Wargame SITREP 231217 N3 Ops – Big friction in tiny Blackhorse (Arrigo Velicogna, Tiny Battle Publishing, 2023)

Blackhorse, by designer Arrigo Velicogna and published by Tiny Battle Publishing (2023), was literally a bolt from the blue attack on my wargaming wallet. When the advertisements for the game came across my social media feeds in early December I felt as if the Soviet 79th Guards Tank Division achieved both strategic and tactical surprise and was rushing to fill a gap in my wargame collection…

…sorry, getting my reaction and theme mixed up! Blackhorse bills itself as “A Grand Tactical Game” of an alternate past when the summer of 1988 Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev “decides to roll the dice one final time in hope of saving the Soviet Union” (1.0 Introduction). The game depicts a “Cold War Gone Hot” clash of the Soviet 79th Guards Tank Division of the 8th Guards Army, Group of Soviet Forces Germany against elements of the 11th Armored Cavalry (Blackhorse Regiment) and elements of the 3rd Armored Division, V Corps, VII U.S. Army. If you know your Cold War history you will already know this is the area of the Fulda Gap.

Overall, Blackhorse is a good wargame. The game is designed to be tight from the start. The core game mechanism—”a novel accumulating complexity command concept”—is a very interesting perspective of the battlefield. Yet, while the core game concept of Blackhorse is innovative, the play experience may be a bit challenging thanks to a presentation that is not the most visually exciting and a rule book in need of some formatting or errata fixes. Once you get past those small hinderances, however, the decisions players must make in Blackhorse deliver a challenging game focusing more on command and control than maneuver or straight-up firepower.

…the decisions players must make in Blackhorse deliver a challenging game focusing more on command and control than maneuver or straight-up firepower.

RockyMountainNavy, December 2023

Pony-sized wargame

Eurogame designers often criticize Ameritrash game designers for starting with theme over game mechanisms. In Blackhorse, Velicogna started with playing area as a design driver: “I wanted a compact game. So, I designed a company level game focused on actions that fit on a single 22″x 34″ map or half of it” (19.0 Designer’s Notes). The final 17″ x 22″ map for Blackhorse—and hence the game—is much smaller in scale as compared to other Fulda Gap games. In the Designer’s Notes, Velicogna states that one of the inspirations for Blackhorse was the wargame Less Than 60 Miles from Thin Red Line Games. Shown below is how the maps for those two games roughly compare.

The counters in Blackhorse represent mostly company-sized units fighting across a map with 1 km scale hexes over the course of turns representing three hours. The game scale of Blackhorse and the desire to keep the game small (or does the designer mean less complex?) results in a rule book that is just short of 25 complete pages of rules with the balance of the 40 page rule book being scenarios or Designer’s Notes. The challenge, of course, it to design a tight-yet-interesting game system that is adequately explained in the few pages available. That is the challenge Velicogna took upon themself with Blackhorse being the outcome.

The beat of Blackhorse

Rule 6.0 Command and Control Phase declares, “The heart of Blackhorse lies in its command system.” The rule goes on to explain:

At its core is a reverse command points system. Rather than a fixed number of actions that can be conducted each turn, the system allows theoretically unlimited activation of formations and units in a single turn. The downside is an ever-increasing risk of negative consequences, from minor mishaps to the complete shutdown of a formation as command and control is stressed and overloaded by combat.

6.0 Command and Control Phase

In Blackhorse, players alternate activating formations in The Orders Phase of the turn. Whenever a formation activates, The SNAFU Table is consulted as directed in rule 6.11 The SNAFU Table. The activating player rolls a d10 and consults the table, cross-referencing the roll with the color of the box (Green, Yellow, Orange, or Red) the command marker occupies. A few modifiers are considered: +2 if the headquarters (HQ) is disrupted, +1 if the formation is Lightly engaged (at least one unit conducted fire combat) or +2 if Heavily engaged (at least one unit in formation received enemy fire).¹ The result of The SNAFU Table can range from “No Effect” to “Finished.” As rule 7.0 Orders and the Orders Phase notes:

Units act on the map by being issue orders by their formation HQ. There is no fixed order cap or limitation. Units can act as many times in a turn as their owning player wishes, but the chance of SNAFU consequences rise with each new order. The more a formation HQ issues orders to its subordinate units, the more confusion increases and with it the chances that unwanted outcomes are generated.

7.0 Orders and the Orders Phase

At the end of a turn of Blackhorse, both players perform administrative actions which includes Command Recovery. In Command Recovery, players adjust the command marker of a formation “down” based on the Effectiveness Rating of the HQ. For example, the HQ counter for the U.S. 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (ACR) has an Effectiveness Rating of 7 in the Tactical Mode as compared to an Effectiveness Rating of 4 assigned to the Soviet 211th Tank Regiment.

In the Designer’s Notes Velicogna comments the “accumulating complexity command concept” er, “reverse command points” uh, “command friction” system² is an attempt to “stop players from doing impossible things or to reduce actions and reactions to a plausible level.” Velicogna goes on to state:

…I wanted to portray Clausewitz’s idea of resistance to action. As the Prussian Major General wrote, in war actions can be equated to the effort of a swimmer. The more you push, the more resistance water creates. The more orders you give, the more chance of confusion and chaos. Post WW2, more orders equal more stuff sent through the air, allowing interception, jamming, or allowing the enemy to triangulate your position and send some nasty things your way. So now, you have no artificial limits but overloading your comm system will have consequences.

19.0 Designer’s Notes

Hang onto that “overloading your comm system” thought as we will revisit that in a bit (no pun intended).

Old mare Blackhorse

As innovative the command system for Blackhorse is the balance of the game system is pretty much a mixture of tried and true game mechanisms.

Movement rules in Blackhorse are governed by the posture a unit is in. As described in rule 8.2 Movement Modes units can be TACTICAL (“sacrificing firepower and protection for increased mobility”), DEPLOYED (“unit assumes an extended combat formation emphasizing firepower and protection over mobility”) or March (“assuming column/road formation to benefit from roads”). The posture (or mode) of a unit also factors into combat with units in Tactical Mode getting a negative die roll modifier to hit.

Fire combat in Blackhorse uses the same general procedure for armor-piercing (AP) or high explosive (HE) attacks. Per 9.3 Armor Piercing (AP) Fire when attacking the armor/defense value of the defender is subtracted from the attack value to derive a Base Fire Value (BFV); when using 9.4 High Explosive (HE) Fire against soft targets, the modifier is terrain dependent. The modifiers are applied to reach a Final Fire Value (FFV). Players roll a d10 and if the result is equal to or less than the FFV the target is hit and effects determined by consulting the Combat Results Table. Assault Combat (movement and attack into adjacent hex) is also possible (see 11.0 Assault Combat).

Artillery units are abstracted to a great degree and not placed on the map (see 12.0 Artillery). Rules for Helicopters (13.0), Air Strikes (14.0), and Anti-Aircraft Fire (15.0) are also included and are abstracted yet simple incorporate. There are not optional or advanced rules in Blackhorse.

Blackhorse includes four scenarios and one campaign game. Alas, there is some errata needed to clarify some of the set up for scenarios. As some wargamers have pointed out elsewhere, the claim of “114 minutes to play a scenario” found on the website seems oddly specific and likely does not consider the campaign game.

Ponying up a tiny battle

It is also worthwhile to take some time to look at the physical aspects of Blackhorse. The title is the latest in Tiny Battle Publishing’s line of boxed games. Tiny Battle Publishing for the longest time sold mostly folio or magazine games but more recently moved to a boxed format. That said, other than the d10 die included in the box, there is no reason that Blackhorse could not be sold as a folio game. The design limits Velicogna mentioned before seemingly implies this title was first imagined as a folio game that was later promoted to boxed status.

Overall, my opinion of the components for Blackhorse is…mixed. The production quality of the components is generally good, but some of the design choices are underwhelming.

Rule Book. The rule book for Blackhorse is perhaps the weakest part of the entire package. Some of my concerns include:

• Note entries are printed in a very hard all-but-impossible to read font (way too light).
• Interior fluff art appears blown up from smaller files and shows pixelated edges; not a game-breaker but maybe not the professional image Tiny Battle Publishing wants to convey.
• Layout – For example, the header for rule 6.8 Soviet Forward Security Element (FSE) is in the wrong font and separate from the paragraph it appears in.
• Consistent style – Half of the rule book is laid out using case notation and half does not; for example 7.2 Order Definition does not use case notation for subordinate sections while in other cases level-three lines are in the larger blue headline font (for example, see 6.10.2 Headquarters Reconstitution) while yet other level-three rules are in simple bold (for example see 8.2.3 March Mode) all of which makes it more difficult to read than necessary.
• Proofread – For example, rule 17.0 Night Turns states “the following three effects occur” only to be followed by four bullets.
• “U.S. Cross Attachment” sheet on last printed page takes up top half of page in portrait mode; make this landscape and use whole page.
• Extra blank pages at end; use them for something!

Blackhorse could benefit from another proofreading pass. Take for example rule 10.3 Step Losses of Blackhorse. This two paragraph (nine sentences) rule personally took me way too long to figure out.

1. [First paragraph] “Combat units can have one to three steps.” – Note one TO three implying one step, two step, and three step units exist.
2. “Units with no back side (HQs, platoons, very small companies, and batteries) have only one step and are permanently eliminated after the first step loss.” – These are the one step units.
3. “Exception: HQs are reconstituted (see 6.9.2).” – So these one step units are not permanently eliminated.
4. “All other units have three steps.” – So there are no two step units meaning combat units have “one or three steps” not “one to three steps,” right?
5. [Second paragraph] “To record the loss of the first step simply flip the unit to it back side (white strip)” – So my unit suffers a three step loss; the first flips it…
6. “When the unit suffers a second step loss, the unit is removed from the map and placed in its formation reorganizing box.” – To continue the example from above the second of three hits removes it from the map…
7. “Waiting for reorganization, repair, and refit.” – A proofreader should have caught this dangling sentence that is part of the previous.
8. “If the unit suffers a third step loss it is completely eliminated and simply removed from the map.” – But it is already off the map according to the sentence above, right? First step loss – flip. Second step loss – remove from map.
9. “This third step loss can only happen if a full-strength unit suffers three step losses in a single fire resolution or an already reduced unit suffers two additional step losses.” – I think the true intention of the rule, as revealed in the last sentence, is that all damage is “assessed” at once and the final disposition of the unit—reduced with one step loss, moved to formation reorganizing box for a single step loss on a reduced unit, or permanently removed if three step losses are scored on a full strength unit or two step losses are scored on a reduced on map unit —is then determined. But that is not how a sequential reading of sentences 5, 6+7, and 8 read. If the rule as written is followed, the only way to eliminate a unit is to reduce a one-step unit or score three hits on a full strength unit as it is impossible to score a hit on a unit in the reorganizing box. Am I overthinking it or is the rule really that unclear?

Counters. I like clipping the corners of my counters. The counters in Blackhorse—already a bit on the small side at 5/8″—have info very close to the edges. Indeed, when punched out some of the information goes right up to (if not a bit over) the edge of the counters. Nothing that prevents play but it doesn’t look as great as it could. In the Designer’s Notes, Velicogna comments that, “At first glance Blackhorse looks complex with counters filled with numbers and colors, but we have taken a lot of care to strike a balance between detail and playability.” Please tell me that care also included collaborating with the graphics artist and publisher on layout and proofing because the final result raises some doubt in my mind.

When I went to punch out the counters of Blackhorse I found a different issue—tuft edges. Traditionally, die cut cardboard counters are punched along the edges leaving attachment points to the sprue at the corners. When the counters are punched out one often get tufted corners; hence the desire of some wargamers to round the corners of their counters. In Blackhorse, the counters attach to the sprue along the edge of the counter. When punched out, the tuft is found along the bottom and top edge where no corner rounding helps. In an effort to avoid tufted edges I used my circular cutter to carefully cut out the counters. The process, admittedly, likely took less time that corner punching but it is also not nearly as therapeutic.

Player Aids. Blackhorse comes with four player aids; two copies of the full-page Blackhorse Tables card (printed front and back) and separate single-sided half-sheet Formation Status Card for the U.S. and Soviet players. Once again I have concerns about font selections as some are a bit difficult to read with some crispness of font edges seemingly lost when printed. I also don’t understand why the Formation Status Cards are half-sized; in play the boxes can quickly get crowded whereas as full-sheet card would have room.³ While the list of orders is on the card, the basic Sequence of Play (SoP) with key phases is not. Maybe that is fine as the SoP has only four phases, but having the SoP on the Player Aid would be helpful to remember some rules like the initiative player goes second in the Command Phase and the sub-elements of the Recovery and Clean-Up Phase. There is also a disconnect in verbiage between the rule book and the player aid when it comes to the command track on the Formation Status Card. In the rule book movement along the command track is stated as “up” or “down” which directly implies the track should be a single row or column (vertical or horizontal arrangement) of boxes. Formation Status Cards, however, use a track that combines left-right and up-down progression. This disconnect between words written in the rule book and graphics for the game is admittedly small but nonetheless emblematic of a seemingly larger issue where it appears the designer and whoever laid out the player aid worked from two different drafts of the rules which were never rectified against each other.

Map Board. The map board in Blackhorse is in many ways “average.” Thankfully, it doesn’t try to be photo realistic but instead uses what I term “reasonable abstractions of terrain.” Reasonable, but not without a few nagging issues. For example, per 9.2 Line Sight (LOS), ” A hill is defined as a hex with a triangle.” This sentence follows an “Important Note” for experienced players:

Important Note: experienced players may be confused by the presence of contour lines on the map. They are not hills. They offer a better idea of the layout of the terrain, but have no game function.

9.2 Line of Sight (LOS)

Unfortunately, those contour lines are most visible in clear hexes where they make no difference. When I look at the map, I see the contour lines clearly but the small triangle for hills are easy to get lost. The Terrain Effects Chart also seems incomplete when hills are considered; there is an entry for Clear, Hill, Woods, and Wooded Hill. There is no entry for a Village with a hill like hex 1415 which contains the village Dieterhausen and Hill 459. From a Line of Sight perspective it doesn’t matter as both villages and hills block line of sight. From a combat perspective, however, if a clear hill (or wooded hill) costs more to move through and has different AP or HE modifiers than clear/woods, logically a village hill should have different modifiers than a village.

Box Cover. The box cover art of Blackhorse is, frankly, a bit of a puzzler for me. While the art is nice (I like it!) it doesn’t go with the game title. With a name like Blackhorse, obviously a homage to the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, I kinda expected to see a unit photo or something that clearly connects to the 11th. Instead we have…Soviets. Why?

Commanding first rodeo

While it might be easy to brand the rule book as one better destined for a glue factory, once you play Blackhorse the innovation of the core game mechanism begins to shine. Admittedly, setting up the first scenario requires some errata but once game play starts the rules tend to be intuitive and turns pass fairly quickly. Playing Blackhorse quickly taught me several key lessons that I didn’t really see when reading the rules but are (strongly) delivered through play.

Command Range. Units outside of the Command Range of their HQ are “out of command” and limited to reaction fire or Movement orders (see 6.6 Command Range). In Scenario 1 the 11th ACR HQ sets up well away from the border in barracks while two companies are in forward screening positions near the frontier. In game turn 1 (and 2?) the American player must take smart reaction fire opportunities while the screening elements fall back at the same time the garrison troops rush forward. The Soviet player has two HQ, a Forward Support Element (FSE) HQ and the Regimental HQ. The FSE HQ is limited to a range of 1 in Tactical or Deployed Mode. The FSE can push ahead but if units become separated they will likely become well acquainted with the full meaning of “alone and unafraid.”

Command Recovery. At the end of a turn in the Recovery and Clean-Up Phase formations recover command capacity based on their HQ Effectiveness. This is where the superior command and control of the U.S. is most easily seen with the 11th ACR HQ at an effectiveness of seven (7) compared to the Soviet 211th Tank Regiment rating of four (4). In MCDP-1 terms, the U.S. shakes off friction at nearly twice the rate the Soviets can.

Maneuver Warfare. Though not specifically stated, I see Blackhorse is a wargame of maneuver warfare. The focus of the game in Blackhorse is not simply moving to destroy the enemy, but posturing your units to be ready to execute the right orders when needed while preventing the enemy from doing the same.

Maneuver warfare is a warfighting philosophy that seeks to shatter the enemy’s cohesion through a variety of rapid, focused, and unexpected actions which create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation with which the enemy cannot cope.

MCDP-1 Warfighting, 4-4 (USMC, 2018)

Maneuver warfare, at the simplest level, is sometime portrayed as ‘move and fire’ or ‘fire and move.’ There are two orders in Blackhorse that enable players to execute those actions: Fire Combat and Movement. Players can use those two orders to ‘move then fire’ or ‘fire then move’ as long as they accept a slower operational tempo as it takes two orders/activations (and the risk of two SNAFU rolls) to execute the two orders sequentially. If players want to execute a combined fire/move action at a faster tempo then other order options are available but each comes with a price.

• Assault allows fire and move but the units must be adjacent to an enemy.
• Coordination allows players to attempt to issue two orders (to the same or different formation) in the activation instead of one; a die roll is required that, if failed, has a greater chance of SNAFU for the second order.
• Engage allows units to ‘fire and move’ or ‘move and fire’ but can only be issued to units in Deployed (DEP) mode which is better when firing (no negative die roll modifier per 9.3.1 AP Fire Modifiers or 9.4.2 HE Fire Modifiers) but granting only a Movement Allowance of “1” (8.2.1 Deployed Mode (DEP).

I argue that Velicogna’s “command friction” system in Blackhorse represents more than just jammed communications as stated in the Designer’s Notes. The U.S. Marine Corps in their seminal publication, Marine Corps Doctrine Publication-1 Warfighting talks about friction this way:

Portrayed as a clash between two opposing wills, war appears a simple enterprise. In practice, the conduct of war becomes extremely difficult because of the countless factors that impinge on it. These factors collectively have been called friction, which Clausewitz described as “the force that makes the apparently easy so difficult.” Friction is the force that resists all action and saps energy. It makes the simple difficult and the difficult seemingly impossible.

The very essence of war as a clash between opposed wills creates friction. In this dynamic environment of interacting forces, friction abounds.

Friction may be mental, as in indecision over a course of action. It may be physical, as in effective enemy fire or a terrain obstacle that must be overcome. Friction may be external, imposed by enemy action, the terrain, weather, or mere chance. Friction may be self-induced, caused by such factors as lack of a clearly defined goal, lack of coordination, unclear or complicated plans, complex task organizations or command relationships, or complicated technologies. Whatever form it takes, because war is a human enterprise, friction will always have a psychological as well as a physical impact.

While we should attempt to minimize self-induced friction, the greater requirement is to fight effectively despite the existence of friction. One essential means to overcome friction is the will; we prevail over friction through persistent strength of mind and spirit. While striving ourselves to overcome the effects of friction, we must attempt at the same time to raise our enemy’s friction to a level that weakens their ability to fight.

MCDP-1 Warfighting, 1-5 to 1-6 (USMC, 2018)

The USMC definition of friction seems to me to be the friction seen in Blackhorse. Further, the command friction system designed by Velicogna does not “stop players from doing impossible things or to reduce actions and reactions to a plausible level” but rather challenges players to rapidly adapt to changing battlefield circumstances and exploit opportunities as they happen. Blackhorse seems to be Velicogna’s attempt to show how, even in the Cold War, the 11th U.S. Army was trying to execute maneuver warfare the Marine Corps way:

As part of our philosophy of command, we must recognize that war is inherently disorderly, uncertain, dynamic, and dominated by friction. Moreover, maneuver warfare, with its emphasis on speed and initiative, is by nature a particularly disorderly style of war. The conditions ripe for exploitation are normally also very disorderly. For commanders to try to gain certainty as a basis for actions, maintain positive control of events at all times, or dictate events to fit their plans is to deny the nature of war. We must therefore be prepared to cope—even better, to thrive—in an environment of chaos, uncertainty, constant change, and friction. If we can come to terms with those conditions and thereby limit their debilitating effects, we can use them as a weapon against a foe who does not cope as well.

In practical terms, this means that we must not strive for certainty before we act, for in so doing we will surrender the initiative and pass up opportunities. We must not try to maintain excessive control over subordinates since this will necessarily slow our tempo and inhibit initiative. We must not attempt to impose precise order on the events of combat since this leads to a formularistic approach to war. We must be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances and exploit opportunities as they arise, rather than adhering insistently to predetermined plans that have outlived their usefulness.

MCDP-1 Warfighting, 4-11 to 4-12 (USMC, 2018)

Unbridled Blackhorse

I want to be clear about something here. Although I criticize Blackhorse above I really like the game. The fact I have delved deeper into Blackhorse than most games I acquired this year should be indicative that I really like this game, warts and all. The core game mechanism, whether you want to call it the “accumulating complexity command concept” or “reverse command points” or “command friction” system, is very interesting to me and makes playing Blackhorse welcomingly different than many other wargames produced this year. Yes, I wish the presentation was better, but I do not feel I was cheated out of my investment. I look forward not only to the tantalizing potential of more Cold War Gone Hot wargames using the Blackhorse game system, but also the progression of Tiny Battle Publishing as they strive to become a stronger wargame publisher moving beyond smaller folio games into the larger, more complex production of boxed games.

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1. Edit 19 Dec – The +1/+2 modifers found on The SNAFU Table are incorrect; by the counters and rule book the modifers are +2 if Lightly engaged or +2 AND Cost x2 if Heavily engaged. Sigh… ↩︎
2. The multiple names are, frankly, confusing. My recommendation to any designer or publisher is that, if this really is your core game mechanism, PICK ONE NAME and consistently use it like a marketing slogan! ↩︎
3. Wondering what the cost trade-off between the four blank pages in the rule book and two full-sheet Formation Status Cards would be… ↩︎

Feature image courtesy RMN

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