State of Play: Commands and Colors: Ancients - Expansion 1: Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms (5/6)

 

 

Things have been a little busy lately, with family crises and other impositions on our time, but T and I managed to carve out a couple of hours to play the Gaugamela scenario from Commands and Colors: Ancients, Expansion 1: Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms (GMT Games, 2006). As it turned out, we didn’t need two hours. Set up always takes a little time, but once we got into the game, things moved apace, and with another ahistorical result.

I took the role of Alexander for a change, and T played the Persians under Darius. Blood was spilt in the second round; the first three banners were scored by T on my left flank, sweeping up some of my Light troops. The scenario has a seven-banner victory threshold, and by the fourth round, T had swept around to my right flank with his cavalry, and now held four banners to my one.

Mid-game I made some gains, including miraculously dispatching his War Elephants in the centre with a volley from my light bow (in truth, I was hoping for retreats, rather than hits, for the chance to maybe thin out the adjacent units, but I was happy to take the point).

The parlous state at the end of the fourth round.

The elephants vanquished.

Blows continued to be exchanged, until a Leadership Centre order allowed me to bring Alexander, with his Companion Cavalry and another medium cavalry unit, up through the centre to meet Darius and his infantry. The blow was swift and bloody, and Darius’s supporting units were cleared from the field of battle, earning me the two banners I needed to close the gap between our scores. Darius – true to history – fled, joining up with an Auxilia unit which, by happy chance, happened to be in the path of the Persian leader’s escape.  

Darius escapes.

The banners held were now even, at six a piece. My next action, already selected (Three Units Center), was at hand. Then, treachery! T played an Order Light Troops, allowing his Auxilia to destroy the Cavalry unit accompanying Alexander’s Companion Cavalry. It was the second time in the game that a Light unit had completely destroyed a superior unit in a single blow, and proved the winning play for Darius, who presumably made his departure in the midst of the battle’s confusion.

End state: Persian win, 7 banners to 6.

T and I are fairly evenly matched at Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010), mostly by dint of playing nearly all the published scenarios at least twice. One or the other of us may have a winning streak for three or four weeks, but overall I’ll only best him around fifty percent of the time. Neither of us have as much experience with C&C Ancients, and until this year, all of that experience has been with various Roman situations, but after a disproportionately high win-rate on my side, the scales are balancing for Ancients as well. A victory is a victory, but a tight game, well fought on both sides, is the most satisfying game, win or lose. At just eight rounds – sixteen orders between us – Gaugamela was nasty, brutish, and short, but very satisfying.