Rules of Engagement

 I have always enjoyed the resource management aspect that a command deck, pool of tokens or dice bring to a game. And so I wanted to include some form of command phase in my own game.

I also hoped to get away from the standard two action system that so many games go in for. The combination of these two ideas is what led to the order/actions system that ROE employs and ultimately what makes it unique.

In ROE, you generate a pool of orders at the beginning of each turn. These are the currency by which models activate. There are three possible activations available, and each model may only perform one each round. These are Advance, Engage and Tactical. The first two are essentially move only or shoot only. The Tactical activation is the only order that allows you to both move and complete another type of action in the same turn. The catch is that both movement and range are impeded when completing a tactical action. The effect this has on game play is that prior positioning is key to getting the most economy out of your orders.

In addition to the three activation orders are several Conditional orders that can be used at the expense of further order tokens. The most commonly used of these is the Focus order, which enhances the model’s current activation with a boost to movement (if you are performing an Advance action), or a re-roll to an action if you’re performing an attack or Resolve based action. This allows players to invest more orders in models who are positioned where the action is, or reposition those who aren’t!  This also creates the opportunity to trade off against other models forgoing their activation all together.

The orders that are available to players is one areas of the game that I will continue to explore. I definitely think there is scope to find other ways of spending order tokens.