Now that we’ve covered the basics of combat and movement, it’s time to tuck into the meat and potatoes of the game: Activations and actions. Grab your tactical spork and let’s dig in.

Order Your Battle

First off, we need to take a gander at the orders of battle (OB) to make sense of Activations, which is sort of like the salad before the meal (though I guess for you order of battle geeks out there, this is like starting with the dessert). Leaving aside the learning scenarios and just focusing on the main missions (Movement to Contact, American Attack, and American Defense), the American player always has a U.S Army heavy battalion (Combined Arms Battalion, or CAB), which consists of either two armor companies and one mechanized company or one armor and two mech. They also have battalion elements like recon, air defense, and UAVs that don’t form part of a company, as well as units attached from the brigade based on the mission. These make up the battalion independent units.

The Russians, on the other hand, vary rather more: for Movement to Contact, they too receive a battalion (Battalion Tactical Group, or BTG), though it consists of four smaller companies: either three mechanized and one armor or one mech and three armor. When the Russians are defending during the American Attack mission, however, they receive just a reduced company with tank support, and when they’re attacking during the American Defense mission, they receive an entire brigade consisting of three battalions. Each Russian battalion and the brigade also has independent units.

Activate!

These companies form the core of the game since DA uses random formation activations, mainly by company, to drive the action. The companies’ Activation cards represent broad sets of orders given to the formations for carrying out their mission.

Every turn, each company formation receives an Activation card, as does each battalion for its independents; the Russian brigade also has an Activation card for brigade independents (note that the Americans do not: their brigade attachments activate directly with the battalion independents, representing the greater integration and flexibility in terms of attachments of the U.S. Army). All of these cards are shuffled together; during the Execute Actions phase of the sequence of play, a card is drawn, which activates the formation (or group of independents) on that card. Units within that formation then activate one by one: if the unit is in range of an HQ (3-5 hexes, depending on the HQ type and nationality), or if the unit is independent, it may Activate automatically, choosing an action listed on the Activation card (more on that in a bit). If the unit is out of command range, then it must make a Troop Quality (TQ) check to Activate; if it fails, it has to cool its heels for the turn. When the player has finished with all the units in the formation, the next card is drawn, and so the process repeats.

As you might gather, the random nature of the activations injects battlefield uncertainty and fog of war into the game. You may have planned out a perfect sequence of laying down artillery from the brigade, followed by preparatory fire by a tank company, followed by an assault by a mechanized company, but when you draw the mechanized company’s Activation card first, you’ll cry Clausewitzian tears of friction.

Call to Actions

The Activation cards themselves contain a list of actions that units in the formation can choose from (except for Independent Activation cards, as independents can choose any action). I’m going to explain the actions here, but bear in mind that, per the article on fire combat, every unit can fire twice in a turn regardless of the chosen Activation card. Opportunity Fire provides a way to get in those shots if your action restricts you.

Move: The unit may move up to its full movement allowance; it may not fire.

Fire: The unit may fire twice; it may not move.

Fire and Maneuver:The unit may move up to half its movement allowance and fire once (in any order).

Assault: The unit may Assault (duh). This is beyond the scope of this blog, but Assaults are for entering an adjacent enemy hex and coming to close quarters to clear the enemy out.

Rally: The unit may remove a Suppressed marker or flip a Broken marker to its Suppressed side.

For the U.S., the secret sauce is the way the cards combine different actions, forcing you to make interesting micro-decisions. Take the U.S. Traveling Overwatch card.

It seems like a no-brainer: you can either move really far or fire twice, which seems quite flexible (or Rally, but that’s included on all the cards, so it’s always available). Moreover, as discussed in the article on movement, Decisive Action’s movement is fairly deliberate, particularly if you want to go cross country or unload some troops and so forth. And as previously discussed, the penalty for Opportunity Fire is fairly significant, which a Fire Action precludes, so it seems like the best of both worlds.

But what if you need to move and fire? Say you want to turn the corner to get LOS to a juicy target and then shoot it. In that case, you’re out of luck – choose a different card next time.

While each of the American cards has two of the major actions on it (Move, Fire, Fire and Maneuver), the Russian cards only have one. In the Russian case, the interesting decisions aren’t about what action to choose – that’s usually a no-brainer – but rather about when to switch Activation cards for a formation. The U.S. can change a formation’s card by spending two Operations Points, which are the limited resource representing constraints on the commander and the staff’s time and attention, and which are spent on Assets (helos, CAS, electronic warfare, etc.), on targeting for indirect fire, and on writing new orders for a formation (i.e., changing Activation cards in game terms). The Russians, on the other hand, can change their Activations for free so long as they follow a set sequence; any other change costs them three Operations points.

As you can see, the Americans have a lot more flexibility within a given set of orders (Activation card) due to a doctrinal emphasis on mission command and small-unit initiative, but if they want to change those broad orders, it’s going to take some staff planning to do it. The Russians’ orders are fixed, which gives them limited flexibility within those orders, but if they follow their sequence of battle drills as depicted above, they’re extremely efficient executing this plan since the staff doesn’t have to get involved. If they need to deviate from those battle drills and change plans midstream, however, the smaller Russian staff means that it’s more difficult for them to do so, as represented by the 2 Operation Point cost for the U.S. versus 3 for the Russians to change Activation cards.

These differences ought to demonstrate how certain limitations of the Russian military are built into the game. Some people have expressed wonder that any game with present-day Russians could be balanced or fun in light of their less than stellar performance in the current war in Ukraine. Joe has addressed this topic in a previous InsideGMT article, though if you think this way, there are optional rules for subpar Russian performance; regardless, DA’s Activation cards and mechanics inherently reflect some of the disadvantages that the Russian military has compared to other modern militaries.

(com)Man(der) with a Plan

Asymmetries aside – of which there are plenty of others throughout the game – the interactions of Activation cards and actions give the players a lot of decisions to make. They also incentivize good planning. Like the real-world military, DA is all about planning.

Many elements of the game encourage it, but the Activation cards especially reward thinking ahead. Choosing the right cards, particularly for the Americans, and choosing when to switch cards, particularly for the Russians, based on your battle plan means the difference between victory and defeat.

That’s it for it now – stay tuned for the next installment, tentatively titled, Things that Explode from the Sky…

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