State of Play: First Cab off the Rank - Commands and Colors: Ancients (Akragas, 406 BC )

  

The first couple of weeks of the year are always tougher to squeeze a game into. But T and I managed to catch up last Monday night for a quick and dirty Battle of Akragas, 406 BC from the Commands & Colors: Ancients (GMT Games, 2006) core game. I’d suggested stickering up T’s copy of Commands & Colors: Medieval Expansion 1: Crusades - Mid-Eastern Battles 1 (GMT Games, 2024), but T’s wife would have none of it. We spent our last Monday game-night of the year filling and labelling sample bottles of gin for Christmas gratuities – Mrs T (Jess's eldest sister) said I deserved an actual game.

Set-up from the Carthaginian Left. Note the over-stacked Cavalry (four blocks instead
of three); The last C&C game we played was Medieval, which does have four-block
cavalry, so the oversight is forgivable, and I was two beat to notice.

So, T set up a quick, no terrain, five-banner game to start off our year, which suited me as we were both kind of beat from the Christmas season and everything that entails. The siege of Akragas, a Greek settlement on the south-west coast of Sicily, was conducted by the Carthaginians in retaliation for raids on Punic settlements. The historical battle took place between a relief force of Syracusans under Daphnaeus and part of the Carthaginian forces (mostly mercenaries) while the main force maintained the siege. The Syracusan attack was historically successful, but that wasn’t to be the case here.

About four rounds in; some losses on both sides, but no banners changing hands yet.

The game opened as to be expected. T (playing the Syracusans) brought his extreme units up to try to bedevil my flanks. This was probably an artefact of his hand; in the opening deal, we both seemed to get a preponderance of Left and Right flank manoeuvre cards. The Syracusan strength was all in his Center – a full four Heavy Infantry, which, if he could have mobilised them, would have torn into my mishmash of units like a wolverine.

I met T’s flanking moves with Slingers and Chariots. We both took our lumps, but it wasn’t until the fifth or sixth round that the first banner was taken, when the Medium Cavalry on T’s Right fell to my blooded Chariots. T countered with an attack on the same flank which whittled down my slingers to half-strength but cost his reduced Medium Cavalry on that flank – who should probably have had a better chance than the bones offered to finish off my reduced Chariots – and his second-in-command, Dionysius, to an unsuccessful single-die Leader saving throw.

First blood. Strictly, we should have been using the Roman eagle banner blocks,
but the roosters came to hand sooner.

With just two banners between the Carthaginians and a reversal of historical fortune, I brought up the line I’d built on my Right flank with an Inspired Leader order, giving everyone engaging one extra die in combat. I secured the final two banners needed in short order; history was rewritten as Himilco prevailed on the field, while Daphnaeus withdrew in good order with the fighting core of his troops intact. The whole action took about a dozen rounds.

A 5-0 result wasn’t an auspicious beginning for T, but over the years I’ve learnt not to dismiss him lightly, especially at Command & Colors. Next week will probably be C&C: Medieval (GMT Games, 2019), breaking in the new expansion, which I’ve been looking forward to since well before Christmas.

Final state, after the dust had settled. A fairly convincing win.