State of Play: Commands and Colors: Ancients – Expansion 1: Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms (4/6)

  

 

Having finished our exhaustive play (six games) of French and Indian War, 1757-1759 (Worthington Publishing, 2020; read my review of the game here), I’d planned to go on to This War Without an Enemy (Nuts! Publishing, 2020). The campaign game is too long for a weeknight game, but there are a couple of shorter (four and six turns) scenarios that I thought might be doable in an evening. I got This War to the table on the weekend with the intention of just setting it up and pushing some blocks around, maybe playing through a turn and set-piece combat situation, to get a feel for the game before inflicting my inexperience on somebody else. I didn’t get that far; it took me the better part of an hour to set up the Royalist faction for the scenario and start placing the Commonwealth units. This War is a really promising game, with gorgeous components, but anything that challenging to set up is not going to be suitable for a school-night. I’m certainly not giving up on it, but I’m going to have to drop it from my 6x6 list. Hopefully the Christmas break will provide a clear afternoons to tackle the whole magnificent beast.

Theorie...

As it turned out, T needed to be at home Monday night, so I went around to his and we played the Issus, 333 BC scenario from Commands and Colors: Ancients, Expansion 1: Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms (GMT Games, 2006). T’s a big Commands and Colors fiend; we started playing through the C&C Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) base set on Monday nights while my wife had a protracted stay in hospital back in 2010, and we just kept going with it. We’ve played nearly everything Napoleonics, and a lot of the C&C Ancients Roman scenarios, but until this year we hadn’t played any of the Greece and the Eastern Kingdoms scenario; looking back over my game notes for the year, I was reminded that we spent one Monday evening in January this year stickering-up the Greek and Persian armies because hadn’t got around to them in however long he’s had his set.

...und Praxis.

Another complication I the set-up was that some of the terrain tiles seemed to me missing (probably stashed in another box – wouldn’t have happened at my house; just saying). We made do with a couple of river bends and a straight stretch of coastline and got on with it.

Issus was a peculiar battle; it saw Darius get something of an upper hand on the seemingly infallible Alexander, manoeuvring behind the Macedonian leader and cutting his line of supply. Alexander reversed to meet Darius on a battleground of the latter’s choosing, the banks of the Pinarus River.

Alexander's cavalry, left flank.

Looking at the disposition of the two forces, you could be forgiven for thinking that Darius has the upper hand. More units on the board (by nearly half a dozen) and more cavalry to hand. But look closer and you’ll see Alexander has the greater weight of force (a majority of Medium and heavy troops) and six Command Cards to Darius’s four. And he begins the battle.

In truth we both seemed to be hampered by our card draws. Most of my options were left-flank movement, while T could only seem to bring up his centre in the very beginning. I tried to make a virtue of necessity and get my auxilia and light bow on the left into an actionable position, then taking the forward and auxilia into the hills, where they took some hits from missile attacks but gave back more in melee, holding the defensible high ground.

Parmenio surrounded.

A double-time order gave T the opportunity to bring his heavy infantry into striking range, which withered my light units in the front, costing ground and allowing T an early lead in points. My medium foot held their ground, while my single heavy cavalry unit was finally able to come up and maul the attackers (due mostly to some uncharacteristically good dice rolls), taking out Craterus’s personal guard and forcing him take flight to the rear. Well into the battle (around five banners each) cavalry order allowed me to bring my medium and light horse under Narbazanes to get up and hit T’s shallow left flank, causing terrific strife. Sadly, Narbazanes was lost in the fray, as was Parmenio of the Macedonians. Two more rounds, and it was here the battle was won, with the last banner claimed by the Persian heavy cavalry who had pursued Craterus across the field of battle to the Alexandrian rear, swiftly disposing of the medium cavalry the general had tried to rally, though wily Craterus himself eluded capture once more.

The killing blow.

It was a close game, with only two points in it at the end (8-6 in favour of the Persians). An ahistorical result, which for all the complaints of lack of balance in C&C scenarios, does happen from time to time.

One odd artifact of the Command Card selection was that neither Alexander and his companion cavalry, nor Darius and his Immortals were ever activated, even to defend. The battle raged and (due to the vagaries of the draws) neither leader was roused to action.

Macedonians casualties.

All in all, a good game, well-fought. At this point, the plan for next week is to return to Napoleon 1806 (Shakos, 2017). We played the introductory scenario twice early in the year, but have yet to play the Campaign scenario. Tune in next time.

 

 

State of Play: French and Indian War (5/6)

 

 

On Tuesday night, T and I played French and Indian War, 1757-1759 (Worthington Publishing, 2020), game five of six. We had planned at the outset to do two games each playing the British/French using the historical set-up, with the last two games taking turns at each side with free-form set up. I’ve really enjoyed playing the historical set-up games, and while set the board for each game, I can’t keep in my head the disposition of the opposing army (beyond say, playing the French, remembering the British have two regular units holding Halifax). After this game, though, I think it’s the free-form set-up where the game really shines.

Starting disposition, East (for reference, New York - top right corner).

We diligently tried to set up to our own respective strategies, ignoring as best we could the opponent’s placements. After set up, T – as the British – took the first move, and too to the high seas, claiming control of the Atlantic Ocean. I had placed four units in Louisbourg, but they were all Militia; I wanted the appearance of a reinforced garrison, but I’d located my available Regulars at Forts, Carillon, Duquesne and Niagara. Inexplicably, T had left Halifax unoccupied in his set-up, concentrating his forces in the major cities and on his land borders.

Starting disposition, west (for reference, New York, top-left corner).

I wanted to push hard on t least two fronts and make gains before the end of the first year, and maybe even take the prize. In my first handful of turns, I did manage to take Fort William McHenry, which had also been left unattended, and Cumberland, where offered stout resistance for several rounds, but withdrew in good order, perhaps sensing a burgeoning threat in the central corridor leading to New York.

I did make a show of attempting to wrest control of the Atlantic from the British, and I saw off one of his ship units, before being expelled myself from that field of conflict. Britainnia indeed ruled the waves.

By the end of the first year, I had conceded two units to T, and he had lost four. These translated to that many points each. After we’d dealt with winter attrition, we countered off the enemy locations held. I gained another seven points in this way; a worthy effort, but not quite enough for the required 10-point margin that would have given me victory in the first year.

Situation at the end of 1757 (before deployment of reinforcements).

The Second year began with reinforcements. I had relinquished an Irregular unit and a contingent of Militia. I spent my measly three reinforcement points for 1758 on a fifth Regular unit and two Irregulars, and this turned out to be a wise move. I suspect T spent his five reinforcement points on Regular units, and had he put them all into the field, the course of the war may have been altered. As it was, he placed two units in Halifax, where they would stay for the remainder of the game.

A war party of Indians allied to the French made it as far as the outskirts of New York, before being turned back by a Large conventional force, thus tying up resources that should rightly have been taking the fight to my (now shaky) front in the west. I admit I went into the game with the sketchiest of strategic plans – mostly I took opportunities as they presented themselves, but the opportunities kept coming, and I exploited them as best I could.

I didn’t get it all my own way, but with the end of the year nearing, T began to pull some of his troops back to the larger cities and towns to preserve them over the winter. I used the last two rounds to disperse my troops, especially the ranging Irregulars, to as many uncontrolled British towns as I could reach. This tactic won me the game at the end of 1758, with an end score of 21 points to T’s nine.

Situation at the end of 1758.

The takeaway from this game, for me, was something I had suspected from playing the French for the first two games. French success, I think, is dependent on the maintenance and judicious deployment of the Irregulars. Their ability to move two locations when activated is key to claiming points for captured locations for end-of-year scoring. With some forethought-outplacement of my Indian allies, I just managed get over the 10-point victory threshold at the end of 1758. I think to be fair I should also mention T’s assistance in my victory; we both conceded points for lost units, but where I would sacrifice a Militia unit to preserve my Regulars or Irregulars, T would doggedly stay in the meatgrinder of prolonged battle in the hopes of weakening my troops overall. Across the game I think the unit loss was roughly 1:2 or maybe even 1:2.5 in my favour. That was a solid contribution to the French victory.

One more game – at this point slated for next week – then we move on to another game. I’m not sure what we’ll go on to yet, but I’ve got an itch to get This War Without an Enemy (Nuts! Publishing, 2020) to the table. Given we can really only play on school nights, we’ll probably have to stick to the shorter scenarios. Anyway, I’ll confirm the next game in the final report, and I’ll post a full review of French and Indian War within a couple of weeks.