The Commander Series Forum

In yesterdays game an interesting situation arose. We played the Encounter mission. Where the objective is to break the opponents army by turn 8. But My opponent had so much in reserve that I could not kill enough stuff for him to reach his break point.

I had more or less routed what was on the table but it was not enough for him to reach his breakpoint.

Should the Breakpoint really be calculated from the on board units and not the total amount. You could say that these reserves have arrived to late to have an impact on the engagement.

Breakpoint is calculated from the on board units only

It doesn't matter what you have in reserve as it doesn't count towards BP

We felt that would be the correct way to do it. But we could not find anything in the rules.

HI Both,
I can't see where the rules say that, except in the special case of the Diversionary Attack scenario (p45 in my edition) so I suspect that is a house/CWC2 rule. In the rulebook, it only excludes off-table artillery units and doesn't mention reserves except as above.
I would guess that the real problem here could be that the opponent had more reserves than the rules allow him to have. The rules state "Up to 3 units per full 1000 points of your battlegroup can be placed in your reserve pool". A unit is a platoon/battery and not a formation like a battalion (p5 defines this). If this rule is obeyed, it should be pretty difficult for your opponent to have so much off table you cannot break his force, unless he is holding back lots of high value units like 120mm M1, etc., which would seem pretty daft and possibly 'gamey' in an Encounter battle.
Shedman's suggestion is entirely reasonable as a house rule, just pointing out that doesn't seem to be what it says in the rulebook and that there are alternative ways you could play it, like ban reserves in an Encounter, limit reserves to x points per 1000, rather than 3 units per 1000, etc.
Every group I play CWC with has house rules, often different ones in the same area, which give the game extra flavour and fun.
Cheers,
Mark

We were playing 4000 points, so he could keep 12 units in reserve. In a Nato force that is a lot.

Page 50 of CWC states:
Reserves
Up to three units per full 1000 points of your battlegroup can be placed in your Reserve Pool. Units in the reserve pool are kept off-table and may be used in ambushes or as reinforcements during the game. To use them in an ambush, refer to the next section, Ambush. Alternatively, up to three units from your reserve pool can be placed within 20cm of the CO or an HQ during the command phase, but not closer than 5cm to an enemy unit - visible or not. An unmodified command roll by the CO is required and this counts as a normal command roll for the purposes of ending the turn (see Command Phase on page 12). Reserve units may not be issued any orders during the turn they are placed.

also

Breakpoint
A battlegroup is likely to withdraw from the battlefield when a percentage of its units are knocked-out. To determine the breakpoint of a battlegroup, count all units except command, recce, sniper, unarmoured transport, aircraft, helicopter and off-table artillery units, then halve the result, rounding up. Once a battlegroup has lost this number of units, the player should make a command roll at the beginning of each of his subsequent turns using the command value of the CO (or HQ if the CO has been knocked-out). Deduct one from the command value for each unit knocked-out beyond the breakpoint. The battlegroup will withdraw from the battlefield immediately if the command roll fails.

So to the letter of the rules (as originally written) there is no deduction from the army breakpoint for troops in Reserve or Ambush. However, as stated above standard house-rules play ensures that these units do not contribute to the army breaak point until they appear on the table.

I will check BKCII & BCKIV and also FWC to ensure consistency going forward into CWCII.
Cheers
mark

From BKCIV (see last paragraph) - this will be the standard wording going forward in CWCII and FWCII.
Thanks
Mark

Reserves
Up to three units per full 1000 points (rounded down) of your battlegroup can be placed in your Reserve Pool. Units in the Reserve Pool are kept off-table and may be used in ambushes or as reinforcements during the game.
Up to three units from your reserve pool can be placed within 20cm of the CO or an HQ during the command phase, but not closer than 5cm to an enemy unit - visible or not. They can not be placed within line of sight of any enemy unit. An unmodified command roll by the CO is required and this counts as a normal command roll for the purposes of ending the turn (see Command Phase - Page 22). Reserve units may not be issued any orders during the turn they are placed.

However, it is important to note that whilst troops are in your Reserve pool they do not contribute to the breakpoint of your battlegroup. So your battlegroup’s breakpoint will fall whilst the units are in the Reserve pool and rise once they are deployed. Once units are deployed from your Reserve pool they cannot be re-deployed back into it.
There is one exception to this which relates to the Fieldcraft special ability and can can be found on Page 77.