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The Fog of War
| [Content from Battles Book page 98 to 101.] |
Two armies clash in disputed territory. Neither commander knows how large the opposing force is, or what their objective is. All he knows is the number and composition of his own command, and what he has been ordered to achieve by his high command.
The following special rules are used in this scenario: Objectives, Reserves. Note that the Reserves rules are modified, as described below. You will also need a pack of ordinary playing cards in order to play this scenario.
Forces
Each player picks an army to a pre-agreed points total.
Set-up
- Set up the terrain using any mutually agreeable method. If one player sets up the terrain, then his opponent is allowed to choose which table edge he wishes to deploy on. If both players helped set up the terrain, or it was set up randomly, then roll a dice to see who gets the choice of table edge.
- Set up objectives as described at Objectives.
- Each player draws a playing card to determine their mission and available forces (see Missions). Whatever mission is selected, each player starts with only one detachment deployed on the table. This must be the vehicle/infantry detachment with the lowest points value in his army (don't use a war engine, flyer or Supreme Commander's detachment, even if it has the lowest value). The player whose army has the lower Strategy Rating sets up first. His opponent sets up in the opposite deployment zone after the first force has been deployed.
- Each army has a deployment zone 90cm deep, set up in one corner of the table. The two deployment zones are 150cm apart so their width will depend on the width of the table you are playing on. The deployment zones represent the areas being patrolled by the opposing detachments just before they sighted each other.
Objectives
Each player must place one Capture, two Take & Hold and one Cleanse objective on the table, starting with the player whose side has the lower Strategy Rating.
Missions
Take an ordinary deck of playing cards and shuffle it, then each player draws a card. The card determines the player's mission and how much of his army he has available to achieve it with. See Fog of War Mission table.
The force you can use will consist of your vanguard (ie, the infantry/vehicle detachment with the lowest points value in the army) plus a percentage of your army, as shown on the Fog of War Mission table. If you are allowed a percentage of the army, then you may only use complete detachments as part of the force, and the total points value of the detachments used must not exceed the stated percentage. For example, if you had a 2,000 point army and were playing a mission which allowed you "Vanguard+ 25%", then you could use the vanguard plus any detachments whose total points value did not exceed 500 points.
Apart from the vanguard, none of the detachments you use may start on the table. Instead you may bring detachments into play each turn after the first. The number of detachments that can be brought on each turn will depend on the total number of detachments you have off-table (see Off-table Detachments table). If you decide to bring a detachment on then place its HQ unit on the table edge to show where it will enter, as you would for a reserve detachment. Note that you don't roll randomly to determine which detachments enter play as you would do normally with reserves (as rolling randomly would let your opponent know how many reserve detachments you have!).
Discovering the opposing force's mission
There are only two ways to discover an opponent's mission (before the end of the game that is!): tactical analysis and psychic precognition.
Tactical analysis
Observation of the enemy forces, tactics and movement can give you a general idea of their objectives. The longer the engagement goes on, the easier it becomes to work out just what the foe is up to. In the Rally phase of each turn both players roll a D6; if a player equals or beats the score shown below his opponent must reveal his mission.
| Turn | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| D6 roll | 6+ | 5+ | 4+ | 3+ | 2+ |
If a player has a Supreme Commander on the battlefield when the dice roll is made he may re-roll the dice.
Psychic Precognition
Psykers can often pick up fragments of information, impressions of the potential future and of what enemy plans may be. Roll a D6 for every psyker unit that is within 45cm of the enemy in the Rally phase: on a roll of 6 they perceive the enemy's plans and the opposing player must reveal their mission.
Victory conditions
The first player to achieve their mission objective wins at the end of the Rally phase on the turn they achieve it. If both players achieve their mission objective on the same turn, or neither player has done so by the end of the 6th turn, then the battle is a draw and neither player wins.
Safety warning
Because of the random nature of the missions in Fog of War particularly extreme combinations can lead to very short or unbalanced games. Several Fog of War missions can also be very hard work for armies that are especially slow moving. On the other hand, half the point of the Fog of War is to put a genuine element of the unknown into games, and to encourage you to work with what you have.
The best bet is to play two or three Fog of War battles in one sitting to give things a chance to even out. The Fog of War also makes a good scenario generator for campaigns, whether it is used randomly or by simply having the players select several missions to allocate their forces between.