Quick Wargame Quick Takes
Command & Colors: Ancients from GMT, and Ted
Raicer's The First World War from Phalanx
Command & Colors:
Ancients: I've been dragged kicking and
screaming into this whole Command and Colors thing after Battle Cry left me
irritated. Since I liked Memoir '44 well enough but it was a second-tier game
for me, I didn't have much interest in Command & Colors: Ancients, even
though I am a huge fan of the period. I ended up playing it during some downtime
at GMT Games Day.
Let me just say one
thing: those dice are
hideous.
Continuing along
...
I was actually pretty pleased with
the feel of C&C:A. It's a more incremental game than Memoir '44 or Battle
Cry, with things happening in slightly smaller chunks (combat is less lethal, in
general, and more attritional because attacked units can damage their attackers)
and in slower motion (most units capable of serious damage in close combat move
only one hex per turn), all of which gives the game more time to develop, which
I think is a good thing, more or less. Light troops skirmish and then use the
evade rules to fall back before the main clash of arms. Finally we have a game
in this series where the whole division of the battlefield into sectors (right
flank, left flank, center) actually makes some kind of intuitive sense, and
combined with some sensible command cards (order skirmishers, order cavalry) the
game doesn't feel like it's leaning quite so heavily on minis and art for its
theme. And the many classes of troops involved in ancient battles are nicely
reflected with subtle and flavorful differences. All in all, for me this gives
by far the best historical flavor of the Command and Colors
games.
The cost, of course, is
increased playing time and increased rules overhead. The added playing time is
significant but not too bad, and it gives some of it back with a faster set-up
time, given the lack of much terrain in most scenarios. The rules complexity is
a bit more suspect, with a fair number of fiddly-type chrome rules. The question
is whether or not all of this is justified in light of the fact that Command and
Colors is, at its heart, a game that's more or less a luck-fest with some
interesting choices that sometimes seem incidential. I am not quite decided,
personally. For the moment, the balance works out in favor of the game because I
like the flavor and the period, but I can see somewhere 10 games in, if and when
it become clear that there just isn't that much in terms of strategy or tactics
to the game, that the added fiddlyness would be unwelcome over the
cleaner-playing Memoir '44 (and to be honest, Memoir '44 itself would never be
mistaken for a Knizia in terms of design
elegance).
The other question is, of
course, the quality of the scenarios – an area in which Memoir '44 fell
down in a large part. The one I played (Zama) was one of the bigger ones and
seemed OK. Looking them over, I admit I am suspicious of the scenario balance.
On this, though, only time will
tell.
Ted Raicer's The First
World War: The commentary on this one had led
me to believe that it would probably suck, but that was not the case, and I
modestly enjoyed my one play. That said, it wasn't great either, and it's a
tough sell in light of the better stuff
available.
The First World War is
basically a game of bluff. You try to concentrate you armies at areas of enemy
weakness and use concealed units and dummies to convince him not to attack in
areas you are weak. That's kinda cool, but that's really all there is –
once you've made your comittments at the beginning of each game-year, the rest
plays out as rather luck-heavy with high-stakes single die rolls and pretty
obvious moves, and a game that will go 3 hours if it goes the distance. It's not
without a fun factor – pushing around the armies and watching them advance
or retreat is kinda neat – but if I want to play a simple game of bluff
and deception, I'll play Quebec 1759 or War of 1812 instead, both of which are
much more complete packages. Or Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. If the
First World War had great themeing, that might be another matter – but it
doesn't.
So it's a game that certainly
isn't terrible, but there are a lot of better light wargames to spend a couple
hours on. As is often the case, I think it needed another idea. The stuff that's
in there is okay, there just isn't enough of it. The game is too
one-dimensional. Being rules-light doesn't mean you need to be idea-light
also.
I should also mention that I
found the map amazingly unattractive. Phalanx is known for their very high
production values, and in many cases I'd agree (Revolution was amazing if played
in good light, A House Divided and The Prince were both very nice, and most of
the rest were at least above average in this category). But The First World War
is unattractive in spots and overall is graphically ineffective, at best. Recent
Phalanx games seem to have lost their edge in terms of physical attractiveness,
without picking up any ground in terms of actual usability (which has always
been a sore spot).
Posted: Monday - April 17, 2006 at 06:16 PM