“Bayonets & Tomahawks Biweekly” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically every two weeks. It features articles from the Bayonets & Tomahawks development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

NOTE: The cards in the final product have replaced the Action tokens.

Issue #3: Action tokens PART 3 — Full Action Round Example: French & Indian Rampage, British Resilience.

The following play example focuses exclusively on how tokens are used in the Action Round. Movement, battles and other game mechanics will be explained elsewhere. I’ve minimized strategic insight for a clearer demonstration. The Action list featured in previous article is repeated at the end of this article for reference.

The Action tokens in play for this round

At the end of the previous article, the British and French players performed the opening steps of the current Action round (token draw and bid). They ended up with the tokens pictured below in play. They will now use them to perform actions!

The French begin

As explained in the previous article, the French player has the initiative in this round, so he will play first*. He has two tokens in play: one Indian and one French.

*Playing first gives you the liberty to advance as much as you can and the enemy’s armies will have to stop where they meet your own armies. On the other hand, being second to play allows you to react to what the enemy is attempting, which might be better in certain circumstances. Current playtest will probably result in changing the rule to “the player with initiative can decide to be first or second to play” which is more advantageous to the player with the initiative. But for this article we stick to what is presently in the games rules.

Indian token always first

The French player must always start with the Indian token. The one he drew at the start of the round gives him 1 supply point (SP) and 1 conditional SP allowed only for Ohio Indian pieces (3 pieces tagged with the letter “O”: Chaouanon, Delaware and Mingo). The SPs of an Indian token can be used only by Indian pieces.

For any token, Raids must be executed first. The French player elects to do none with his Indian token. He uses the first SP for a Light move action: the Mississagué piece moves 3 connections from La Presqu’Isle to the wilderness site Cawichnowane. It is now in range to raid Minisink, Easton, Carlisle or Winchester in future rounds. The number on each of these settled sites represents Raid VP value. The second SP of the token can’t be used — no Ohio pieces are available because the British played the event “Remove Ohio Indians from play” at a previous round*. That concludes actions with the Indian token. It is discarded until next game year.

*Some French and British action tokens allow its owner to put new Indian allies in play or remove others (namely Ohio pieces). This will be covered elsewhere.

Now the French!

The first step is to check if “Leave At Sea Space” or “Continue Ongoing Siege” actions are required. The French player has none of his pieces in naval transit on the At Sea space and he has no ongoing sieges, so he is free to use all his SPs for any other actions. As mentioned before, Raids must be executed first.

He decides to make a lightning “move and raid” action combo with his ‘2x’ (double action) French light SP. The first action with his ‘2x’ SP is to move the Cherokee piece on Rivière Conhaway to Fourches de l’Ohio where he picks up* a second Cherokee piece (he can’t pick up Miami because they’re not the same nation). The Cherokee stack moves on to Rays Town to attack a lone brigade of Provincial troops that started building a road at the previous round. Because it is the first action of a ‘2x’ SP, the battle is resolved immediately instead of at the end of the round. So the British player has no time to bring his big Carlisle stack to the rescue. The Provincials are beaten with losses and retreat to Carlisle.

The Cherokee stack can now make a second action (the same pieces must be used for both actions of a ‘2x’ SP). The French player sends one Cherokee to raid Winchester (limit of one piece for any raid). The raid turns out to be successful and the French scores 3 Raid VPs. But he loses his raider: it is pulled out until next year, going home satisfied with plunder, captives and prestige! (If the raid had failed, the piece would simply have returned to the site from where the raid was launched — Rays Town in this case.)

The second SP on the French action token is hybrid (triangle enclosed in a square). It can be used as a Light SP or Army SP. The French player decides to use it as an Army SP. He selects his stack at Montréal for an Army Move action. All pieces move 2 main connections to Fort Frontenac (the maximum allowed for non light pieces). Having started with the stack, the light piece Belestre can move an additional connection and reach Oswego.

This ends the French players actions for the round.

*They can combine only because they are a multi piece Indian nation (big “C” letter for Cherokee). Otherwise when a French SP is used with Indian pieces only (no French light pieces in the stack performing the action), it is limited to one Indian piece.

Now it’s time for British actions!

The second player must now perform all his actions. Battles can occur at the end of the round (ex. battle resulting from the first action of a ‘2x’ token as seen above).

There are no British pieces on the At Sea space and no ongoing British siege. The British opts for no raid so he moves on to other actions. With his Light SP, he sends the Mohawks at Oswego to counter the French advance there (British Indian allies always use British SP).

Using the regular Army SP, one New York/New Jersey Provincials piece on Lake George’s South End executes a construction action to finish a fort begun at a previous round. Fort William-Henry is immediately added! The remaining SP of the British token can be used for an action by the other brigades of that stack (an Army ‘Sea’ SP can be used as a regular Army SP or to move to the At Sea space from a coastal site).

The British player prefers to take advantage of his ‘Sea’ Army SP to send reinforcements to Nova Scotia and he chooses a “Move to At Sea” action. The Holburne fleet transports the whole stack at Boston to the At Sea space* (a fleet can carry up to 4 pieces).

*At the next round, an Army SP (regular or Sea) must to be spent to land them on any site of the Atlantic Ocean Sea Zone. They won’t be allowed to land in the Golphe Saint-Laurent Sea Zone yet because Louisbourg is still in French hands.

After all actions, time to fight!

Pieces of both sides are at Oswego: a battle occurs. We leave you to speculate who would have won, the battle demonstration being reserved for a later B&T Biweekly article 🙂

Once battles have been resolved, we check if any stack is cut off, tokens in play are discarded, and the round ends. Tokens of the round just concluded have the same initiative value (3 for the British / 3 for the French), resulting in the French having the initiative again. The next round can begin: time to draw and bid tokens!

Next Issue #4: After Action Report from developer Barry Setser

Next Issue #5: From Bellin’s map to B&T’s board: the art of game cartography

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Previous Article in the Series: B&T Warpath Chronicles #2: Action tokens Part 2 — ABC of Action Tokens and Round Start Play Example