Commands & Colors: Ancients Features on "View from the Veranda" Podcast

I really enjoy the podcast Meeples and Miniatures, but especially, the View from the Veranda episodes, which are extended conversations between Neil Schuck, the host, and Henry Hyde from Battlegames Magazine. In episode 5 of View from the Veranda, they talk about Commands & Colors: Ancients in some detail. As miniatures people, they admire the quick playing of C&CA, yet enjoy the satisfying feel of the games.

I talked with Richard Borg at KublaCon at some length. He said that his goal of the Commands & Colors games is not to simulate the battle, but rather to simulate how descriptions of battles read in print. Look at this depiction of the battle of Zama from Wikipedia, which has a lot of "the center does this" or "the flanks troops do this other thing". It's easy to see this battle being played out with C&CA.

"At the outset of the battle, Hannibal unleashed his elephants and skirmishers against the Roman troops in order to break the cohesion of their lines and exploit the breaches that could be opened. The attack was confronted by the Roman skirmishers. In addition to this Scipio ordered the cavalry to blow loud horns to frighten the beasts which partly succeeded and several rampaging elephants turned towards the Carthaginian left wing and disordered it completely. Seizing this opportunity Masinissa led his Numidian cavalry and charged at the Carthaginian left wing, also composed of Numidian cavalry, and was unknowingly lured off the field. Meanwhile the rest of the elephants were carefully lured through the lanes and taken to the rear of the Roman army where they were dealt with. The plan of Scipio of neutralizing the threat of the elephants had worked. Scipio's troops then fell back into traditional Roman battle formation. Laelius, the commander of Roman left wing, charged against the Carthaginian right. The Carthaginian cavalry, acting on the instructions of Hannibal, allowed the Roman cavalry to chase them so as to lure them away from the battlefield so that they wouldn't attack the Carthaginian armies in the rear.

Scipio now marched with his center towards the Carthaginian center which was under the direct command of Hannibal. Hannibal moved forward with only two lines and the third line of veterans was kept in reserve. After a close contest the first line of Hannibal was pushed back by the Roman hastati. Hannibal ordered his second line to allow the first line in their ranks. The bulk of them managed to escape and to position themselves on the wings of the second line on Hannibal's instructions. Hannibal now charged with his second line. A furious struggle ensued and the Roman hastati were pushed back with heavy losses. Scipio reinforced the hastati with the second line principes."

What I Did During KublaCon

KublaCon is over. I ran two events, neither of which were terribly successful in terms of number of participants.

On Sunday morning, I ran a "Learning Panzer Grenadier" event. Only one person showed up, but he seemed to enjoy himself. We played a 12 turn nighttime urban assault of Battles of the Bulge. Because it was a nighttime scenario, I decided to use my new counter sleds to hide what units of both sides were in each stack. Units were revealed only when they came within sighting range, which in a nighttime scenario is only one hex.

On Monday morning, I ran a "Commands & Colors Fest", which involved bringing all 4 of the current C&C games: Battle Cry, Memoir '44, BattleLore, and Commands & Colors: Ancients. Four people participated. Two people decided to play a game of Memoir '44 with the new Memoir '44 Breakthrough boards. I played games of Commands & Colors: Ancients with two other players. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. I was disappointed that no one was interested in playing BattleLore. I'm starting to work on some feudal era scenarios for BattleLore, such as the Viking scenarios Clontarf and Brunanburh.

KublaCon Games

For me, the nearest game convention is KublaCon, which is held in Burlingame, CA over the extended Memorial Day weekend (Friday afternoon through Monday morning). I try to run a few games each year, since volunteers get their admission fee refunded. This year I've signed up to run:

- Commands & Colors Fest: I ran this event at Conquest SF last year over the Labor Day holiday. It's an open gaming format. I bring multiple copies of all 4 Commands & Colors games (Battle Cry, Memoir '44, BattleLore, and Commands & Colors: Ancients), let people choose their own scenario, set up and play whatever they like. Players can come and go as they like while I can hover around to teach the rules, answer questions, or leave people alone as they prefer. This event worked really well when I ran it at Conquest on Monday morning, the convention's final day. The last day of a convention, in my experience, is always difficult for events, as people are packing up and getting ready to leave. Yet, many people may be in for a short game of some kind. The Commands & Colors games work well for this difficult time slot because they're easy to teach, play fast, and each game only requires 2 players.

- Learn Panzer Grenadier: I've been enjoying the Panzer Grenadier line of tactical WWII games. Unlike many tactical WWII games, PG units are platoons rather than a squads or individuals, so the game makes some abstractions that make the game easier to play (e.g., there is no concept of unit facing). In addition, the rules are only 16 pages in length, and there is a huge wealth of scenarios available. My goal in this event is to identify some low-counter-density scenarios that only last 8-12 turns or so that can be used for teaching and let people play them.

Where are the Vikings? and Samurai?

I play a lot of Commands & Colors: Ancients. It's very addicting: games are fast, and the gameplay is very tense as you decide what cards to play. However, the game needs to progress out of the classical era; C&CA Expansion 4 was about Imperial Rome, giving us a third Roman army. I personally think the two we already had (Grey and Red) were fine; a third one in Purple was completely unnecessary. But maybe GMT will at last get Rome out of their system.

I recently posted a poll on BoardGameGeek on what era people would like to see next in the CCA series (not that I have any control over what Richard Borg and GMT do). Some of the most popular periods in this poll were Vikings and Samurai. Now, how many grand-tactical games do you know of in these periods? For Vikings, almost none that I can think of. There are a couple of battles in the Ancient Battles Deluxe series from Victory Point games, e.g., Ashdown, and of course, there's the old SPI PRESTAGS game Viking, but that's about it. The same with Samurai. Besides the Great Battles of History games Samurai and Ran, there aren't very many battle level games available in this era either. There are a few magazine games covering Samurai battles that are long out of print, but again, there's a big shortage in what should be a popular period.

But, there's a new kid on the block: Kawanakajima 1561 from Hexasim games, the first game in their "Sengoku Jidai" series, covering the epic battle on the Kawanakajima plains between the Uesugi and Takeda clans. I've resisted buying game up to now because there was no US distributor and Hexasim wanted 24 Euros for it. Now, GMT has started importing it; they're selling it for $25 US. So, I immediately snatched up a copy.

The game looks really interesting. Counter density is small (each clan is only a couple of counters), and it looks like you could play the game in 2-3 hours. The rules are online at the Hexasim website. They actually attempt to implement the various exotic Samurai battle plans like "Birds in Flight", "Keyhole", "Arrowhead", etc. Basically, the general can invest some of his command points attempting to activate his battle plan. When activated, he gains additional capabilities for his army. The combat system is very odd: many games have CRTs with column shifts for benefits and penalties, but this game has both columns and lines each with their own modifiers and random rolls. Eventually, I may do a review of the game for BGG.