General Orders: World War II - How To Play

[Music] hi and welcome to watch it played my name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the two-player game general orders World War II designed by David Thompson and Trevor Benjamin and published by Osprey games who helped sponsor this video here you'll be facing off against another General as you each plan your attacks against a key battle site crucial to the outcome of the war so rally your troops call it a bomber or two and join me at the table as we learn how to play to set up place the double-sided game board in the center of the play area with the players seated at either of these ends both sides of the board will feature a unique Battlefield with slightly different rules and will learn the unique aspects of this island side later but we'll set up and learn this Alpine side first this side of the board will be for the yellow player and this will be for the blue as shown by these matching colored headquarters icons on those related ends nearby I also set this support board with its colored ends facing their related players so blue here and yellow here this is also double-sided so flip it to this side when playing the Alpine map these are the area bonus tokens and you randomly Place one onto each of these outline spaces of the board until they're all filled in when you're done you should have two of them left over which you'll just return to the Box each player now collects one of these player AIDS and what are known as The Troop and Commander tokens in their color you'll also find aircraft pieces but these aren't used when playing on the Alpine board so you can return them to the box set four of your commander tokens out of play next to this standby area on your side of the support board the remaining five commanders you'll keep in front of yourself along with all of your troops in an area known as your reserve the board is divided into a series of land areas which might be as small as a single hex or larger like these ones that we're seeing here look for any with dots in your color and place that number of troops into those spaces for example three troops would go here and you can stack them or spread them out within that space as you like it would look like this when both players are done now find the deck of operation cards which have this back and remove any with this palm tree symbol in their top right hand corner these are only used when playing on the island side of the board the rest you'll Shuffle into a face down deck nearby along with the games for dice then find this double-sided round marker and flip it to a random side setting it with that side face up onto this round one space of the support board and that's the setup in general orders World War II players will take turns resolving actions that will help them add and move troops around the board in an effort to take over and control spaces and win battles against their opponent over the course of four rounds when you have one or more of your troops in a space you are said to control that space so right now blue controls these one two three four spaces you'll notice there are several spaces marked with various numbers of stars and the player who controls the most stars after the four rounds of the game will win but the game could end before that if a player loses control of their headquarters space which is the one that has this HQ icon attached to it if you lose control of your headquarters you lose the game as mentioned the game is played over four rounds and during a round players will take turns starting with the person whose color is currently face up on this token so blue in this case that player will deploy one of the commanders they have in their Reserve to an action which are these smaller hex symbols and then they resolve the effect of the symbol they just covered we'll learn how these actions work in a moment but when they're done the next player assigns one of their commanders to a hex icon and resolves it now each of these action icons can only have one Commander assigned to it but two commanders can be in the the same space as long as they're each set on their own action icon players will take turns going back and forth assigning one Commander at a time from their Reserve until a player passes once you run out of commanders in your reserve you must pass and remember you don't have access to the four commanders in your standby area not yet now you can pass while you still have commanders in your reserve but if you do that you won't take any more actions that round and then your opponent will just continue placing commanders until they run out or they decide to pass all right before we start learning the various actions there's one very important concept we have to understand and that concept is called being in Supply a space you control which again is any space that you have troops in is considered to be in Supply if you can trace a path through connected spaces that you control all the way back to your headquarters which again is the space marked with this HQ icon so for example if we had pieces here they are in Supply because we can trace a path through these connected spaces back to our HQ however let's say that these troops weren't in this space the piece in this space is now not in Supply because there's no connected path of spaces we control back to our HQ we'll see why being in Supply matters as we start learning the various actions which we're going to do right now you'll find all the action symbols and their names listed on your player reference and let's go through them together starting with the advanced action to a sign a commander to an advanced action you can't already have your own troops in that space so blue can't assign a commander to this Advance action because it already has troops there but you can advance into a space with an opponent's troops however there is one other requirement at least one space adjacent to the assigned Commander must be in your control and in the supply so I could assign my commander to this Advance action because I don't control this space already and it's adjacent to a space I do control that's in Supply after assigning your commander you move as many of your in-supply troops as you like from adjacent spaces so they can come from more than one space as long as they're adjacent Let's Pretend again for this example that maybe we already had troops here although these are adjacent to the space where we assign the commander they will not be able to advance into this space because they're not in Supply the troops here are and we can again Advance as many of these as we like into the targeted space base as long as we leave at least one troop behind in each space that we're moving from as you might be picking up being in Supply is very important and after advancing if you're now in a space with an opponent's troops you must resolve a conflict let's say our board looked like this and the blue player had just Advanced into this space with four of their troops where the yellow Defender already had two at the start of any conflict the defending player yellow in this case rolls one die and for each burst symbol they remove one of the attackers troops each die has one blank side one with two bursts and the rest all have a single burst let's say the yellow player rolled a One removing one of Blue's troops removed troops always go back to their own player's Reserve with the defense role resolved both players now each remove one troop simultaneously until at least one player has no more troops left in that space so these two might go and then these two and now we stop the conflict is over and now blue controls this space let's say instead after the defense role both players had had the same number of troops in the space in a case like that they'd all end up removed and now no one would control the space but either way notice that neither player can advance into this space during this round because the advanced action for this space is already covered up by Blues Commander there are other ways to get into a space as we'll see but I should mention first that after resolving an advance or any of the actions that we're going to learn later no space can have more than five of a player's troops in it if one does the player must return troops from that space back to their Reserve until it only has five there now you can have more than five during the action you could for example Advance eight troops into a space and then resolve a conflict with them but once the action is over if you then have over five troops there you must return as many as necessary to your reserve to get back down to five troops in that space with that understood let's move on to the para drop action you can only assign a commander to the paradrop icon in your player color which for blue is here and the space with this action must be under your control and in Supply if it is you assign your commander to the action and then pick any space on the map as the target for the drop no matter what troops or commanders might be there the only exception is you may not pick your opponent's headquarters or any space with this no para drop symbol with a Target pick let's say we chose here you then add two troops from your reserve to that location and both must go into the same space you can't split them up and if your chosen space has an opponent's troops you resolve a conflict as we explained previously keep in mind the space you pick doesn't have to be in Supply but if it isn't that might be less useful for you though you may come up with clever reasons to do this while playing just remember though after resolving this or any other action if you have more than five troops in a space discard down to five all right next let's learn how to take this barrage action this will require assigning a commander to the barrage icon in your color while you control its space and have it in Supply you then pick any space up to three connected areas away as your target for example from here I could Target this space as it's one two three connected spaces away but you can also Target closer spaces as well I couldn't Target this space because it's one two three four spaces away once you have your target picked you then roll two dice and return troops to their owner's Reserve from that space equal to the bursts rolled and in case it's not clear you can only barrage a space with enemy troops not your own this brings us to the next action we're going to discuss reinforcing unlike other actions this is taken by placing one of your commanders from your reserve onto one of these two spots of the support board however during a round each player may only take one reinforce action so if I go here I can't later go here whichever one of these you choose you then take the related number of troops from your reserve six in this case and then you add them to any combination of spaces that you control that are in Supply keeping in mind that you cannot end your turn with more than five troops in any one space I should also mention if your reserve runs out of troops during an action where you would need more you may choose to return troops from any spaces on the board back to your reserve even ones that aren't in Supply up to the amount that you are trying to place so then you can place them as long as when taking those troops back you don't take the last troop from a space that it's in this brings us to The Last Action we have to explain planning this is taken by adding a commander to one one of these two planning spaces of the support board and after claiming one of these you can't take the other plan action that round in this way each player can take at most one reinforce action and one plan action when you're resolving this action you draw two cards from the top of the operation deck and add them to your hand you can always look at your own cards but keep them a secret from the other player if a player instead takes this plan action they only draw a single operation card but then if and only if this token is showing their opponent's color they flip it over to their color otherwise they just leave it as it is flipping to a new color here changes nothing for now but we'll see what this affects later and those are all the actions a commander can resolve however there are also ways to improve the actions that you're taking if you have in-supply troops on a space with either a bonus token or the bonus that's printed directly on the board then you gain those related benefits for example by controlling this bonus it lets you roll one extra die when performing The Barrage action all bonuses are explained on the other side of your player Aid so refer to this when playing but I do want to explain the signal unit when you control that bonus within Supply troops you take a commander from your standby area and add it to your reserve allowing you to place it during this and future rounds however if you lose control of a space with a bonus or if the troops there are no longer in Supply the effect of that bonus ends for you and in the case of this signal unit bonus you must immediately return a commander from your reserve back to your standby area and if you had no commanders left here to return you must instead take one from the board and return it to the standby area as I mentioned all the rest of the bonuses are explained in detail on your player Aid so we won't go over them here but feel free to pause the video if you'd like to look them over and this brings us to the last last option we have to explain when taking in action playing Operation cards remember you take the plan action to draw these and there's no limit to how many you can have in your hand every operation card will have an area showing a Time icon which tells you when the card can be played in this case when you're performing The Barrage action so if I was resolving a barrage action I could reveal this card from my hand to play it you'll then find in this area the effect that is resolved in this case you roll two extra dice during the barrage and keep in mind while there's no limit to the number of operations you can play during a turn you cannot play the same operation more than once during a turn it's even possible that a combination of effects would allow you to roll more than four dice now the game only comes with four but you just roll those record the results and then roll two more you'll also find that operations have an icon in this corner that reminds you of when the card can be played if it's black it must be played on a turn that you're taking but if it's red you'll notice its timing condition relates to an action your opponent is taking so when you're holding a red operation and your opponent fulfills its required condition you can if you want interrupt and play the related card to resolve its effect at that time every operation also has this symbol at the bottom which means that anytime you roll the dice you can spend an operation card ignoring its regular effect to instead re-roll but you must re-roll all of the dice that you just rolled and here again you can spend as many operation cards as you like in order to re-roll as many times as you like but whether you're re-rolling or resolving a card's unique effect after it's used you set it face up into a shared discard pile operation cards may also give you access to the extra commanders in your standby area but we're not going to go through each of the cards in this video as how they work as explained directly on them but with that you now know how to resolve a commander and you and your opponent will go back and forth assigning and resolving one at a time until either you run out of commanders or you decide to pass and remember once you pass you can't assign more commanders but your opponent will continue to until either they pass or run out of commanders but even if you do pass you can still play Operation cards during your opponent's turn if they would apply once both players have passed they each take all the commanders that they had played back into their Reserve now if any of the players had played one of these Blitz commands they'll have extra commanders in play from its effect and those are returned to the standby area either way you then Advance the round marker one space and the player whose color is showing on it places a commander first in the next round after the end of the fourth round there are no more spaces for the marker to advance to so the game ends remember if a player ever loses control of their own headquarters their opponent immediately wins otherwise after four rounds you check to see who has the most victory points you earn a victory point for every Star in a space that you control that is also in Supply so for example I'd earn these two points and the point here but not these two points because although I have a troop here this troop isn't in Supply either way the player with the most points wins in the case of a tie that tied player with their color face up on the round marker wins and that's how you play the Alpine side of the board so now let's quickly look at the changes when playing on the island side during setup you'll remove any operations with this Alpine icon in their top right hand corner but include any with this island icon also flip the support board to this side and remove this air control bonus from those that will be randomly placed on the board each player will collect the airplane pieces in their color and keep them in their Reserve along with their troops you'll also notice this side of the board includes five circular areas known as air zones around the outside edge some will have plain icons showing the plain colors that should start in those zones so that when you're done setting up the board should look like this planes will never be placed into the hex shaped spaces of the board they will only be placed and move between the air zones but notice that each Air Zone matches the color of an outline group of spaces on the board for example this green zone matches the outline of these two spaces this means thematically the planes here are actually flying in the air above this area when you have planes in an air zone you control that zone and they are in Supply if you can trace a connected path of colored zones not spaces but full colored zones back to your headquarters for example let's just change this slightly and say we had blue planes here and here and now let's check to see if these blue planes are in Supply as we saw they're in this green outlined area so that means they're flying in this Zone in here and to be in Supply they must control a path of connected air zones back to their headquarters which is here in this Blue Zone they do have planes in this connected orange Zone and here in this Blue Zone which represents their headquarters so they can trace a path from the green to the orange to the blue headquarters zone so that means these planes are in Supply if they didn't have planes here these wouldn't be connected through air zones back to the headquarters so these wouldn't be in Supply just keep in mind if you lose control of the Air Zone that covers your headquarters you don't lose the game that still only happens if you lose control of your land headquarters space on the island side of the board you gain access to some new actions for your commanders like this one for flying which works just like advancing except it moves planes not troops so again you can't control the airspace you want to fly into but the space you're flying from must be adjacent to it and in Supply you then add your commander to the targeted space and can fly as many planes as you like from adjacent in Supply Air zones to the Target Zone leaving at least one behind in each then you resolve a conflict in the Target Zone if it has enemy planes plane conflicts work just like troop conflicts except the planes have wings otherwise it's the exact same this is the bomb action to take it you must have at least two in Supply planes in that zone you then add your commander here and choose a land space that matches the air Zone's color so red in this case that means from here we could bomb any one of these three spaces of course we wouldn't bomb the space that we're in with your target selected let's say this space here you then return as many planes as you want from that Air Zone back to your reserve leaving at least one behind and for each plane returned you roll a die removing as many troops from the targeted space as the number of burst symbols rolled the support board has a new takeoff action here which like these actions can only have at most one Commander from each player added to its spaces after adding a commander to one of these spaces you then collect a number of planes based on the number matching your color four in this case you now add them to air zones that you control role that are in Supply keeping in mind that like troops at the end of a turn you can never have more than five planes in a single space also be aware that during a takeoff action you can always add planes to the Air Zone with your headquarters even if enemy planes are there you'll just resolve a conflict immediately after also be aware that if you run of airplanes to place when you need to add more to the board you can remove some from any spaces of the board to make up for the ones you're missing so that you can then place them and finally anytime a conflict is started in a land space where its air zone is controlled by the defending player that player rolls two dice against the attacker when they first enter the space not one and that covers the rules for the island side of the map and you'll notice the victory stars are spread out differently from the Alpine side and some are the bonus tokens creating new strategies to consider but otherwise that's everything you need to know to play general orders World War II if you have any questions about anything you saw here feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance you'll also find forums for discussion pictures other videos and lots more over at the games page on Board Game Geek and I'll put a link to that in the description below and if you found this video helpful please consider giving it a like subscribing and clicking that little bell icon so you get notification anytime we post a new video and if you'd like to support us directly you can join our patreon team which I'll have linked below but until next time thanks for watching