Blitzkrieg Commander 4th Edition

After playing Future War Commander for more then a decade now in 6mm, Nemesis and I decided to (finally) get the historical version as well.

And the 4th edition had just been brought out this year.

Now, over those years, the Commander series has been acquired by Pendraken and the BKC book has had an overhaul compared to the old books.  Three things immediatly caught my eye flicking through the book after receiving it.

1. The paper has changed.  It seems thinner but glossier then the older editions of the books.  While this makes it look a lot more "high end" then the older ones, I doubt it will stand the time just as well from constant flicking through pages.

2. It is sleeker in appearance, with a lot of colour pictures and "decorated sections" in the rules, like for example the scenarios, who used to be just black and white blocks of text in the old ones.

3. It doesn't come with the handy cardboard summary sheet.  There is a free download for it though on the website, so not to bad, but it was a handy tool for your games.

Taking a look at the book and rules themselves, these are easily caught up with if your familiar with the FWC rules, and the book follows the same structure.  Perhaps the biggest differences are the "scheduled phase" whee pre-planned artillery barrages and airstrikes occur in, and the fact all the profiles have both an AT and AP value for their shooting.  That is definitly an improvement over the old # and * system of the old ones.

The same goes for the special rules.  They are still listed in the notes, but instead of being repeated after each army list, they just are all put together in the beginning of the army list section.

Talking those lists, there are 44 in total, and of course the big nations have multiple lists, each for a different theatre and often period of the war.  But for pick up games, every list can play every list, though if you want to play "more or less accurately", not only do you have the theatre then, but also some units that can't be used before or after a certain date in that particular list as units phased out or brought in as reinforcements.

Now, Nemesis has his eyes on Germans, Russians and Japanese forces, but I'll probably be sticking to my, oh suprise, beloved Italians for the system.  And considering how cheap 6mm is (0.65 GBP for a tank for example at Heroics and Ros) I'll probably end up with a force from EVERY Italian list in the book...

The book definitly looks the deal flicking through it, and a more in depth reading of the book will be taking place very soonish (as I plan to grab some forces at Crisis in a few weeks) but armed with the knowledge of playing the sci-fi variant of them there shouldn't be to much problems in getting those first games out and rather smoothly running.

A good purchase for sure, and one that will be bringing some hopefully fun games to the table!