Recently, due to the forced lock-down, I played a lot of my favorite game – Commands Colors Ancients. I had chance to introduce new players (love it!) and explain to them nuances of that fantastic system. Once the basic rules were digested by the new adepts, many follow-up questions were asked, mainly on tactics and strategy in CCA. I explained my view a couple of times, then idea struck me – having over 600 plays in that game, maybe I can share my experience and observations in a written form?

It did not take me long to move from idea to action. Hence this first article answering some of the most common questions – mainly focused on how to prepare attack in CCA – asked to me. I will try to describe and depict my ideas using pictures from the vassal module as I think visual presentation has the biggest impact. Of course, most of what I will write below is common knowledge to most seasoned CCA players, but I hope new fans of the game find it useful!

Disclaimer: let us be completely clear – there is no magic formula in any wargame, Commands & Colors system included, which will allow you to win the scenario. You need to be flexible, plan ahead, react to crises, and try to force your own tempo on the opponent – initiative is key! Still, there are some ideas which, once followed, might help you enormously to achieve the final victory.

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1. Maintain a line, a thick line

In essence, C&C is about inflicting more losses on the enemy and preventing the same from happening to you. To do it you need to order many units and concentrate your attacks. One very simple rule of C&C is to maintain the line – as it allows such cards like Double Time, Line Command, and Leadership Section to be played and can maximize the number of troops moved forward.

However, I would like to go deeper with that suggestion. Especially vulnerable are leaders, who once its unit is eliminated should have a possibility to retreat to a friendly unit. Many scenarios – purposefully – position one side in a long, thin line with the leader in the middle. Such a line is very prone to being quickly broken and the leader – if no good cards are in hand – to be chased off the map.

True, thick line does not allow for such a broad frontal assault as thin line. Still, you rarely order more than 4-5 units and such width of front can be easily maintained with double line. So what is main take-away from that chapter? Maintain line and make sure your leader has friendly units to escape should attack not go so well.

2. Do not rush

If I can have one accusation to CCA – otherwise a perfect game – is that it rarely ever puts a time pressure on the attacker. Yes of course you may say that the sooner you attack, the less time the defender has to prepare. But this is always the case in most games.

What we need to remember, is that unlike for example the The Great War where you have time pressure in almost every scenario (defender plays the Scout card and instead of choosing one card, he gets VPs) here the attacker has plenty of time. This time should be used:

• to soften up the opponent – mainly with light troops, using rage attacks
• prepare your hand of cards – more on this below
• move your units forward in cohesive group, being able to support each other

One of the most common errors made by the new players is to rush forward with their shiny heavy legions / phalanx, hoping they are invincible, only to be outnumbered and overrun by a host of barbarians / enemies with much inferior equipment. Such journeys can end very badly.

3. Make sure you can follow-up

Easy and obvious – if you attack the enemy make sure you have the possibility to follow-up. The worst thing you can do is to play a fantastic card and hope you will draw something that can help you continue the attack. This is asking for disaster.

Again, let us go one level deeper with that suggestion. Not each card is similarly flexible so play them in the proper order to maximize your possibilities. First, the ones with special conditions, then the ones with less pre-requisites. The simplest ones – order 2/3/4 units left/center/right proves to be most flexible and can be kept as follow-up cards after initial attack.

4. Do not underestimate the light troops

I saw this approach dozens of times and see it again in many new players especially in attack – complete disregard for light troops. Why bother – I will put my Medium and of course, Heavy units as soon as possible forward.

Be patient. Use light troops to damage the enemy and pull them back later. Be aware – when you check the CCA deck, it is the green units you can order most often:

• there are 4 Order Light, 3 Order Medium and only 2 Order Heavy cards
• only Light Units can use Move-Fire-Move, allowing some of them to relocate 8 hexes!
• practically 90% of your forces activated by Darken the Sky will be Light (sometimes War Machines or Marian/Julian legion also)
• many cards allow Light Units to move through friendly forces

But that is not the end of that formation. Most of them have a unique, special ability. I cannot stress this enough – evade is a fantastic mechanic and if utilized properly it can allow your heavy units to be screened from range attacks of the enemy when they prepare to rush forward. Just make sure that your light units have a place to retreat – and in CCA you need only one hex, unlike in Medieval or Tricorne versions. We will talk much more on this mechanic in the article regarding defensive tactics.

5. Do not overvalue special cards, do not keep strong cards for too long

There are special cards which can be crazy powerful… should you roll well! Under no circumstance are they supposed to be used in key and critical moments of an assault – only if there are no other options. I have observed many times Rally or Spartacus rolls which ordered 0 (zero!) units. The counter attack by enemy usually finished the unlucky gambler. So do not put all your faith into them when storming enemy positions.

There are also many special cards in CCA which players keep “for the opportune moment” – especially during the attack.. Many times I have seen that moment never coming before end of scenario…. Is Clash of Shields ordering two units weak? Is Darken the Sky with a third of your light units inefficient? By no means! Of course, the situation on the map can vary. Still, we should not try to stubbornly keep the “great cards” for a “great moment” where we activate most of our forces. Such a situation might never come. Better to use them to eliminate one or two blocks rather than count for a crushing blow all over the line.

7. Roll-over

A pretty straightforward tactic – uses your infantry with leader, Warrior, or Cavalry to finish two depleted units. Seems obvious where such units are on map, but sometimes you have to create such an opportunity. The picture above shows such an example – you weaken two enemies and then roll-over them with leader-commanded infantry. In the above example the defender can still escape on flag but you break their line and he loses a battle back opportunity.

The above example is also a classic thin-line example. Should the attack go more or less as above, the barbarian player will have a lot of issues without line, concentrated units, and leader (should he survive Leader Check 1 dice) without any unit. The initiative and tactical advantage will be with the Romans.

Summary

Once again, I would like to stress that I do not deem myself an expert in C&C games. I love them, I eagerly introduce new players to them, and would like to share my experiences with fellow readers. Hopefully some of you find them useful.

The depth of CCA tactics and strategies is enormous. Above I just scratched some of them. That beautiful game has so many elegant mechanics which reflect real battlefield situations without overly-complex rules. My favorite is Evade and usage of light troops – this is definitely masterpiece of Mr Borg!

So enjoy Commands & Colors: Ancients and see you in next article!

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