There has been some discussion on the web about multiple board scenarios for Battle Cry. Most of this discussion concerns double board layouts. In fact Richard Borg, the designer of Battle Cry, has stated himself that he has designed an expansion for the game that includes double board scenarios, an insert to join the two boards, more single board scenarios and rules for multiple players as well. Hasbro is apparently not interested in publishing the product at this time. So this page contains info and resources that should be helpful to you in designing and setting up your own multi-board (and single-board) scenarios. Since there is the possibility of pending releases of the Ancients and Napoleonic versions of Richard Borg's system, hopefully these layouts will work for multiple board scenarios for those games as well. Here the grunt work of the "geometrics" is done for you. If you design any scenarios, please share them with the rest of the Battle Cry player community.

See my double-board Gettysburg scenario. This prints out on two letter sized pages (note, the file is at 144 dpi for print quality and may appear to be too big when viewed in your browser).

These are to use when designing your scenarios. You can print each sheet on one letter sized page. Sheet 1 is for a single standard Battle Cry board. The other sheets are to help in designing scenarios for various multi-board set-ups (see The Board Layouts section below). Hexes shown in red represent the hexes on the inserts that will be needed to span the gaps between the boards (see The Inserts section below).

The layouts show the configuration of multi-board scenarios and which scenario sheets to use when designing them. The green number corresponds to the blank scenario sheet number above. The layouts also show where the inserts go. There are two kinds of inserts, one shown in blue and the other shown in red. But all these "insert hexes" are shown in red on the scenario sheets. Of course you don't have to use as many boards as depicted in these layouts. You could just use two boards from the first layout, or four boards from the second layout. It's my understanding that Richard Borg's standard double-board configuration would consist of boards #1 and the first #2 from the second layout below.

You'll need to make inserts to span the gaps between the boards in multi-board sets ups. These inserts will be part of the game's playing area. In the layouts above, these inserts are shown in blue and red. Note, in the scenario sheets these hexes are all shown in red. Making the inserts in these modular pieces has some very nice advantages; smaller file download, each insert will print on one letter sized page, they'll fit in the Battle Cry box, less magnification of error on the board, no waste since you only make what you need and only add what you need later. Click on the pictures below to download them (note, these files are at 144 dpi for print quality and may appear to be too big when viewed in your browser).
 
 

There are two parts to this. First, you need to make the inserts themselves. Download the two insert files above and print out as many as you need. Get them laminated (or use clear contact paper) and/or mount them on some sort of rigid, thin card stock.

If you're not that particular about the artwork, you can also make the inserts simply by cutting them out of some kind of brown/tan card stock or matte board, using a terrain tile to help you trace the hex outlines onto the insert.

Secondly, we need to address the gaps between the boards. Each insert will be placed adjacent to the last row of hexes of the boards on either side of it. For the spacing to work out, this means the boards will be about 2 and 3/4 inches apart. So I recommend making spacers to fill this gap. The spacers will rest on the table, between the boards, and the boards will butt right up to the spacer on either side of it. This will keep the boards stable and give the inserts something to rest on, keeping the playing pieces stable as well. I use artist board which is exactly the same thickness as the playing boards and can be bought at craft/art supply stores. This is thick stuff and is difficult to cut, but craft and framing stores can do the cutting for you. The dimensions are 14 inches long by 2 and 3/4 inches wide by 3/32 of an inch thick. See the figures below to get an idea of how to place them and how many you'll need. Note, I did not include pictures for every possible layout below, just enough to give you the idea.

The inserts and the spacers should not be glued together permanently. You need flexibility for different layouts and you may need to fudge the placement a little depending on the variances of the boards' margins created at the factory. Just use something tacky to adhere the inserts in place to the spacers. There is a Scotch/3M glue stick product called "restickable adhesive" that only applies the same amount of tackiness as 3M's Post-It notes.

Note, with the first layout below, the 14 inch spacer is a little short. This is not really a problem as there is plenty of overlap between the spacer and the two end inserts resting on top of it. But if you want, you can make additional spacers 6 inches long (still 2 and 3/4 inches wide) to take up the extra space. You would only need one of these for the first layout below, two if you extended it to be three boards wide. No 6 inch spacers are needed for the other layouts.
 
 

If you use my modular approach to the inserts with the 14 inch spacers, everything for double-board scenarios, including two copies of the game, fits in one box. I took the lower cardboard shelf out of one box. I then put the plastic tray in the bottom. In the plastic tray goes all the components from both copies of the game except the figures. Above the plastic tray goes both game boards, then the rules. Then I took the cardboard shelf and taped the corners together. That goes in the box, open side up. Inside the shelf go the inserts and all the figuress. It all fits nicely and has a nice heft to it. How's that for thinking IN-side the box?

One aspect about making multi-board scenarios is that the size of the playing area can significantly increase the time involved to move the units around. If you like games that are longer to develop, you wouldn't consider this a problem. Otherwise, some variant rules might be in order here, to be used at the discretion of the gamer of course. One idea is to use playing cards as command cards. The number on the card being the number of units ordered. The idea being that the deck would be customizable. You could use whatever series of numbers you needed depending on the number of units in the scenario and how fast you wanted the game to progress. Use the 3's thru the 6's, or the 5's thru the 8's, etc. The more higher numbered cards you use, the more units get moved per turn and the faster the game progresses. You could use the card suits to designate battlefield sections (the fourth suit would be for all sections). You could also eliminate the battlefield sections altogether, allowing the players to move the units of their choice from the entire battlefield. You could still use the special order cards along with the playing cards. Use two stacks. Remove all the cards that order units by section from the Battle Cry deck. Determine the number of each type of card to be held by each player. Draw from the special orders deck to replace one that's been played and draw from the playing card deck when one of those is played. There are playing cards with historical content. These would be a nice touch if you use this concept and could spawn new ideas for ways to use playing cards. Be sure to check out the following link. Once you get there, look at the "games" catalog, as well as the "playing cards" catalog.