I covered the Unit Cards earlier and that rings us to the second volume of the set, the Command Cards. As usual, this is where the army gets its special feel. This set is similar to the others, in that it provides a lot of tweaking of your formations through various upgrades.
As the British are a main army in the game, you get the normal large set that includes special characters, special upgrade rules, new equipment options and division specific upgrades. The latter is always my favorite in these sets and this one is great.
You get a handful of special characters you can include with your force. Not too many and none are game breaking like the old V3 characters. No more broadsiding Vandeleur! We do not tend to use these, but I think a few would be nice in some of our historical battles. So, this might change in the future.
This set has a large number of equipment cards that one can use to upgrade units and add new capabilities. That many of these are not in the Unit Cards, is a reflection on Battlefront reducing their model types to keep up with the full plastic push. However, those of us with the older models can still use them without having to proxy everything. We get the rest of the Funnies, special recce vehicles, various transports and the Badger. The latter is odd, as Battlefront never made this model and it is not included in the new RAM set. I guess we will have to do some converting or look to the 3D market. I have a lot of Buffalos, Staghounds and AECs, so this set fixes that for me. There us also the ability to upgrade your vehicles with 50 cal HMGs. This really helps the Brits, as their vehicle MGs are otherwise rather limited.
As mentioned, the division specific upgrades are my favorite, as this gives players a nice feel for different units. This set is has a nice selection of these options, along with the ability to build specialized Recce and engineer companies. Specialized partizans are a nice tought!
Finally, we get a handful of unit upgrades, like in other decks. The selection is somewhat small, but the is only because you get so many other upgrades! Some are better than others. It is interesting that the Gammon bombs are two points.. I like the 4.2 inch mortars, as I have a unit already.
Overall, this is another nice set and a must if you like to give your forces some variations. They are a must if you have a lot of older models that are not included in the basic set and really helpful if you play historical based scenarios like my group.
- Manteuffel
