Memoir 44 Minimalist Reminder Cards

Click Here to Download

Part 1: Terrain Cards

I am aware that many reference sheets that include terrain rules for this game already exist and I am a big fan of them. I made this mostly for myself because I like to pick out relevant terrain cards for the specific scenarios that use them and put them next to the board so that I don’t have to flip through a document. However, I am not a fan of the official terrain cards in the game card compendium. I find them unnecessarily wordy and redundant. Take the “walls of text” on these cards as examples: 

I understand that some people prefer to have rules explained to them thoroughly to cover all bases, but I fall in the camp that prefers succinct and minimalist rule reminders. This is why I created these ready-to-print alternative cards for people like me. The simplified versions of the cards above look like these:

Here are the features of these cards: 

1. These cards ONLY state the differences of terrain hexes compared to the default game board hex. It doesn’t have phrases like “no movement restrictions” or “infantries may battle as normal”. If something is not specifically mentioned, it is assumed to be “normal” and identical to a blank hex. 

2. All movement related rules are included in the top blue box, and all combat related rules are included in the bottom red box. Dice reduction stats are found on the bottom, along with info on ignoring flags. No longer will you have to rummage through the walls of rule text trying to see whether the “may ignore 1 flag” line is hidden in there somewhere randomly. 

3. Many recurring terrain rules are streamlined and made into keywords 

Hard stop in: “unit moving in must stop and move no further this turn” (e.g. forests, towns) 

Hard stop out: “unit moving out must stop and move no further this turn” (e.g. flooded fields, balkas) 

Soft stop in: “unit moving in must stop” (e.g. jungles, railroad tracks) 

Slow entry: “unit entering terrain must start from adjacent hex” (e.g. hedgerows, flooded fields) 

Slow exit: “unit leaving terrain may only move onto adjacent hex” (e.g. hedgerows, marshes) 

No battle on entry/exit: “unit moving in/out may not battle” (e.g. towns, fishponds) 

From below: from lower elevation, used in mountains and hills 

4. All references to take ground and armor overrun found on original terrain cards are removed, as they are completely redundant to other texts. “Take Ground” is simply movement and “Armor Overrun” is simply battling for game purposes. If you treat them as such then you can very easily reason out the ruling for all kinds of situations. 

Examples: 

a. If moving in and out of terrain results in a hard stop, then you can’t take ground. If soft stop, then you can. 

b. If no battle on entry/exit, then no armor overrun after taking ground into/out of this terrain. If the overrun combat occurred when you are on hard stop, then no second take ground after combat resolves.

The game rules sometimes spell out whether you can perform these actions but sometimes they don’t. How many of you actually took ground after a tank cleared out wires on entry? Because you can’t do that. Same goes for radar stations on entry. If you simply treated these actions as movement and battling then none of these confusions would exist. 

5. Rare terrains that are functionally identical to more familiar terrains are listed as equivalents of existing terrains with red text next to the names. If you know the existing terrain well then you won’t have to read the cards at all. 

6. Clearer language used for terrains with unusual rules (like beaches) to avoid confusion frequently found on the official card compendium comment sections. 

Rules that reference Air Pack are not included, as the game no longer officially supports it after it got replaced by New Flight Plan. New Flight Plan has no terrain-specific rules. 

The cards are organized by expansions and not by the numbering system of the card compendium. I figured this is probably easier to navigate for people who only have certain expansions and don’t want to print out everything. This does mean that there are duplicated files in this set (for example, if a terrain hex appears in two different expansions). Be wary of that when you print.

Part 2: Unit Cards

These are made in a similar vein as the terrain cards to remove redundancy in unit descriptions. In addition to using minimalist language here, it also addresses common questions so you won't have to look up the official FAQ. For example, what's really confusing about units is how the Roads terrain and Infantry Assault interact with each kind of infantry unit. The answers to this is printed on each and every card that corresponds to a unit that can potentially be affected by it. There are also separate cards for units that have different rules in different campaigns.

Additionally, Special Weapon Assets are also made into cards in the style of unit cards to logically fit them into the units they are depicting.

General Rules:

1. A card's top right icon indicates what type of unit it is (infantry, armor, artillery). If none, then it has no corresponding standard unit type.

2. The circle on the icon indicates the starting/maximum number of figures for the unit. A question mark is used if it is variable.

3. Infantry-type units are ASSUMED to be able to take ground. Only exceptions will be spelled out.

4. Armor-type units are ASSUMED to be able to take ground and armor overrun. Only exceptions will be spelled out.

5. Artillery-type units are ASSUMED to ignore LOS when attacking. Only exceptions will be spelled out.

6. Interactions with Roads and Infantry Assault (abbreviated as IA) are spelled out right on the card. The same is true for Artillery Bombard.

Please enjoy!