I have changed the rules slightly to allow passing. I have done this to prevent a player with more formations gaining an advantage late on in the turn. There are also one or two minor clarifications to the original posting.

I like the SGBH system a lot, especially as it allows you to switch across the games within the GBH series fairly easily and makes playing time in busy lives more amenable. However, the one reason I do sometimes contemplate the hard work of a full GBH game is that the activation system for SGBH is not quite right IMO. Players tend to get focused on a specific part of the battlefield because they don’t want to lose out where its all happening in the moment. As a consequence formations that would have done something, even small things, just don’t get a look in and sit there doing nothing. So, to resolve this I have finally bitten the bullet so to speak and offer the system changes below as a possible way forward.

I have gone for a seen card activation system because the possibility of steal attempts already mixes up the ‘I go you go’ tedium and introduces a chance element to activation anyway. I think to have a chance driven chit system in this kind of tactical battle takes too much control away from the player. It would be annoying to sit there all turn waiting to draw the activate velites chit before you could get the Hastati going, i.e. I think chance drawn chits will screw up a players ability to use forces as they were historically used when faced by given situations. When I have previously played a chit draw system in a tactical battle series, the Glory civil war series, I liked the game but not the activation system. I think it was because one side could gain too large a tactical advantage through a succession of draws. Maybe in a more strategic game (like Carthage) it works but at the tactical level of a battle I’m not sure it does. But then I’m always open to being swayed...

I have not attached a card file. I think it is easier if you make your own cards labelled A to O. It only takes five minutes using word or publisher and you can choose the images you want using google.