CCN - a belated afterthought

This post is primarily one for us CCN nerds, so may be of even less interest than usual to anyone who is not an enthusiast...

Back in July, I did a short write-up of an encounter battle fought using Commands & Colors (CCN) rules. The scenario was a bit of an experiment, and gave an entertaining, if lengthy, game. I am thinking about running another such game, so have been re-reading the scenario add-on rules from that occasion, and I can see the need for a small-but-significant change.

In the original, after an initial deployment allowance on the first turn, the scenario rules required units and leaders to come onto the field only as cued by the play of the CCN Command Cards, which works fine (though it makes the game very challenging). This section of the scenario rules stated:

First move (French first) – place up to 4 units/leaders on the field, anywhere up to 5 hexes from your own baseline, but not within 2 hexes of the enemy.

Thereafter – units may only be brought onto the table as a result of activation by Command Card play. Leaders may not arrive already attached to a unit. Infantry may not arrive in square.

With the benefit of hindsight (and 3 months later, this is real history), the bit about Leaders not being attached on arrival was a bad mistake. Given a limited allocation of arrivals, since the Command Cards seldom do one any favours, we should not have been surprised to find that, given a straight choice between bringing on a Leader or a fighting unit, a stressed general would almost invariably go for a unit. The Leaders thus arrived late or never, and the lack of them distorted the game a little.

In future plays of this type of scenario, I'll change it so that Leaders are allowed to arrive already attached to units, which means they move free, without the expenditure of a separate order (as a passenger, almost!) until such time as they get a specific order to leave the unit. This simplifies the game a little, but should give a little more sense to the action.