BattleLore is a new type of game, combining various elements and aspects of cards, miniatures, role-playing and board games. The concepts that follow are fundamental to the game’s dynamic and its underlying principles.
A game session is built around a carefully crafted Adventure which depicts a Battlefield and the forces that you and your game partners will attempt to lead to victory. There are several types of adventures including:
Medieval Adventures, which are historical in nature; Lore Adventures, which are fantasy-based, taking full advantage of all that BattleLore’s world has to offer; and Epic Adventures, which are beyond the scope of this current book, and will be the subject of a future volume.
The forces on the battlefield are represented by plastic miniatures, pre-positioned on the game board according to an adventure’s specific instructions. These miniatures represent the troops under your command. Each group of Figures gathered on the same Hex is said to form a Unit.
Each unit is composed of a Banner Bearer, and, in most cases, some additional figures. The Banner Bearer is a key element in the game and offers visual clues as to the nature of the Troops he leads into combat. The Banner Bearer is also the last figure of a unit to be removed from the Battlefield, when the unit is finally defeated.
In BattleLore, each Side, or warring faction, has its own distinctive banner style:
For more details on how to read a unit’s Banner, please see the sidebar, Anatomy of a Unit on p.13 of Chapter 2 – Orders.
The game board, and the Terrain pieces and Landmarks it supports, depict the battlefield on which a game will be fought. Two red dotted lines delineate the battlefield’s three distinct Sections, respectively forming a Left Wing, Center, and Right Wing for each Camp.
The game is fought over a number of successive Game Turns, taken by the players alternately. During his turn, the forces under a player’s control are ordered into Movement and Battle with the play of a Command card and its associated effects. The Command card usually dictates the number of units ordered for the turn, as well as the section(s) of the battlefield to which they belong.
Hexes that straddle a red dotted line are always considered as simultaneously belonging to both the corresponding wing and center section.
When combat occurs, its outcome is decided with the roll of a varying number of Battle Dice; the sides of the dice rolled dictate the effects of combat and the eventual damage inflicted upon the enemy’s troops.
OBJECT OF THE GAME
In BattleLore, the object of a game session is usually to be the first to capture a specific number of Victory Banners such as those held by the units’ Banner Bearers. Depending on the adventure’s victory conditions, the number of banners required to win will usually vary between four and seven.
A Victory Banner is gained each time the last figure (Banner Bearer) of an enemy unit is eliminated and removed from the battlefield.
The Banner Bearer of the unit just defeated is then placed onto the victor’s Victory Track.
In some adventures, additional Victory Banners - in the form of Victory Blazon tokens - can be won by capturing certain terrain hexes or accomplishing other adventure-specific objectives.
