Command and Colors Medieval Crusades Game - Nicaea 1097

 

Command and Colors Medieval Crusades 

Original CCM board game and rules

Nicaea 1097 scenario

Seljuks win easily 5-2 Victory Banners

Yesterday I received my long awaited copy of the new GMT Games board game Command and Colors Medieval Crusades. This is the first expansion on the original 2019 Command and Colors Medieval game and you need a lot of the components, including the board, cards, terrain hexes, blocks and tokens from the original game to play it. After putting on all the stickers on the wooden blocks and reading the rules and scenarios yesterday, I decided to play Nicaea 1097, the first scenario in the booklet out in the shed this morning. This scenario sees the Seljuk Turks under Kilij Arslan 1 attempting to disrupt the Crusaders' siege of Nicaea outside the South Gate in 1097. Both sides have six command cards and four inspired actions tokens.

There are a number of new troop types and special rules, so there is quite a bit to absorb and get used too, including combined arms tactics such as the Light Cavalry Swarm attacks. In my solo game the Seljuks won fairly easily 5-2 Victory Banners, making good use of the Darken the Sky card. There are twenty scenarios in total (three of various stages at Dorylaeum and four of Hattin) so many hours of fun gaming with the early Crusades up to 1187. I like to play these games with figures where possible so I'm keen to paint more figures for my Crusader, Seljuk, Fatimid and Ayyubid armies.

We've been away on holidays for a couple of weeks down on Kangaroo Island in South Australia. We did a popular five day, 66km bushwalk, the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail, on the western part of the island in the Flinders Chase National Park. Below are some photos of our walk.

Female koala trying to get away from a male koala

Starting out Day One

A goanna

The Cascades Rocky River

Footbridge Snake Lagoon

Walking to the coast Day Two

Rocky River reaches the sea

Maupertuis Beach at low tide

Amazing vegetation on the limestone outcrops

Coastal garden

Fly collection

A few showers blow through on Day Three

Remarkable Rocks

Cape Younghusband

Fur seals play in the rock pools

Hanson Bay Day Four

Plush camp kitchen 

Wild coast

Boat crossing on Hanson River

Melaleuca Gibbosa

Track on tree stumps

Rest stop

Bottlebrush

Finish of the walk

Circus Maximus - Blues' Chariot

 

Here's a Blues' chariot for Circus Maximus that I've just finished painting. Below are photos of the Blues' and Greens' chariots together, all Steve Barber Models figures. I've started on a Reds' chariot and have a Whites' chariot assembled and undercoated for painting. After that I just have to finish off the 3mm mdf track I've started and racing will commence!

GMT Games are just about to release a new Roman chariot racing board game called Charioteer which looks interesting:

https://www.gmtgames.com/p-937-charioteer.aspx

I'm not sure if this will work with the chariots I've collected for Circus Maximus but it looks like a fun game anyway. See previous post Circus Maximus- Greens' Chariot for a bit of background on this project.

Command & Colors Samurai Battles - First Samurai Skirmish

 

First Samurai Skirmish scenario 

Last Monday my eagerly awaited order of the new GMT Games board game, Command & Colors Samurai Battles, arrived and I spent the afternoon putting the stickers on the wooden blocks. Today after rereading the rules I played a solo game with the first of forty scenarios. This proved to be a cracking game, that was neck and neck right to the final turn. The two sides were evenly matched in terms of troops, command cards, dragon cards and honour and fortune tokens. While there is much that will be familiar to players of Command & Colors Ancients and Medieval, there are definitely differences which really add a lot to the period flavour.

An example of this is with a retreating leader, where rather than escaping and fighting another day, the player may choose to have the leader commit seppuku (honourable suicide), thus depriving the opponent of a possible victory banner, and in turn gaining five honour and fortune tokens, while losing a command card. Careful use and management of the honour and fortune tokens is really key to maintaining your army's morale. Retreating units entail the loss of honour and fortune tokens and a lack of honour roll can cause losses to the retreating and closest units. Troops depending on their type can generate honour tokens when rolling dice for ranged fire and/or combat. 

At the end of each turn the active player receives a dragon card as well as a replacement command card. The effective use of these dragon cards, including the timing in a turn phase, is something I struggled with in my first game but hopefully greater familiarity with the cards and rules will see some improvement in this area. The rules are only thirty pages and not overly complex but with all the scenarios, dragon cards and honour and fortune tokens there are many, many hours of rewarding and challenging gaming to be had with this board game.

End of a close game with a 5-4 result

First Game of Command and Colors Medieval - Utus River 447 AD

Command & Colors Medieval board with Utus River scenario from the Byzantine side

Command & Colors Medieval board with Utus River scenario from the Hun side

Yesterday I finally received my long awaited copy of the new GMT Games boardgame, Command and Colors Medieval (CCM) by Richard Borg. This morning I played a solo first game with the Utus River scenario, the first of nineteen scenarios, with Attila and his Huns taking on an Eastern Roman army under Arnegisclus. The details of this encounter are fairly obscure. For gamers familiar with Command and Colors Ancients (CCA) much is the same but there are changes, some that reflect the increasing importance of cavalry and the reduced role of infantry in set battle in the fifth and sixth centuries.

All cavalry units are now four blocks rather than three and Heavy Infantry now fight with four dice instead of five. Other changes include bow armed medium, heavy and super heavy (cataphract) cavalry for many scenarios with the Huns and Sassanids, superior armour class and superior stature, Parthian shot rules for evading light bow cavalry and Inspired Actions tokens which can be used when playing a Leadership Command Card. Medium Infantry now move like Auxilia and may move one hex and battle or two hexes and no battle. The Inspired Actions feature is an interesting addition to CCM and there is a reference sheet for this. The tokens can also be used to Move a Leader, Bonus Battle and Bravery and can be gained in a number of ways.

In my solo game the Byzantines performed quite well and were defeated by the Huns by nine to seven victory banners, a surprisingly close result, and were actually leading the game at one point. The mounted Hun medium and heavy bow armed cavalry are really powerful and mobile units, especially with an attached leader, and are a double threat in ranged or close combat. I'm really looking forward to trying out the other eighteen scenarios in CCM and will definitely be planning and playing games with miniatures like we've done with CCA.

Huns defeat Byzantines 9 to 7 Victory Banners - surprisingly close!