"Commands & Colors Ancients - any rule variants or mods?" Topic

Does anyone know if there are any more 'detailed' C&C:A rule variants or mods that have been tried or are available? As a game its OK but I'd really like something that plays a bit more like an ancient battle. I'm quite willing to lose the fast play to add some depth.

Oh, and I shouldn't really have to say this but just in case I will. If the game is 'perfect' for your taste then I'm very happy for you, likewise if you think its rubbish thats fine by me but please respect the fact that we may not all want exactly the same thing out of a game!

I have seen some rule mods somewhere that added in some battle lore style bits (suggest that it may have been boardgame geek)

There are at least 6 expansions that I can remember.

You might also look at the Battles of Westros game from Fantasry Flight games…I realize this isn't a rules variant, but it looks like you're looking for more detail and chrome in your game. The rules can be downloaded at their web site, or on BoardGameGeek.

Warn you up front -- I'm a big fan of C&C:A. I very much accept it for being fast instead of detailed, and I enjoy the battles for getting them done in two hours instead of accomplishing pretty much the same thing with another game, but taking four hours to do it.

Many of the battles seemed to be "line 'em up and knock 'em down" affairs, where the only variants either came with a few of the rarer units (chariots, elephants), or how the cards played out.

And then the "Rome and the Barbarians" supplement came along. I loved this not only for the disparate forces lined up against each other, but there are a few very clever scenarios in there that mess with your head while using the rules you know. Some have your units far advanced across the board -- in an excellent position to cut off your enemy's retreat, but also in a dangerous position of having your own retreat cut off. Really found a lot of trickery, a lot of new ways to think through what you thought you already knew by heart.

There are several variants that make C&C:A crunchier, but darned if I can point you to where they are now. I have just read them across a smattering of blogs, BGG posts, and such.

Battles of Westeros has some crunchy ideas that you might like. For example, you can easily take the flanking concept. The idea is that the first unit that combats an enemy unit places an engagement token between the two units. Any subsequent unit combatting that engaged unit counts as flanking and gets a combat bonus (can re-roll some combat dice). Being forced to retreat breaks the engagement, of course. Being engaged by an enemy unit breaks your engagement with another enemy unit. Voluntarily disengaging results in a Parting Blow, which is exactly what it sounds like: a free attack before you leave the hex.

Battles of Westeros adds more crunchiness by using Keywords – traits added to unit types which confer special abilities – each with their own special rules. It adds to the complexity as a whole, but if you study a scenario prior to playing it, so you can understand who has what ability and what the effects are, it gets more manageable.

Some units have the Formation keyword, allowing the unit to take a different stance in combat. Line, Wedge, Hedgehog, and Square are just some of those formations. During play you decide which formation you are using, for all units of that type, by flipping the unit's card over (one side has the formation and the other is normal). Rather than doing all or nothing, you might use tokens in order to indicate unit by unit. Units in wedges punch through the opposing battle line better. Units in line resist being flanked better. In both cases, these formations are more susceptible to range attacks. Hedgehog gets a combat bonus, but all attacks against it are also granted a combat bonus. Squares have fewer dice in the attack, but get more in battle backs and parting blows.

Some ranged units can get Indirect Fire, which allows them to fire on enemy units when tracing line of sight through an adjacent friendly unit. This makes for killer "triangles". (A term used in BattleLore and Samurai Battles, but I don't think is used for C&C:A because it does not use the concept of support in the same way – I think. It has been a LOOONG time since I played C&C:A. I mostly play BattleLore, which is a little crunchier, and Battles of Westeros, which is a lot crunchier.) As the bows can provide support for the two melee units in front, but still be able to fire, it makes the Tully Longbowmen very tough. If that weren't bad enough, they can also Volley, which allows a firing Longbow unit to get additional combat dice when firing along with their neighbors. (It is actually much worse than it sounds.)

By the way, you can download all of the rules for Battles of Westeros and its expansions for free from the FFG web site. Even without the game you can glean a LOT of information from those rules. If you download the Vassal module, you can get even more information.

So, we have covered Battles of Westeros, now we go to BattleLore. BattleLore uses a concept of support (having two friendly units adjacent) in order to confer the ability to: a) ignore one flag, and b) battle back. I realize that C&C:A allows you to battle back anyway, but as you are mucking about with the rules, why not change that one? This forces the player to maintain battle formations or risk destruction as they are hit by units and cannot hit back. I see more line breaking, rolling up the flanks, destroying isolated units, etc. in BattleLore than I did with C&C:A, which is why I moved away from the latter in favor of the former.

BattleLore also has Lore, which most people think is magick, but that is not quite true. Yes, it does have cards light Fireball and Chain Lightning, but it has a number of cards that are simply unit buffs (attack with +1 dice, ignore one Banner hit, ignore all Flags, etc.). There is a variation in BattleLore called Medieval Lore that uses only those Lore cards that are not "magicky". So it allows you to use the unit buffs and apply them at critical moments in the battle, but it does not overwhelm the game.

Again, all of the BattleLore rules can be downloaded for free from FFG and the Vassal module has all the information you would need. Despite being out of print for awhile now, eBay has copies for sale and the BattleLore on Vassal community is currently running tournaments with a dozen players.

Some other ideas I have read involve having the units face a hex vertice and then using movement to change facing, and adjusting the combat dice based on whether you are attacking to the front, flank or rear. Others have adjusted the dice for attacking on the flank or rear, meaning units are destroyed faster. Some use both ideas in combination, but that seems to be double jeopardy.

Anyway, I cannot remember where I saw that, but it might have been in one of the rules sets from the Tin Soliders of Antwerp.

Hope something here spurs the imagination.

Dale

Thanks all – thats helpful, especially the fact that the rules are available as downloads.

"There are at least 6 expansions that I can remember."
I think the most useful expanision is 'Epic' which adds to the game as opposed to just having more scenarios and new blocks with the odd special unit.

"Warn you up front -- I'm a big fan of C&C:A." I have absolutely no problem with that :-)

@Dale – thanks for the details, I think you've hit a fair few nails on their heads with that post.

Simple changes like giving each block 2 hits, reducing retreat distances and using blocks rather than banners as victory points goes a fair way to reducing the more 'gamey' aspects of the rules (no offence intended, just can't think of a better way to describe them).

Basically I'm just being lazy and hoped there was something already tried and tested that slotted in as easily alongside the original rules without altering too much.

Speaking of battle Lore which is done by the same designer, Richard Borg, all of the initial scenarios were based on 100 Years War Scenarios. there was actually a 100 years war supplement (IIRC). The Command variation cards was a good historical supplement as well.

Almost all of the playtesting was done with Miniatures. In fact Richard took miniatures to several shows to do demos prior to the systems release.

Currently I have watched him demo his Seven years War system at several of the recent Florida conventions. I hope to share a booth with him at Historicon if all of the pieces fall together.

I'm sure that during the design process Mr Borg must have gone through hundreds of variations of time/depth/detail before the final balance was fixed.

If you get a chance to ask for an 'Advanced' C&C:Ancients supplement where he leaves in all the whistles and bells I would be eternally grateful :-)

I have found as we play it more, it does play more like an Ancient battle, especially now we actually understand the 'line' and 'leadership' cards.

Annoyances like light troops being unable to evade through friendlies are easy to fix. Or just leave a gap.

Most/all of the CnC refghts featured in the Society of Ancients Journal seem to be Epic ones though.

I think the use of Epic is for several reasons:

1. More than two players can participate. (This certainly seems to be a draw online, using Vassal, with C&C:A Epic and Memoir '44 Overlord).

2. More units means a longer game, without a whole lot more complexity.

Dale

I found it played very well as it was. For our big Epic Zama, the only real change we made was to the victory banners; we made the loss of light troops, matter less. All the units have a symbol on the round chits next to them, but only some of the chits have a "*" on the reverse, and count for victory. Relatively few of the greens had *s, but most of the reds did.

link

Cheers, Simon

Thats a superb looking game, the amount of effort that must have gone into putting that on! It looks like a lot more units than you tend to see in the scenarios, even in the Epic scenarios. Maybe just the effect with the figures though – that photo almost makes me want to start painting my 28mm ancients again :-)

Thanks. It was about double-size the size of the C&CA Epic game. We worked out how many units we wanted to use to represent the legions, and then scaled everything else to match.