Blitzkrieg Commander II Review

Spel! Magazine, June 2010

With Bliztkrieg Commander 2 Peter Andrew Jones delivered again. It's another set of rules well worth buying!

The original Blitzkrieg Commander has been around for some years. Since it's publication Peter has written Cold War Commander and Future War Commander. (Of this last game there has been a review in a previous Spel!). The mechanics of both games are the same as those of Blitzkrieg Commander and both games are further steps in the evolution of the rules. With BKC2 the first circle is completed. All rules are written for miniaturen from 2mm up to 28mm and aim at a nice flowing game of approximately 2 to 3 hours.

The book

As with FWC I'm very enthusiastic about the boek. It's about 140 pages crammed with good stuff. The front and back are in colour, inside it's mostly black and white except for rule clarifications (and there are a lot!) whic. The rules are clearly illustrated with great pictures of inspiring scenery and miniatures. Secondly you'll find small boxes with information all throughout the book about the war, weapons and tactics. The rules make up about one third of the book and everything you can think of is included. Apart from the basic rules the book provides fifteen different scenarios. A good find is the possibility to fight asymetrically. Players throw a die and can get up to 25% less or more points to spend on their armies. This difference also influences the determination of who wins the game. This certainly makes for more interesting games, while both players still have an even chance of winning!

The major part of the book consists of the armylists. All in all there are 44 spanning from the Spanish Civil War, the conflict in Asia between China and Japan up to the end of the Second World War. There's an armylist for each period and front, there are nine different armylists for the German Army and seven British (including Commonwealth forces). The Dutch Army is included as well. Browsing through these you'll notice that a lot of thought and effort has been put into them. Towards the end of the book there are optional rules, a list of notable changes between this and the first edition, a short summary of the rules and some thoughts of the author. These make a nice and insightfull addition.

The rules

The core of the rules still consists of the commandsystem. Units can act in one of two ways. At the start of a turn they can act on initiative if there are enemy units within their initiativerange. During the remainder of a turn commanders can give orders to let units act. Each commander has a command value of 7 to 10. The player selects which units he will issue an order to and throws 2d6. If the score is equal to or less then the command value the selected units will act. If the score is higher then the commander may issue no more orders this turn. As long as the order is succesfull a commander may keep issuing new orders, but each next order means an additional -1 to the score, the risk will become greater and greater.

BKC2 sees a number of notable chances in the rules. Most important is the fact that a unit's attack value has been divided in two different values, namely antitank and antipersonel. This is a very good change, because it provides another possibility to make units as historically correct as possible. Other additions are for instance spotter aircraft and the division of units into their respected branches of the armed services instead of unit type. Tanks and infantry are clearly different branches and this will result in negative modifiers when communicating and giving orders. And there are more changes like these. FOr those of you who own the first edition it's offcourse relevant to know if you 'need' to buy this new book. No, you don't 'need' to, the basics are all the same. But in my opinion you'll sell yourself short if you don't, there are certainly chances and some are quite fundamental. It's not possible to use an army from the first edition against an army from the second edition, because of the changes. And let's face it, the new rules provide for an even better game!

Conclusion

You've read it in the beginning of this review, I'm really enthusiastic about this game! BKC2 is a great set of rules that begs to be played. The book is a great addition towards every miniature-gamer's collection and for those into the Second World War almost a must-have. There are some notable changes in this second edition which provide for an even better game then the first edition did.

• Layout 4/5
• Luck/Tactics 4/5
• Price/Quality 3/5
• Replayability 5/5

René Raap, June 2010