First Impressions of Commands and Colors Ancients

I’ve been on the look out for a new set of Ancients rules for a while. Commands & Colors is one of the major contenders since the demise of DBM so I purchased the base set (Commands & Colors Ancients).

 

I read the rules then Chris Harrod and I had a go. Within four hours I both I taught Chris the rules and we played three games. It was fun, fast and easy game to play and had some period flavour.

On the down side it lacked elements that would have improved it as a simulation. Just off hand the things that were odd for us were:

  • No benefit to flank attacks
  • Rear attack is almost as dangerous to the attacker as to the victim
  • No Zone of Control in front of enemy
  • Heavy troops, hence presumably armoured, die against ranged combat as fast as anybody else
  • Skirmishers are lethal if you let them stand and shoot

None-the-less we liked it enough to consider playing through all 15 scenarios in the core rules. And I’m tempted to get Expansion 1 so I can play Romans versus the Hellenistic kingdoms.

1 thought on “First Impressions of Commands and Colors Ancients”

  1. Hello,
    If you ever decide to compose a set of “house rule” additions, I would be most appreciative if you would share them with me.
    Kind regards,
    Revd Fr Wm. Courtney Fleenor

    Reply

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