I have been deep in the mines writing up details for ChargeReal, more specifically platoon lists for the various forces. However, as I was working on it, I hit an awkward problem.

The original idea was for the books to be entirely rules agnostic, but the more I’ve spent time thinking about it, the more I decided that theming it around one system makes it much more usable for the general market as well as making it easier for myself to decide the level of detail that is actually required. The question though is which system to use?

I started my Ultramodern wargaming journey back in 2014, fresh out of university and with the wages of my first job in industry burning a hole in my pocket. At the time, the focus of Ultramodern rulesets was mostly section level, with players activating single figures – after all, this era was one of counter-insurgency and special operations raids. The main exception was Force on Force, a ruleset which is well made but never clicked for me (even if the full set rulebooks for it are now my emergency cashout plan).

Fast forward to now, and things have moved on. The world’s focus has changed from the wars of counter-insurgency into a new type of conflict, one that is often far more about. At the same time, I’ve moved on. I’ve played a lot of Special Forces kicking in doors and talked a lot about games revolving around the actions of heroic individuals. I feel like I’m kind of done with purely focusing on the individuals in a fight and this blog is a testament to that. I’ve now reached the stage where upon reading books and watching the footage coming out of today’s conflicts, my interest in what I want to play has been slowly climbing its way up another level of command – that of the Platoon level engagement.

A chunk of the blame can be placed on the TFL game Chain of Command for this but a lot of it comes from the reasons Why I wargame. As someone who has been playing ultramodern wargames to gain a greater understanding of what’s going on in the world (and drag my opponents along the way), the Platoon level comes with a whole host of interesting challenges to model. The skills of the individuals in the gunfight are still important but now you also need to look at how they work together, as well as what is required by those in command and those supporting to put them in the right place at the right time. We’re also in a market where there are currently several sets available that cover this scale. The problem was, after digging into them, I found none of them quite hit the spot. Some are focused on older eras and would require a whole host of work to try and cram my ideas into them. Others could model what I want but don’t seem to have the right level of focus – at platoon scale, I’m personally not sure I should be picking the exact loadout of every fighter on the board when building my list. Some of this comes down to the idea of a total sandbox ruleset, the one-stop-shop that means you only have to learn one set of rules and then use them for every type of game (be it the adventures of a small team performing a covert operation or a mechanised platoon advancing on a fortified position). This is a great idea and for lots of people it works out perfectly. For me though, I’d rather play a ruleset that is designed specifically for a task to get the best version of the game I’m trying to play.

The final point that pushed me into writing something was buying and playing BPRE28. Yes, the game is fantastic and yes, it’s not the scale I’m talking about above BUT there is something about the way it’s written and how it plays. All of the fat is trimmed away, focusing on the key elements that you need to know for a firefight and presented in a way that doesn’t send you diving for the rulebook after every move. Having played a chunk of it with various people, it’s incredible how quickly people pick it up and then how soon afterwards people work out the additional unwritten tricks, learning how best to combine your force’s abilities into moves that seize ground and win the game. However, BPRE28 has some differences (specifically pre-defined character types and maps) that don’t fit the style of the game I’m aiming to cover. And, as good as it is, a skirmish game with individual figures taking place over a matter of minutes of real-time is very different to a platoon-based game designed to support a fictional world with piles of different nations and organisations to model. But, it does provide some evidence of the idea that less can in fact be more.

With all that background covered, let’s go over the key target goals for my game that I wrote down one cold Autumn evening as I pondered my requirements:

1. Model the current realities of infantry combat in modern warfare. To succeed, the player must attempt to utilise tactics and procedures that modern troops are trained in. For example, the basic concept of “Find – Fix – Flank – Finish” is a fundamental part of small unit engagement – if a game doesn’t incentivise you to do this, then it’s not using its setting, it’s merely wearing it as a skin.
2. Focus on the important choices when list building and playing. Do you really need to be picking between an M16 and an M4 when building an element at platoon scale? Do you need 101 modifiers to cover every possible complication of putting a shot on target? Instead, it should focus on making sure you have the right combination of pieces in your force and then making sure you as their commander put them to good use.
3. List construction should also have plenty of flexibility. The key reason for this ruleset is to support the ChargeReal books, the main feature of each being several platoon and force lists. These vary massively in quality, size and composition. The ruleset will need to handle everything from a small SF raiding force with a high level of leadership down to a large but poorly led platoon from a developing nation.
4. Fast and Fun while still providing a Tactical Challenge. I’m not designing something beer and pretzels but, as someone with a day job, it does need to be easy to get to the table, rather than feeling like it needs a whole day to prepare for it. Ideally, it should be something you could write up an army list on your phone during your lunch break (or the bus home), grab your figures, get the board ready and finish a game (after learning the rules) around the 90 minutes/1 hour mark with plenty of time for food and beers around them. But, at the same time, it must obey point 1 – players will need to do more than just smash models together, you’ll need to have some level of strategy to go with just rolling dice and seeing what happens.

Based on these goals, I’ve started work on Project Elements. And before you ask, don’t worry, the name will be improved later.

In Project Elements, you take on the role of a Force Commander utilising a roughly platoon-sized force to perform a task. It could be assaulting an enemy position, patrolling through an area or attempting to prevent the enemy from achieving their objectives.

Under your command you have multiple Elements, each focused on a role within your force. They are designed to work together, giving you a toolbox to deal with the opposing force – Base of Fire teams for suppression, Scouts and Marksmen for spotting enemy positions and then Close Quarters Teams for finishing elements that have become pinned down and securing positions. The core of each force is the Manoeuvre Group with a varying number of riflemen – this is the most flexible unit in your force as it can be upgraded with various equipment to help them approach multiple tasks, but they will never be as effective as specialist units.

To control your force, you rely on a variety of trained NCOs. In order to use your teams effectively, they have to be activated by a leader – leaders activate earlier in each turn and elements under their control use the full range of actions. In contrast, Elements that a leader doesn’t activate use a smaller subset of actions ,mostly focused on self-preservation and continuing simple orders (such as engaging targets within their arcs). NCOs will have different levels of experience that increase the number of activations they can do, with each additional activation costing exponentially more. As well as commanding troops, NCOs are also responsible for helping to keep your units in the fight, managing suppression as it builds up once the rounds start flying.

As well as the elements and NCO of the core components of your force, you can also call upon various support assets. These can be off-map for fire support or reconnaissance or by bringing forward additional platforms (such as vehicles) into the battlespace. However, these actions take your time and attention away from controlling the battlefield as a whole – you’ll need to decide how to balance your limited resources to achieve your goals best, be that investing in your support options or providing direct assistance to your units.

Project Elements also intends to model the fog of war that falls once the bullets start flying, without making you feel completely powerless. The battlefield is empty when the game begins, with neither side quite sure where their opponents are until the first move or first bullet fires. You instead use a number of Contact Markers to represent where the enemy thinks your units are, although placed by the player who will control them. These then act as deployment points when you begin the fight, with certain forces able to use them for other purposes – you can even simply not deploy from them, all in order to play mind games with your opponent. Additionally, the effectiveness of a round of shooting isn’t handled until the targeted unit activates (although there are ways to force it), meaning that the shooting player will have to decide how much energy to spend keeping the enemy’s head down before advancing. After all, suppressed elements can then be manoeuvred onto and engaged in close-range combat to decisively remove them from the battlefield, providing a gap to be further exploited by other elements.

To please those who enjoy slinging dice and to keep things simple, tests for actions such as shooting, close combat, scouting and more will use mostly fixed values that depend on the element’s stats, with only a small number of modifiers based on the current battle’s conditions. All of the variety of exciting force multipliers will literally multiply the chances of achieving success by adding new dice to the dice pool when they are used. This should keep things moving at pace, without requiring hunting down a giant list of modifiers and doing maths rather than thinking about what the next tactical push will be.

Hopefully that all sounds good, but I’m sure there are some questions about it – mostly “what stage is it in?”

The answer to which is “very early”. The core rules have all been written down and over Christmas, there have been a few casual moving figures around and rolling dice to get the feel. The good news was that these went well, and I did spend a few days after thinking about possibilities from what I’d played, which always a good sign. However, there is a LONG way to go on it – I want to make sure that the mathematics in it is bulletproof and feels good no matter what style of force you’re running. Additionally, I will need to make sure the list building is also as reliable as I can make because as we all know, people love making the craziest setups to try and break things. Finally, there is a lot to do around the core rules – things like working out how to make it work for solo players, playing enough games to find all the edge cases and working out how to cut off all the rough edges that I will inevitably encounter while still keeping the key pieces of charm. I don’t think this will be anything close to release-worthy this year and frankly, I wouldn’t even attempt to rush something like this.

The good news is that members over on the Patreon will be getting their first look at the rules as they progress. As a little something else for the ChargeReal Researchers, you’ll be getting a first look at anything around the ruleset – this will include designer notes, some explorations to show off what the set can do and other things that I want to write and should be interesting. On top of that, when the Regular Opponents and myself are testing it on the tabletop, the Researchers will be getting the test information on top of the usual battle reports.

For those with no interest in trying out another ruleset, then don’t worry. For the most part, the ChargeReal Lore Books will still be designed to be as system-agnostic as possible – having a ruleset just helps to focus the mind on gameplay rather than going too deep. I’m aiming to have another ChargeReal platoon detailed before the end of the month so stand by for more details.

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