Commands & Colors Ancients Expansions 2-3 Reprint
by
GMT Games
Commands & Colors Ancients was designed by Richard Borg and first took
the wargaming world by storm in 2006. This GMT game has exploded into all of
these eras:
Samurai
Medieval
American Revolution
Napoleonics
As you can see, the wargamer has a smorgasbord of eras, battles, and armies to choose from.
For
those of you who have not read about or delved into the Commands &
Colors world, here is a a simplified breakdown of the game. The mapboard
is generic with extremely large hexes. The player adds tiles to the
board per the scenario instructions. The game itself is of medium
complexity, and is a perfect segue to add new Wargamers to the fold. The
game is card driven, so the player is always forced to think ahead. Each scenario lists the amount of Command Cards each player starts with. The
player's opponent may make a mistake that the player is just dying to
take advantage of. Unfortunately, the player only has a Command Card
that only allows him to move or attack on a completely different part of
the field or other troops. The rules are now up to the 3rd edition. The
rules have been tweaked down through the years to rid them of any
ambiguities, etc. This is the sequence of play:
1. Play a Command Card
2. Order units and leaders
3. Move
4. Battle ( combat between units)
5. Draw a new Command Card
 |
| This is actually a picture of the first printing. The only thing different on the newer box is that it says "Second Reprint" |
Much
to the gaming community's relief, an anonymous donor was kind enough to
bankroll the re-release of the game and all of the expansions for it. May
he be blessed by the wargaming Gods. The base game, Commands & Colors
Ancients, is needed to play all of the expansions. This review is of the
new combined expansions 2-3. The expansion does not come with a mapboard
as they originally did. This was to cut down on both shipping costs and
the overall price of the expansions.
This is what comes with the combined expansion:
- 3" Box
- 457 red, green, gray and black blocks
- 1 sheet of terrain tiles
- 7 sheets of labels
- 2 reference cards
- 1 combined rule and scenario book
Expansion #2 covers battles that feature Roma versus various Barbarians. The battles range in time from the Battle of Closium in 225 BC, to the Battle of Cefn Carnedd in 51 AD. There are seven battles alone that deal with the revolt of Spartacus. The next, Expansion #3, deals with the various Roman Civil Wars. These go from the Sullan Battle of the Colline Gate, to the last battle that was fought in the civil war between Pompey and Caesar, the Battle of Munda.
The
game components are ones you typically see in GMT Games, meaning that the
production values are extremely high. The blocks are of four different
sizes. The largest is for elephants, the next size is for leaders, and
the medium size is for cavalry. The smallest blocks are for your
Infantry forces. About the blocks, there are a ton of them to be
stickered, and I mean a ton. For those of us who have arthritis or some
other problem (I have a mashed right-hand thumb), it might be worth your
while to pay someone to do it. Other than that, for
those of you who are lucky, or unlucky, enough to have kids living with you,
corral them into helping. The stickers themselves are very nicely done.
It is easy to distinguish between the forces by the size and their
colorful picture. The two expansion rule books are well written and done
in full color. This makes it extremely easy to setup the battles. Both
expansion booklets have special rules for the battles listed.
There
is not much else to add. The game system is tried and true and has
continually been upgraded. This expansion is a must for an ancients
wargamer. The game itself brings the color and feel of ancient battles with shorter game times compared to other ancients games. One addition that I tremendously appreciate is the number of
battles of Sertorius that have been included. A big thank you to GMT
Games for letting me review these two expansions. GMT has also posted that there will be another expansion coming up dealing with early ancient warfare and chariots. These are links to the
main game and all of the expansions:
Link to the downloads for Living Rules:
Commands & Colors Ancients main Game:
Commands & Colors Expansion 1:
Command & Colors Expansion 4:
Commands & Colors Expansion 6
Robert
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