COs - Obligatory?

[AJ at the Bank]

Reading Norm's rather nice write up of his recent game (see BKCIV battles section of the Forum) - made me wonder.....

...Is it obligatory to have a CO in each Battlegroup?

The only reference I can find is a rather veiled one in the Breakpoint section (as per BKCII also).

Do we need COs or no? 

[Big Insect]

Technically No. But I'd rule probably Yes, unless you have a specific scenario.

With no CO the game would just end when all your HQs have completed all their orders

But why you'd not have a CO I don't know, as usually they have the higher CV in the army.
They have some other advantages as well.

[AJ at the Bank]

Perfect reply- thank you Mark

[Norm]

My own (very limited) experience as per the replay described, is that having a CO would have, over the course of the game, help smooth out some of the extremes in the variables of Command Rolls. So in my game, the Canadiansin the village, purely through bad luck, kept on rolling too high to activate. Having a CO in the Order-of-Battle would likely have smoothed some of that out ...... but with it increasing the hitting potential of a force, I might then have to consider whether to drop the optional rule of cumulative hits i.e. play the game as presented.

I really do like the story telling that falls from these rules.

[T-Square]

In military terms this is easy.  The senior ranking individual is always in command so for that action is the CO.  So in game terms the highest ranking HQ would automatically be the CO.