Table Battles

Table Battles is an abstract rank-and-file wargame from Hollandspiele. I recently picked up a second-hand copy of the Second Edition of the game and tried it out with a few solo games to help learn the rules. The game comes with ten scenarios (the first edition had eight) and has battles such as Bosworth, White Mountain, Malplaquet and, for us Canadians, the Plains of Abraham.

It is difficult to describe Table Battles because it is, as mentioned, an abstract title and it presents battles with only a few components. Despite this it isn’t really a beer-and-pretzels game either because even a small battle can start to develop complications that will have you stopping to do a ‘serious think’.

Components

The boxed version of the game comes with:

• 62 cards
• 90 wooden pieces
• 12 dice
• 1 four-page rulebook

That is correct, the rulebook is only four pages long. The 90 wooden pieces are four sets of coloured sticks (dark blue, blue, red and pink) that are used to represent the damage that a unit can take. There are also eight wooden cubes that are used to track morale and also mark some special units. Interestingly the design of the game owes much to having to figure out what to do with an overabundance of sticks and cubes from their other games.

There are 12 14mm d6s with six being used by each player. There are two types of cards; the scenario cards and a series of double-sided unit cards.

Scenario cards

The scenario card lists the forces available to each player, the morale of each side and any special rules that the scenario uses. Most scenarios don’t have any special rules. The forces available to each player are listed as a series of numbered cards.

Unit cards

The unit cards are double-sided and contain quite a bit of information including the unit strength, the dice you can play on it, its attack and any reactions the unit has. As well, some units are also marked as being a Reserve unit or that they will be engaged in a Pursuit if they route an opponent. Some cards also represent leaders and batteries of artillery.

The design of the cards is very good and they use colour and typography to impart special rules and abilities to the units. They are also easy to read when on the table.

Concepts

There are a few core concepts in the game that you need to understand in order to play. There are not many of them and they are, except for Reactions, quite easy to understand.

Phasing

During their turn a player can do an Action with one of their units and then they roll and assign dice. Actions are always voluntary but a unit needs to have been assigned at least one d6 and at least as many as required by the Attack they want to use. Once the player has done and Action they can then roll and assign their dice. Each player has six D6 and this pool fluctuates in size as you assign dice and then use them.

All or nothing

Actions require you to use all of the dice on your card. Even if an attack only requires two dice you remove all of the dice on your unit when you use it to do an Action. You have to be smart when you assign dice. The same holds true for Reactions. Some units have reactions, like Screen or Counterattack, that your opponent must use if they apply. And if they do use a Reaction then all of the dice assigned to the unit are also sent back to the dice pool.

The game has spoiling attacks built in. You can preemptively attack an opposing unit knowing that it will have to counterattack or screen and lose all of the dice on it. As well, if your opponent uses a Reaction then they miss the Action phase of their turn.

Assignment restrictions

I won’t go into detail about it here but there are a few restrictions on how you place the dice you roll. Units can only have one or two dice values assigned to them (for example you can only put 3s or 4s on a unit) and you can be restricted to only putting one dice on a unit at a time or have to put them in pairs.

Table Battles also uses the concept of ‘wings’ to restrict dice assignment. The sticks in the game come in four colours and each colour in your force is a distinct wing which can be assigned dice. So if you have one wing you can only assign dice to one unit. If you have two you can assign dice to one unit per wing.

Morale

Typically a game of Table Battles is over when one side has no more morale or it can’t attack. Units rout when they no longer have an sticks left and when they do a morale cube is sent from one side to the other. When you run out of cubes you are done. Some units are marked with a star symbol and those are worth two cubes. If an attack results in both sides having a routing unit then no cubes are traded.

The game

There is a small writeup of a few samples turns available on the Hollandspiele blog which uses scenario from the English Civil War. There is also a short writeup explaining some of the concepts of the game and how to use them while playing. They are quite handy if you are interested in more information about the game. The rulebook for the game is available for download but only on the BGG website so you would need to be a member to get a copy.

Table Battles is ostensibly a two-player game but it plays quite easily solo. There is no hidden information and since Reactions are mandatory there isn’t any question of whether a solo-opponent will use them or not. It is perhaps a better solo title than some games specifically designed for solo play as it has a significantly larger number of possible options and points of decision in it.

Each force is arrayed in a line facing their opponents. Each unit is restricted to attacking only a few possible enemy units and so it is common to have those units facing one another. Since you can’t attack unit a unit has at least one dice on it, and often requires more than one, the first few turns of the game involve building up your units to allow them to attack. This is where the dice pool and the fickle nature of dice comes into play.

As you assign dice you have fewer to roll. Some units might need a pair or trio of dice to attack and those have to be the same number. Your forces are not going to be able to use all available die faces and you may well have units in separate wings that use the same die values. Your opponent’s attacks and reactions also factor into your decision making. Do you want to attack to trigger a reaction to help remove their dice? Will your opponent be able to attack and do you then need to assign dice to enable your reactions?

It is this tension between the dice and your need to plan but also react to your opponent that creates the core friction in the game and provides you with most of your decision-making moments. It is a simple mechanic that builds into some very complex situations based on player actions and dice rolls.

RNG

Since the game relies so heavily of dice rolls it is prone to having some RNG pitfalls that can potentially lead to some stale moments in the game. In general though I think that since the perils of RNG will affect both players that this isn’t too much of a problem. In the few solo games I have played I have had a few moments where one of the forces was stuck because the dice they needed weren’t coming up. You can look at this as a possible problem or as another instance where you have to determine if you need to change gears and pull assigned dice from a unit or units to get the results you need.

Playing the game

I played two scenarios, the Plains of Abraham and the Battle of White Mountain. I played White Mountain twice as I made a few mistakes the first time and wanted to see how much of an impact that they made. Not much as it turns out.

The Plains of Abraham scenario actually doesn’t use the Morale rules and the French can win by making a single English unit rout. This makes it an oddly tense game since the English have much better troops but they can’t slip up and the French can focus on attack since they can lose all of their units and still potentially win. That game resulted in a French win due to a good set of rolls for the French and my ability to focus the French attacks on a single unit. A replay would result in a much different game.

The Battle of White Mountain is the battle that signals the beginning of the Thirty Years War in Europe. Elements of the Bohemian Revolt face down a force consisting of the German Catholic League and the Holy Roman Emperor. The Catholic forces have two wings and a wider range of die faces they can apply which gives you the impression of a better co-ordinated force. The Bohemians have a single wing and almost all use the same three die faces. The Bohemian force only has two Morale cubes to their opponents four and so the Bohemians have to try to focus their attacks and make sure that the Catholic forces don’t just wear them down and quickly remove their two cubes.

Bohemians

The Bohemian troops only use the 4,5 and 6 faces from a die. They have two units that require a triplet to attack (so three dice with the same face) which means that you can really only plan on having one of them attack at a time unless you get a very good roll. Hohenlohe and Thrum are the main ways for the Bohemians to damage their Imperial opponent so your triplet units are probably going to be spending most of their dice using their Screen reaction.

Imperials

Not only are the Imperial forces better but they are also more numerous. They have one unit, Lichtenstein, that can be retired if it gets too battered and replaced with a fresh unit. The Twelve Apostles artillery battery can also remove Bohemian morale cubes from the game as well. The main Imperial benefit is that it has two wings and can also use a wider range of die faces.

Both games were quite fun and played out differently each time. In the first game the Bohemians were able to force one Imperial unit to retire and were on the verge of making a second rout when the Catholics finally took out a unit and removed the last cube. In the second game, I tried to play the Bohemians with a bit more caution but hampered by a lack of usable die faces. The Catholic and Imperial forces suffered no such problem (representative of their better training perhaps?) and spread their attacks across the entire Bohemian line and wore them down.

Conclusion

I was quite surprised by just how much Table Battles made me think. And how much it made me think playing it solo. I knew what I was planning for each side and the dice pool and the Reaction rule made it so that wasn’t a hinderance in having a good time. It was quick to put down and it played quickly as well so it gives you a very good game experience in a small factor and a short amount of time.

It is a historical game but it doesn’t really deal with the specifics of the weapons and tactics of the period and focuses on what would be command and control in another game. Since all the battles are ranked troops opposing other ranked troops this lack of detail isn’t an issue and you get the feeling of playing an historical battle without having to read a lot of specific rules.

Table Battles is a very good example of the depth of game experience you can create with a short set of rules. It is very good as a solo title and it would be an excellent game to play if you have a friend who wants to get into historical gaming but doesn’t want to deal with a lot of complicated rules or fussy details.

Table Battles will definitely be brought out to play again and it is already my favourite solo title when I want a quick game. The sticks give you a sense of having lines of troops massed against one another and as they are pulled away as casualties climb your units start to look threadbare and fragile. Its a simple effect but quite powerful.

The boxed game is currently out of print but you can get it, and all of the expansions, from Wargame Vault. If you have the core game and don’t mind doing some PnP the expansions are a great deal. Especially for those of us outside the US as it saves shipping costs. Since the expansions are typically six scenarios and don’t require any physical components having them as PnP files is a great idea.