Game: Battle Line
Year: 2000
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: GMT Games
Overview of Play: This is a two-player game that takes about fifteen minutes to play. There’s no barrier to entry, either, since the rules are very light and it takes less than five minutes to learn, even for non-gamers.
This is kind of like playing nine separate hands of poker at a time. There are nine markers (“flags”) between the two players. On your turn, you play a card on one of the nine flags. You win a flag by having a better three-card hand at that flag than your opponent. The first person to win 5 flags total or 3 adjacent flags wins.
There are two types of cards, Troop cards and Tactics cards. The former are numbered 1–10, in six different colors. These make up the vast majority of the game, and the kinds of three-card hands you’re going for are straight flushes, three of a kind, flushes, and straights. The Tactics cards are all special cards, so there are fewer of them, and you are limited to how many you can play. Some of these cards are wild cards of sorts, while others do things like move or remove cards.
As the game goes on and players win flags, it becomes increasingly more difficult to find places to play your cards, and you have to start making less-than-ideal plays. This basic increase in tension, from a wide-open board to fewer and fewer open spaces, drives the game, and makes every play feel meaningful.
Comments on Use of Theme:
The game tries to set the mood in the rule book (and on the back of the box) by saying,
“Ancient battles were fought in organized formations. The leaders
of both sides directed their forces along the battle line to gain
tactical advantages. Overwhelm the opponent in the center, break
through one of the flanks, or hold the position until the time has
come for a decisive move.”
If you think about this as a struggle along one battle line, with both sides trying to get through, the theme is solid, and is developed well.
The specific ‘battle’ you ‘fight’ is Alexander the Great versus Darius (king of Persia when Alexander invaded in 334 BCE), as is most clearly evident in the names of some of the Tactics cards, such as “Alexander,” “Darius,” and “Companion Cavalry.” The “Alexander” and “Darius” cards are the two most powerful wild cards, and a thematic element is that the same player cannot play both of them (if you draw the second one, you can’t play it, but at least you know that your opponent won’t have it).
Each rank of the Troop cards has a different, thematically appropriate name. From 1 to 10 they are: Skirmisher, Peltast, Javalineers [sic], Hoplites, Phalangists, Hypaspist, Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Chariots, Elephants. As is common in such games, there’s an odd mix of languages in the names (no Persian, though!), but enough Anglicized Greek names to get the theme across.
These troop types are well chosen, and as the numbers of the cards get higher there’s a clear progression from lightly armored foot soldiers (Skirmisher, Peltast, Javelineers) to heavily armored foot soldiers (Hoplites, Phalangists, Hypaspist) to cavalry (Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry) to the elite Persian units (Chariots, Elephants). The cards thus reflect a scale of the power of these troop types.
Having the Elephant be the ‘10’ card, and thus the most powerful, is a nice detail, since Alexander’s forces were the first Greeks to encounter elephants used in a military setting, possibly in 331 BCE at the Battle of Gaugamela, which effectively marked the end of Achaemenid rule of the Persian Empire (the same dynasty that had attacked Greece in the Persian Wars, fighting in such famous battles as Marathon and Thermopylae). The Persians were also known for their war chariots, which had blades sticking out of their axles, and were unlike anything the Greeks had ever seen.
Because Alexander ultimately defeated Darius, it might seem odd that it is two Persian cards that are the most powerful in the game. But this is where the theme actually comes through again. In a sense, ‘8’ is the most powerful card: because a straight flush (three cards of the same color in numerical order) is the most powerful hand, the strongest hand in the game is a 10-high flush. But if the first card you play at a flag is a 10, then you’ve locked yourself into needing two specific cards to complete your flush. If you open with an 8, however, you can still get the 10-high flush, but you leave a lot more room to complete a flush (and even an 8-high flush will win most flags).
Having the ‘8’ be the Heavy Cavalry makes sense, then, since Alexander was famous for his so-called Companion Cavalry, the elite group of horseman that served as the strongest part of the Macedonian force. This group was so famous that it took on a life of its own, and is considered an inspiration for the idealized Medieval knight, which first really developed in the late 8thcentury with the Paladins of Charlemagne—whose name means ‘Charles the Great.’ (Note, too, that the word ‘chivalry’ comes from French chevalier, meaning ‘horseman’ or ‘knight’—ultimately from Latin caballus, ‘horse.’) The importance of the Companion Cavlary in the game is driven home by the fact that one of the Tactics cards is called ‘Companion Cavlary,’ which can be used as any color ‘8.’
Other than the names for the cards, there’s nothing here that screams “Alexander the Great” as a theme—but a lot of times, well-chosen names are more than enough to conjure up the theme in a board game. Sure, you could easily change a couple names and make this any other famous battle or military rivalry you wanted to, such as “Scipio vs. Hannibal” or “Spartans vs. Athenians.” But the choice of Alexander testifies to his reputation as one of the all-time great military commanders, and the names are well chosen to play up the theme. All in all, the theme is well done, and adds to what would be an excellent game even with no theme.
There’s nothing special about the art, but it’s bright and colorful, and the pictures on each card match the name, so some research went into this, and there is attention to detail. In a pinch, you could use these cards to talk about different types of arms and armor, and also contrast the heavy armor of the Greeks (e.g. on the Hoplites card) and Persians (e.g. the Skirmishers). Since both players draw from the same decks, though, there’s no sense that one player is playing the Greeks and the other, the Persians, which muddies the theme a bit.
Overall Thoughts: This may be my favorite two-player game. Every choice feels significant and, like poker, you have to balance skill with the luck of the draw. Like a lot of my favorite games, it’s very easy to learn because the rules are simple, but the game is meaty enough that it’s fun and challenging to play, and has a lot of replay value. On multiple occasions I’ve played this close to ten times in a row. There’s not a ton of material for the theme, but what there is is well done, and there are no real mistakes. I don’t hesitate at all to recommend this for some kind of classroom or extracurricular use.
Gameplay Score: 10/10
Theme Score: 7/10
Have you played Battle Line? What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. As always, thanks to those who have played this game with me and shared their thoughts, and thanks for reading!