For some months I’ve been working on my own Fantasy rulebook and setting designed ideally for mass battles.
Over the coming weeks I’ll be using this series to explore the development of the setting, factions, mechanics, and themes behind the game. Some articles will dive into rules and battlefield systems. Others will focus entirely on lore, cultures, or narrative concepts.
Previous Articles
- Orders & Omens: A World in Balance
- Orders & Omens: The Orcs
- Orders & Omens: The Stone-Kin
- Orders & Omens: Humanity and the Faith of Memory
One of the things I’ve found while playing fantasy wargames was that battles always felt strangely perfect.
Not bad, or unrealistic in the sense of dragons or magic existing. But perfect in that players know exactly where the enemy units are deployed. Armies are able to react instantly to changing circumstances and orders are obeyed without hesitation. Generals somehow posses complete knowledge of the battlefield and of everything happening at any given moment.
So they can feel less like commanding armies and more like you’re playing a game of chess.
This isn’t intended as a criticism, games often aim for that style of tactical clarity. But when I was developing Orders & Omens, I kept asking myself how I could replicate what a real battlefield would feel like to a general.
It wouldn’t be perfect, or predictable, but uncertain.
The Fog of War
Throughout history commanders have rarely (if ever) possessed complete information of their battlefield. Hilltops may hide an enemy reserve, scouts may fail to report approaching cavalry or a forest might conceal an ambush.
Yet in many wargames, both players possess complete awareness from the beginning. You know exactly what your opponent brought and exactly where they’ve placed their units. That certainty removes something I’ve found compelling in warfare… the uncertainty.
So one of the ideas around Orders & Omens is hidden deployment. Rather than immediately revealing everything, armies begin battles concealed behind facedown regiment markers. Your opponent may know something waits beyond the hill, but they won’t necessarily know what. Could it be heavy cavalry, militia or perhaps nothing at all? So reconnaissance becomes important, and scouting matters.
Orders, Not Omniscience
Another bug bear in wargames was how commanders often feel god like. Need an infantry unit to pivot, its done. Need reinforcements? Here they are. Need troops on the other side of the battlefield to change their plans. No problem.
Armies are not extensions of their commander’s mind. Usually they are collections of frightened soldiers and officers without all the information, and wishing they were somewhere else at that moment.
In Orders & Omens, commanders issue Strategic Orders that must physically travel across the battlefield represented by messenger miniatures. Sometimes those messengers arrive, sometimes they may be captured. Sometimes the battlefield could change before the messenger arrives making the orders useless.
I want players to feel less like an all knowing god and more like commanders struggling to control an actual battle in history. Because battles rarely go to plan.
Controlled Chaos
At the same time though, I don’t want the uncertainty to become frustration. The game still has to feel fun. So while Orders & Omens introduces battlefield friction, it also aims to keep the turns flowing.
Units activate through a chip-based system that introduces unpredictability without removing player agency entirely. Players often won’t be waiting half an hour while their opponent plays through their entire armies movement, shooting and combat.
You’ll see opportunities present themselves that could disappear before you react.
Why This Matters
I wanted the mechanics of Orders & Omens to support the sort of stories I imagine. Desperate commanders committing their reserves too late, a hidden flanking force appearing unexpectedly. Victories that feel earned through strategy and planning. Or disasters that feel memorable.
This should mean that battles are less like solving a puzzle and more like two people telling a story together.
Next Week
I’ll possibly explore the role of the Elves, and why maintaining the balance of the world may demand terrible things.
