offering the first 4 games in the Band of Brothers series. 

These include SCREAMING EAGLES which follows the US 101st Airborne in Europe. 

GHOST PANZER which follows the German 11th Panzer in Russia / Europe.

TEXAS ARROWS which follow the US 36th Infantry division through Italy, Germany, and France.  With Texas Arrows you need to own Screaming Eagles and Ghost Panzer as maps and counters are needed from those games to play all of the scenarios in Texas Arrows. 

BATTLE PACK 1 requires ownership of Screaming Eagles, Ghost Panzer, and Texas Arrows to play, but Battle Pack 1 has a large 22 x 34” board that is double sided and comes with 8 scenarios ranging from small to large.

With Old Breed South Pacific Jim has written what he is calling the “rulebook of the Apocalypse” meaning that this IS the series rulebook going forward for this and all future games in the series (more about the future of the series in an upcoming newsletter).  Other than minor adjustments for errata or clarification you should not need to learn any new rule sets. 

Below is an article written by Jim Krohn in November 2011 on Why Band of Brothers vs other tactical game series.  We hope you enjoy reading this:

Why Band of Brothers?

As we head toward the ship date (11/15/11) for Band of Brothers, I will try to post almost every day about some of the things that make the game different/better. There are many tactical squad games and these are meant to highlight what sets this game apart. Feel free to ask questions as we go!

#1 Simple Realism

Sometimes the word "elegant" is used in board gaming and that was one of my goals in designing this game. I wanted a game that was true to tactical WW2 combat, truer than other games on the market, but I also wanted it to be easy to play. I actually heard one person complain that the rules were too short, almost dismissing the game because of it. The attitude was that short rules must mean a dumbed down game.

The rules are short - 6.5 pages needed to play the first couple of scenarios and just a little over 10 pages for the whole thing: tanks, artillery, guns, everything - but they are realistic. It is not a perfect simulation, but the game is faithful to WW2 squad level combat. Check out the rulebook. I have about 6 pages of designer notes explaining the decisions that I made with the game and the WW2 history that is behind the system.

#2 A Tactical Game Ought to LOOK Right

This statement is not meant to refer to component quality. It is meant to refer to the battlefield. In WW2, a company would deploy, roughly speaking, in a line spread out across the entire battlefield taking advantage of terrain where possible. There would be positions in depth, of course, especially on defense. With a bird's eye view of the battlefield, what you would not see is an entire platoon crammed into a very small space and 100 yards or more devoid of troops between positions.

This might be the most compelling reason, the most important point of realism. How can a game even begin to approach a realistic portrayal of WW2 tactical combat if it rewards a completely unrealistic deployment of troops? There are no rules in Band of Brothers that force you to deploy your troops realistically. The system is such that you will understand why commanders deployed their troops in that manner.

#3 Taking a Break from Breaking

Most squad level games fall into two categories. The simpler ones tend to have plastic figures and those figures are removed as casualties are taken (they are not even really trying to be realistic). The more complicated tend to have units that are either "broken" (failed morale) or good order, or some variation of that.

While "breaking" was an incredibly revolutionary mechanic (and a lot of fun) when it was first used in the 70's, it isn't actually realistic. Some reasons why I went away from that model:

- If a unit is "broken", the opponent knows that it is safe to move/charge and that the broken units will not respond. It is therefore possible to know exactly when it is safe to move. My best friend and my opponent in these games while growing up used to say, "I hate it when you move with impunity."

-Worse, the owner of the unit knows it is broken. As the overall commander, I should realize that my unit has taken some effective fire, but really neither side of the battle should know whether a unit will fail morale until it is asked to do something.

- Breaking becomes a means of inflicting casualties by fire - while I'm sure that the broken mechanic was meant to show the effect of fire that did not result in actual casualties, it (ironically) becomes a means of inflicting casualties. If you can get a broken unit to break again, you can inflict some kind of permanent step reduction or removal.

- This then encourages other unrealistic things. Who do all my guys fire at? The broken stack. Why? Because I want to inflict permanent casualties. I have often had every unit on the board fire at the only stack of guys in the enemy force that was not shooting back. In reality, the combat system should encourage fire to be more spread out among opposing troops.

- How to recover from a failed morale state is another problem. Most games attack it by requiring a leader. Unfortunately, that also is flawed. Next up are some of the things that Band of Brothers does differently.

#4 Suppression

Since Band of Brothers doesn't use the break/good order mechanic, what does it do instead?

A unit does NOT take a Morale check because of fire. Effective fire (that is not successful enough to yield casualties) results in Suppression. Suppression can accumulate and lowers the Morale of a unit. Once a unit is fully Suppressed, another Suppression result doesn't hurt it any more. Morale checks are not taken until the unit attempts to do something (like move or fire) and Suppression wears off naturally over time.

The benefits of this mechanic are:

- Neither player knows how a unit will respond until it is asked to do something.

- Players don't shoot at units that are fully Suppressed and, in some circumstances, will not even fire at a unit that has been Suppressed one time. That fire needs to be put on other enemy units in order to limit their effectiveness.

- Suppression accumulates on a position easily. It is therefore in your best interest to realistically spread out your troops, especially since each unit fires separately (units do not combine fire). It simply does not make sense to jam 45 men, your best leader, and your best support weapons into a 40 yard hex (a WWI density).

- I believe that the system simply represents what I have read in books and heard from WW2 veterans about the general flow of a fire fight (more on casualties in a future post).

- It eliminates the limitation of the "two discreet states" that a unit can be in.

#5 Suppression Wears Off

Band of Brothers uses Suppression and other games use a Failed Morale/Good Order mechanic. Besides the difference in those two mechanics, the next question should be how do units recover from fire?

The standard answer from most games is leadership. A leader needs to come by to give a unit a chance to roll against their morale/leadership to recover. This is wrong for a number of reasons. It ignores the non-coms in each squad - leaders who were often more important to a squad's performance in battle than a higher up leader that would be represented by a counter. It bestows too much power on specific leader counters. It also leads to some very unrealistic situations where a squad never rallies for an entire game, etc.

The sneaky answer, and the far more realistic one, is that the effect of fire should wear off naturally over time. If you stop firing on a position, the troops there will recover. Put another way, if you want an enemy unit to stay out of the fight, you are going to have to continue to place effective fire on it. A squad will only cower in a foxhole as long as it is being shot at. That is the effect that is modeled in Band of Brothers.

#6 Units are not Invulnerable

One last bit on Suppression before I move on to other things. This may not seem like a big deal, but I think it adds to the right "feel" of the game.

So, you are playing a tactical game and you place an enemy unit under withering fire. Perhaps you combined your best forces to shoot at it, involved your best leader, etc., but the unit you are firing at checks morale and gets a lucky roll and suffers no effect. You had effective fire and lots of it, but the target unit stands there unphased, almost mocking you.

On the one hand I understand why this happens in game. A game has to model extreme outcomes, but it seems like there ought to be some impact from what happened. It's like all of the effective fire never happened!

In all of my research I came to realize that even the best troops ducked and sought cover under effective fire. Yes, even the 101st Airborne. In Band of Brothers, effective fire leads to Suppression. It doesn't matter how good they were as troops, they still get Suppressed. This Suppression will stick with them and impact all of their actions. Sure, even fully Suppressed they can get a lucky roll and get off a fire attack, but they are still Suppressed and it will impact all of their following actions until it wears off.

In BoB, the impact is in the right place. Instead of being able to dodge effective fire like it never happened because of one lucky roll, effective fire leads to Suppression. It is a visible impact that is shown right on the board. You are under fire so you are ducking and it affects all of your subsequent actions (until it wears off). It will take a lot of lucky rolls for it to be like it never happened.

A minor point, perhaps, but it feels right.

#7 Intuitive to Play

Intuitive play is something a little different that simple reason. The game makes "sense". Once you know the rules, it just seems obvious what part of the game happens next. I suppose not having a lot of rules helps with this concept, but I don't think it guarantees it. This was definitely a design goal.

In that same vein, I wanted to limit "gamey" (non-intuitive) actions. In a game have you ever had the reaction, "Wait, you can do that? That's ridiculous!" To me those lessen my enthusiasm for a game. When things that cause those reactions become a staple of strategy in a game, it destroys the game. The goal was to eliminate all of that from Band of Brothers.

#8 Proficiency

Even though the rules are very short for this game and it plays very simply, each unit is rated for more than just Morale and Firepower. A unit's Proficiency (and Casualty) rating adds a depth to the game and helps bring out the "flavor" of squad combat.

This is an excerpt from something I wrote back when I first was designing the game (and I was thinking Eastern Front). It helped quantify in my mind what I was trying to accomplish:

"The difference between Proficiency and Morale is important and sheds a lot of light on WW2 combat. For example, the Russian soldier seems to have been just as brave as his German counterpart. They should, by and large, have a similar morale rating. However, the Proficiency difference between them, especially at the start of Barbarossa, was as vast as Russia itself. The Germans at that time were a highly trained army that was seasoned by successful campaigns while the Russian army had been decimated by purges. Both the Russians and the Germans are just as likely to duck under enemy fire, but the Proficiency advantage of the Germans is critical. They are more likely to be positioned properly to repel an attack, they are far more likely to use the proper technique when attacking an enemy position (and thus avoid casualties), they are far more likely to be able to effectively fire on a target as they approach it, etc."

In game terms, Proficiency comes into play when trying something difficult like Assault Fire (shooting after moving) or Op Fire (shooting while the other player is moving). I like to think that this rating quantifies what happens WITHIN THE HEX. The player determines in what hexes to move his units, but better trained troops will deploy better, more quickly, etc.

The beauty of this situation (IMHO) is that the added depth is added very simply. All the Proficiency rule requires is a modifier to your Morale check when you try to do something difficult.

#9 No Combat Charts

There are no combat charts in Band of Brothers. How does combat work? When firing at a unit a ten sided die is rolled, the terrain modifier is added to it and it is compared to the Firepower of the firing unit. If it is equal to it or less than the Firepower, then the target unit receives a step of Suppression - temporarily lowering its Morale. Simple.

This lack of charts was all part of the design philosophy. Each unit is firing separately, therefore more fire attacks are rolled so I wanted resolving combat to be something that didn't even require thought. This is one of the things that allows the game to move and flow so easily. Using a unit?

If Suppressed, roll your Morale check - simple - the current Morale and Suppression are right on the counter. If that unit is firing, then just roll the die and compare to the Firepower on the counter. This value is different for the various units, but there aren't that many and you will know it by heart after playing the game for a few minutes.

I wanted your only thought to be on strategy, not on looking things up on the charts. The benefit of this is that the game flows really well and plays faster.

#10 Casualty Rating

So, in a fire attack, how do you get casualties (something more than Suppression)? That is where you use the casualty rating. Each unit has two casualty ratings. For a fresh airborne squad it is 4/8. If a fire attack against an airborne squad, after modifiers, is 4 less than the attacking Firepower, the squad is reduced. If it is 8 less, then it is eliminated. Of course, an elimination does not mean that everyone in the squad was killed, but that it permanently ceased to be an effective force in that battle.

This obviously fits well with the combat system and makes it easy - still no charts required. More than that, I love the unit distinction it gives and the extra dimension that is added into the game.

I always felt as if something was missing from tactical games in representing troop quality. Only so much can be done using Morale. Eventually, everyone has to "duck" when under fire. Both the Casualty rating and the Proficiency Rating account for training and unit cohesion beyond just Morale. In a sense they reflect what is going on WITHIN THE HEX. As an example, a highly trained unit ought to move through terrain more intelligently and be harder to kill than an poorly trained one.

Airborne squads were persistent (for lack of a better word) and hard to get rid of. In game terms they are much more difficult to eliminate than a second line German squad.

#11 Spread Out Your Troops

Squad games have stacking limits that cap the number of units per hex and fairly often a player will take advantage of that and stack to the limit. The problem with that is that 40-45 men and a bunch of support weapons jammed all in one 40 yard hex is a WW1 density. Historically, a squad deployed over an area of 35-45 yards depending on the situation. There were times during an assault or in special situations that the density would be higher, but that was rare.

The next question is, how do you force players to only stack one squad per hex? Do you make that the stacking limit? That is not a good solution. Band of Brothers is a game that really doesn't need to have a stacking limit. The SYSTEM encourages players to historically deploy their forces. The way Suppression can easily accumulate on a hex, you just naturally want to spread out your troops.

This is an easy thing to miss unless you stop and think about it. The fact that the system encourages historical behavior is one of the many things that validate it.

#12 It's About the 101st!

When this game was born in 2006, I wanted it to tell a story. No squad game to that point (to my knowledge) had made the game about a specific unit. In January 2008, Worthington and I settled on the 101st. So, in addition to the game system telling the story of WW2 combat in a particular theater, the added bonus is that the game tells the story of a particular unit. The fact that the unit that Band of Brothers deals with is the 101st Airborne just makes it even better. It was so interesting reading about the unit. Everyone knows that they were a prominent part of the big three campaigns in the west - D-Day, Market-Garden, and the Bulge. Of course I learned a lot about those, but I was surprised at the amount of time they spent fighting on "the Island" while under British overall command (during the Market-Garden aftermath). One of the factors in the scenario selection was to pick ones that each helped tell a different part of the whole story. I did my best to put a lot of history into each scenario.

#13 Operations Range - You Make Decisions on the Fly

Band of Brothers does not have static turns. Instead it is driven by each side's Operations Range. This gives the minimum and maximum number of units a player may "use" before the other player uses units. A side that had particularly good command and control in that scenario will tend to have a wide Operations Range as opposed to a restrictive one. There are a couple of reasons why I went in this direction.

First, squad combat was very chaotic. To get the right feel, I didn't want a player to be able to move/fire all of his troops unopposed. I love the quote of one company commander, when their attack was particularly well coordinated, “The last time we had seen an attack like this was in the training films back in the States.” This was the exception, not the norm.

Second, Operations Range also promotes "shooting from the hip." I detest opponents staring at the board for fifteen minutes to plan out what actually only represents 2-3 minutes of real time. In BoB, rarely do you stare because you only have to figure out what to do with 4 or 5 units. You make the call as you go and you are very naturally thinking about the next units while the other guy is moving. I think this gives a more accurate “feel” to the game.

#14 Proficiency, it's not just for Infantry

Although this first module is about the western front, I am going to use the east front as an example on this point because it is more cut and dry.

In Band of Brothers the idea of Proficiency does not apply only to infantry. As a concept it solved a lot of problems with tanks as well. Straight armor penetration stats just didn't do the conflict justice - especially on the east front where the Germans, through expertise, at times destroyed much better tanks than their own (in terms of firepower and armor).

The easy solution to this historical problem would be to just fudge the numbers a little and give the German tanks a better firepower, but that doesn't really solve the problem. Giving the Germans a higher firepower would lead to a situation where they could just trade shots with the Russians and win. Yet, when faced with a superior foe, they won by maneuver and the system needs to encourage that.

Following the infantry model and giving each tank type a proficiency rating has the system promoting solutions that were used historically. Like infantry, a tank only needs to pass a 7 proficiency check if it is asked to do something difficult (like firing after moving or shooting at a moving target or changing covered arc to fire). The German tanks all have proficiency ratings higher than the Russians and this encourages them to maneuver. If they just sit and trade shots (where the proficiency rating is not used), they will lose when facing better tanks.

The proficiency rating also eliminated what I call the "ballet tank" - a tank which always seemed able to spin around and get its frontal armor to face a threat. In BoB, if you don't pass your proficiency check, you can not turn and face that moving enemy tank.

Proficiency is still an abstraction. It rolls up factors like crew size, training, whether or not the tank had a radio, whether a target was spotted, etc. all into one number, but it works. It realistically handicaps certain tanks, it (most importantly) encourages the right tactics and behavior, and it does it all very simply.

#15 The Assault at the end of the Maneuver

The operations phase (where units move and fire) is followed by the Rout phase and the Melee phase. In thinking about the assault at the end of the maneuver these two phases are actually very connected.

Other games have handled this part by adding an advance phase which could be used to enter an enemy hex. That seems just so counter-intuitive to me. It allows "non-good order" units to move away (often) when they are about to be overrun. Wait a minute. These are the units upon which I have achieved some level of effective fire. Shouldn't they be pinned down? An advance phase also allows other strange things to happen. I move all my guys into the street through an advance phase and keep them there for a turn. The next turn I move them into the opposite building? If you are going to cross a street, the last thing you are going to do is stop in the middle of the street. With no advance phase, units must be able to move directly into an opponent's hex. There are other reasons why this must be the case - the impact of this on Final Op Fire, etc. I don't want to discuss all those reasons right now. Suffice it to say, units in Band of Brothers can move directly into enemy hexes to engage in Melee.

On the other hand, a rout phase is really necessary. Units in tough spots on the battlefield did run away or surrender. In BoB, this route phase really needs to be considered part of melee.

Units that are in the same hex as an enemy unit during the rout phase must take a morale check or rout. If at least one unit passes its Morale check then it is possible that a failed unit in the hex may be able to leave the hex successfully. However, if all the units fail their Morale check, they are eliminated. Units that do not Rout will then proceed to the Melee phase. In the melee phase, the unit's Morale no longer matters and they attack each other using their Firepower.

The key part of understanding why the game is designed this way is to realize that units eliminated during the Rout phase (from a potential Melee hex) were really eliminated by the Melee. It was just so one-sided that they did not have an opportunity to inflict casualties (or they surrendered).

So, what happens in the assault at the end of the maneuver? Units that are pinned down by enemy fire (Suppressed) are extraordinarily vulnerable to Melee. That's what the research taught me and that was the primary way, historically, of inflicting casualties with your squads. Fire and maneuver. Heavier weapons and other units pinned the enemy in place while other squads assaulted the position. If the position was properly Suppressed, the end result was often 8 extremely one-sided. The other side was killed or captured fairly easily.

There are, of course, many situations in the game where you end up in melee and the other side is not Suppressed the way you would like them to be. Well, that is a very bloody affair for both sides (as you would imagine). Either way, the game does that simply. By incorporating the impact of the route phase into the melee, no special rules are needed for the melee to capture the disadvantage pinned down troops would have.

#16 Foxholes

Foxholes were very important and were the norm for even a hastily defended position. This quote is from "The Road to Arnhem" and is representative of the body of information on WW2.

“Dig a hole. That was the first thing we always did, whether taking a long break during a march or moving into a position. As soon as we stopped everyone began digging a hole – either a slit trench or a foxhole. If artillery came in or an attack started without warning, those without a hole had nowhere to take cover and many died on the spot. I preferred a square or round foxhole to the slit trench. It offered less open space overhead for shell fragments to enter, and better protection if overrun by tanks.”

While this may seem obvious, it is important that a game system reward them appropriately. I have had players of other tactical games tell me that the first thing they do with foxholes is toss the counters back in the box. Something is broken if you don't want your troops in a foxhole. In Band of Brothers, foxholes offer the same protection as a stone building (the best in the module) against direct fire and even better protection against artillery and mortars. Your troops will be using them often.

# 17 The “Move” Marker

This marker (along with the necessary Proficiency Check when a tank so marked is fired upon) is an important part of the rules in encouraging realistic tank strategy. Unless one side had overwhelming superiority or had superior position, vehicles moved around a lot when engaging each other, especially if the crew was experienced. The combination of the Move Marker and Proficiency Checks allow the game to recreate the tank battles of WW2.

One of the keys to making this marker truly beneficial it that it is the only informational marker not removed/adjusted during the recovery phase at the end of the turn. It is persistent and lasts until the tank is chosen for an action again. Yes, it is not uncommon for a tactical game to make it more difficult to hit a moving vehicle. However, the penalty to the moving vehicle is always greater than the penalty for firing against it. In some ways that is correct, but in others it is not because it de-incentives realistic maneuver.

In BoB, the turn the vehicle moves, both the moving vehicle (if it fires) and all those firing against it, have to take a Proficiency Check. The firing penalty to the moving vehicle is more severe than those firing against. That much is similar to other games. However, the persistence of the marker means that the moving vehicle has a more lasting benefit. The tank gets settled into a new position and its fire is no longer penalized. Meanwhile the enemy vehicles are still adjusting to this change in position the next turn and still must take a Proficiency Check to fire against it.

This is a subtle change, but one that does make a big difference in game play. I had thought about a more complicated system - one that had different penalties to the moving vehicle and the firing vehicle based on how far the vehicle moved, whether it left another vehicle's line of sight, etc. Ultimately, I decided that the extra complication was unnecessary and that the "Move" marker did the trick and did it simply.

#18 Tank Machine Guns

Where are the tank machine guns? They are baked into the firepower (verses infantry) of the tank. While I am sure there were times during the war that a tank engaged infantry with its machine guns at the same time it engaged another tank with its main gun, those times were relatively rare. In a tank duel, it was far more common for everyone in the tank to be concentrating on the vehicular target. The driver changing position of the vehicle, the loader, gunner, and commander all focusing on the enemy vehicle.

In BoB, vehicles originally had a separate machine gun rating that they could use against infantry. Unfortunately, they added many rule complications and were consistently used in an unrealistic fashion by the playtesters. I could not stand watching a tank fighting for its life against a near by vehicular target while the tank’s machine guns also calmly laid some suppression fire against a squad a couple of hundred yards away in a building. Attempts to fix that only added more rules. The current rule set - with tank MGs baked into the infantry fire power of the main gun - is far more realistic, if slightly more abstract.

#19 You roll when you do something

This is another innovative mechanic (I think this is the only game that does this wholesale) in the game. Instead of rolling for morale after a successful fire attack, a successful fire attack leaves Suppression. The unit does not roll against its morale until it actually tries to do something. There are a bunch of advantages to structuring it that way:

- It allows fire effects to accumulate.

- It allows fire effects to linger.

- It gives you more uncertainty about your troops. Even if your unit gets a lucky pass, you won't be able to count on it like you would if they had rolled the moment they took fire.

- It means that the attacking player rarely has a guarantee that it is safe to move. I think this is one of the things that contribute to the game having the right "feel".

#20 It doesn't include the kitchen sink

Sometimes less is more. This may have been the hardest part about the design - what do I not put in? Everything added may improve the game, but it may also detract from it. Some possible ways adding something can actually detract:

- The thing added could interact with the system in an unrealistic way. You can never just look at the realism of a particular rule, you always have to think about how that added rule will impact the realism of the system.

- It could add gamey tactics.

- The rule itself could be unrealistic or overly complicated.

- The thing added can detract from the focus of the game.

- A rule might be fine, but in my book it needs to pull its weight. Another way of saying it is that rules, themselves, actually detract from a system. A rule needs to be valuable or it just becomes dead weight. For me, adding rules is always a cost-benefit analysis.

Some of the things that could have been added, but weren't include - separate leader counters, covered arcs for MGs, platoon organization and command control, squad formations, squad facing within a hex, multiple ways of handling off board artillery depending on nationality, distinguishing more definitively between how off board mortars are handled as opposed to off board field pieces, vehicles traveling through woods, moving guns during the game, and many, many other things.

There was a reason for leaving out each of the above. In the case of artillery, I felt that Proficiency and Accuracy allowed me to sum up all those variables. In the case of leaders, despite a strong wargame culture to include them, I felt that their presence actually detracted from the realism and that their impact was best included in the squads themselves and in the command points. Removing them also removed a lot of complexity and wonky situations. For most everything left out, there was a well thought out reason. Sometimes I agonized over the decision.

What I hope has been the result is a game that captures the essence of World War 2 tactical combat and does it simply. My goal was for the players to get the right feel, experience the right strategy, and be able to get it in an accessible package.