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."

Love Child: Hold the Line and Black Power

I like the American Revolution game Hold the Line (previously published as "Clash for a Continent") by Worthington Games. In the game, each player rolls a D3 (3 sided die) plus a fixed number depending on the scenario for action points. Each action point allows one unit to move or fire or, with 2 action points, perform a close assault. I've not been entirely satisfied with this scheme: it would be nice if units far from the commanders were harder to control (e.g., costs more action points) and if groups of units could be giving similar orders for the same action point (in effect a "discount" for having multiple units perform the same action).

I have recently been looking at the miniatures rules Black Powder, a 17th and 18th century version of the Warmaster rules. I think there's enough synergism that one could play Hold the Line scenarios using an hex-grid adaptation of Black Powder. I need to play some games, if only solo, to see how this plays out.

BattleLore Reinforcements

I purchased a bunch of BattleLore expansions (Scottish Wars, Dwarven Battalion, Goblin Marauders, and 2 Goblin Skirmishers) on a 20% off sale with the thought that I would sell them on eBay. In the end, since they are out of print, I decided that I would keep them and use them for scenarios.

I like to paint green, blue, or red stripes around the base of my BattleLore to aid in the recognition of light, medium and heavy troops. Because the bases are grey, green or brown, the colors don't come through very well at times. However, I've discovered paint pens. First, I paint the side of the base with a white paint pen, then use a green, blue, or red "Sharpie" marker to paint the sides of the bases. Here's an example of my older efforts. The color isn't bad, but you can see that the green color is a bit dull:

Game Table Online Works with Safari 5!

I enjoy playing Battle Cry at Game Table Online, but it's always been a bit flaky with Macs, my preferred OS. I've recently had success using GTO with Firefox even on Macs. Apple recently released Safari 5, which seems to work great with GTO. I was able to play a solo game of Battle Cry with no problems. Yeah!

Imperium 2nd Edition

I'm a big fan of GDW's space game Imperium. Imperium came out in 1977 about the same time as Star Wars. Gavin, a friend of mine from college, and I played this all the time. I just recently found out that you could get a PDF copy of the 2nd (GDW) edition from Drive Through RPG. (The illustration that they use is from the 1st flatbox edition, which I have, but the rules are from a later edition.) One significant change is that the Imperial player has to pay 2 Glory Points for appeals to the Emperor rather than 1, so that it's harder for the Imperial player to gain the resources he needs to fight the war.

Yet More Panzer Grenadier

I picked up a copy of Panzer Grenadier: Fall of France plus Kokoda Trail and the Elsenborn winter boards from an artist who did work for Avalanche Press.

He mentioned that he hadn't yet been paid for his work for Avalanche Press and had received a bunch of games instead, so he was selling them on eBay. Very said.

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.