Tag Archives: Commands & Colors: Ancients

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Alexander’s Successors Wars as Depicted by C&C Ancients

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Recently I have played C&C Ancients a lot less in comparison to the time when I was initially enchanted by this game. Still, it oftentimes gives me a lot of satisfaction and nowadays I usually play sets of historically and chronologically connected scenarios.

Recently I brought to the table couple of Civil War battles (Caesar vs Pompey), and later on the Greco-Persian Wars. This time we decided to completely change the settings and armies compositions. We moved to the Alexander’s Successors Wars! What we played was:

  1. Paraitacene (318 BC) – first of the grand clashes between Antigonus and Eumenes, a battle to be long remembered.
  2. Gabiene – (317 BC) – a battle which almost ended the the War of Diadochi – after which Antigonus became a true Lord of Asia and most powerful pretender to inherit the Alexander’s legacy.

Without further delay, let me invite you to the session reports! Enjoy!

PS. As always, you can click on each picture to see details.

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Breaking The Line and Holding The Line in Commands & Colors: Ancients by BrentS — Part 3

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In the first two installments (you can check them here: Part 1 & Part 2) we explored strategy for the attacker breaking the line. In this final installment we will consider the role of the defender.

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Breaking The Line and Holding The Line in Commands & Colors: Ancients by BrentS — Part 2

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Breaking The Line, Holding The Line

PART TWO

In the last installment we looked at the first two phases for an attacker attempting to break the enemy line, preparation and choosing when to attack.

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Breaking The Line and Holding The Line in Commands & Colors: Ancients by BrentS — Part 1

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There are many important elements that contribute to the outcome of an Ancients battle. Skirmishing, cavalry manoeuvres, feint and ruse, move and countermove, all play their part in the integrated coordination of arms that leads to success on the battlefield and a good commander must be skilled in all of them. But as in real ancient warfare, the decisive moment on which the battle hinges is invariably the bloody clash of the main infantry lines. Marathon, Plataea, Cannae, Leuctra, Chaeronea and many more, battles that were turning points in history, all decided at the sticky end of the conflict, close and personal, spear and sword against armour and shield.

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Commands & Colors: Ancients – Skirmishing and Evasion Strategy by BrentS

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It never ceases to amaze me how a few tweaks in the basic C&C engine can create genuine variation in play experience between different games, presenting new strategic challenges and modeling different tactical imperatives across widely divergent historical periods and genres.

Some of these differences are minor and modular, such as national unit characteristics in Napoleonics or elephant units in Ancients, but each game has one or two major elements that define the game and are the fundamental features that differentiate it from its C&C cousins. For base game Napoleonics reduction in firepower with block loss, for Samurai Battles the Honour and Fortune economy and the Dragon deck, for Medieval the Inspired Action tokens, and so on.

I enjoy many of the C&C games but Ancients is still my favorite. In part this is my personal historical interest, part is what I perceive to be the lean, clean interplay between units and the perfectly balanced deck, giving me a feeling of battlefield control that I never quite get with the other C&C games. Most important, though, is what I consider to be Ancients’ two defining features, the critical importance of leader positioning, and evasion. The latter will be one of the subjects of this article.

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Greco-Persian Wars as Depicted by Commands & Colors: Ancients

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I truly love coming back from time to time to C&C Ancients, my most played game of all times. After covering all the official scenarios now I am picking my favorite mini-campaigns – connected thematically sets of battles – and try to play them in one go. Recently I brought to the table couple of Civil War battles (Caesar vs Pompey). This time we decided to completely change the scenario, belligerents as well as armies compositions. We went for Greco-Persian wars, namely:

  1. Marathon (490 BC) – a battle which ended the first Persian invasion on Greek homeland; Athenians managed to defeat Easterners before Spartans arrived; famous soldier run a “marathon” to deliver the story to worried citizens of Athens.
  2. Thermopylae – (480 BC) – one of the iconic battles of all times; who has not heard about Leonidas and his 300 Spartans? Richard Borg created here one of the most interesting scenarios in his carrier – a true struggle till the end, with epic 10 Victory Points objective.
  3. Plataea (479 BC) – a huge battle in which unified Greek Polish inflicted a crushing defeat on Persian forces. I always play it with three sets of blocks: one for Persians, one for Spartans and one for Athenians.

Without further delay, let me invite you to the session reports! Enjoy! PS. As always, you can click on each picture to see details.

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Caesar vs. Pompey as Depicted by Commands & Colors: Ancients, Part 2

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I love coming back to C&C Ancients from time to time – that game really gives me a lot of fun. Some weeks ago I played with Marcin couple of Civil War battles (Caesar vs Pompey) and we decided to continue. These are some of the largest and pretty balanced struggles so it was obvious we will have a great time. What we decided to bring to the table was:

  1. Thapsus (46 BC) – a battle which ended the Civil War in Africa. It features Elephants and should be an interesting scenario.
  2. Munda (45 BC) – here the Civil War ended – the last bastion of Pompeians, and face-off between Caesar, Pompey Son and Titus Labienius. Very interesting due to terrain.

Without further delay, let me invite you to the session report! Enjoy!

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Caesar vs. Pompey as Depicted by Commands & Colors: Ancients

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Yet one more mid-week wargaming evening and another mini-campaign played! The idea was to bring to the table C&C Ancients scenarios featuring the clash between Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey. That most famous Roman Civil War completely obliterated the Republic system and paved the path for the creation of the empire. As we had only as much time as one evening, we decided on 3 of the most interesting or prominent scenarios – the full set encompasses as many as 11 battles!

So what we have chosen is here – with a short comment why:

  1. Ilerda (49 BC) – A very interesting battle, with hills in the middle and the largest (!!!) number of Heavy Infantry in all the scenarios
  2. Dyrrhachium (48 BC) – A direct face-off between Caesar and Pompey, with time pressure on the former to salvage the situation
  3. Pharsalus (48 BC) – A decisive clash of two giants, which inevitably gave victory to Caesar

Ok, so without further delay, let me invite you to the first century BC, Rome. First and foremost – Illerda!

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Roman Conquest of Britain using Commands & Colors Ancients – Part 2

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I will continue today the mini-campaign which I was playing with Marcin using C&C Ancients and depicting the Roman conquest of Britain. The first part, where we played the initial 3 scenarios, can be found here: Roman conquest of Britain using C&C Ancients – Part 1.

Just a reminder: the idea was to play C&C Ancients scenarios featuring the Romans battles in Britain, combining them in a mini-campaign. There is a special map created to depict the locations, each engagement has a historical introduction, they are played in chronological order so the flow of history unfolds nicely and connect together. In essence it is not only pure gaming experience but also a historical insight.

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Roman Conquest of Britain using Commands & Colors Ancients – Part 1

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You had probably noticed that I really like to play C&C Ancients scenarios in logical groups, combining them in mini-campaigns – especially, if they are spread across multiple expansions and C3i publications. To really have a feeling of logical and chronological set of events I would normally read historical accounts, create special maps to depict the locations of battles, and try to play the whole set in maximum one-two sessions – so the flow of history unfolds nicely and connect together. That is my way of playing and I get a lot of satisfactions from such approach – not only pure gaming experience but also a historical insight.