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Review of Commands & Colors: Ancients - Expansion 4 Imperial Rome
Blurb from the publisher: '24 epic battles! Now you are in command!
Command & Colors Ancients allows you to re-fight epic battles of the ancient world. In this expansion, the Roman armies still battle barbarians, but now most of the battles are fought to preserve the Roman Empire rather than expand it. Rome's enemies are becoming more proficient while Rome's legions are declining in ability. Ominously, even while outside threats increase, Rome's legions are increasingly consumed in costly wars fought by rival generals aspiring to become Emperor.
Units in both armies can only move and fight when ordered. The command playing cards supply those orders, providing an element of luck that creates a fog of war and presents players with both challenges and opportunities. You must maximize your opportunities by playing your command cards judiciously. How well you handle the diverse units, their weapons, and the terrain, will determine victory.
Important: In order to play this expansion, you will need a copy of the basic Commands & Colors Ancients game, plus C&C expansions Nr.1 and Nr.2.'
What you get: Your USD 60 or equivalent will buy you Commands & Colors: Ancients - Expansion Nr. 4 Imperial Rome, the fourth expansion that got published for the Commands & Colors: Ancients game line. For those not in the know, the Commands & Colors: Ancients basic game is a two-player game of ancient warfare of light to medium complexity that lasts from an hour to an hour and a half. The basic game was first published in 2006 and currently enjoys its 6th printing and a very prestigious placement on BGG's top-120.
In addition to the 32-page Rulebook which can be also downloaded from the publisher's website free of charge, the expansion also contains the following: 15 Terrain tiles, two wooden Card Holders, 2 Player Reference cards, 293 wooden blocks, and 4 sticker sheets. The last two, when compiled, will produce the following: 174 blocks of Roman Units (6 Light Infantry Units, 2 Light Bow Infantry Units, 5 Light Sling Infantry Units, 8 Auxilia Infantry Units, one Warrior Infantry Unit, 9 Medium Infantry Units, 3 Heavy Infantry Units, one Heavy War Machine Unit, 4 Light Cavalry Units, 2 Light Bow Cavalry Units, 4 Medium Cavalry Units, 2 Heavy Cavalry Units, 2 Heavy Cataphract Cavalry Units, 4 Leaders), 55 blocks of Eastern Kingdom Units (one Warrior Infantry Unit, 2 Light Cavalry Units, 6 Light Bow Cavalry Units, 5 Heavy Cataphract Cavalry Units, 2 Camel Units, 2 Cataphract Camel Units), 18 blocks of Barbarian Units (2 Medium Cavalry Units, 4 Heavy Cavalry Units), 5 Bandwagons, 8 Roman Victory Banners and 2 Special Units.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have owned and played Imperial Rome for many years now. This is not your average playtest.
Gameplay: Most of the Commands & Colors: Ancients expansions base their strength on a handful of new rules and a swathe of historical scenarios. The sequence of play and everything that makes the game what it is remain the same. You will be fighting using the Command cards from the basic box (there are no new Command cards here), and on that same map with additional hexes on top, if needed. There are hundreds of new stickers for the new coloured armies that you will field. The Roman Army in this expansion is not the one you might be accustomed to from Expansions 2 & 3; it is in fact perceptibly weaker. The Eastern Kingdom armies have been strengthened, and now include light archers, heavy cataphracted cavalry (identical to cavalry but ignores the first hit), not to mention cataphract camels (identical to camels but ignore the first hit). The Barbarians have taken a similar step, with a serious cavalry upgrade.
Wagon blocks can be used to depict Baggage Wagons and Wagon Laagers. The former can be moved around, and may form a part of a scenario's winning conditions (e.g. move them to that side of the board / destroy them when they are unprotected for additional victory points). The latter are immovable constructs, and act as a sort of barricade.
Just like the previous expansions, this expansion also uses Special Unit blocks and extra abilities. Depending on the battle the special unit can be Praetorian Guard or use the Caltrops rule. The game has two distinct game-series (think campaigns), where players keep on playing the same side through a series of battles and add up the banners they won. The number of units they loose in each battle is important, since it will influence the units available in the next. Three new special rules (Marian Legions, Julian Legions, Imperial Legions) relate to the weaponry the Romans are armed with as well as additional capabilities. Bridges are a new terrain tile, while Fordable rivers appear once again. Just because you can cross them however does not mean that they make battle easier.
The expansion includes 24 historical scenarios, all of them linked to the Roman Empire. The earliest one is Tigranocerta (69 BC) while the latest is Cibalae (314 AD). Romans are invariably present. In 15 battles they fight any of the Armenians, Parthians, Britons, Goths, Persians, Alemanni, and Palmyrene, while in another 8, and in typical Mediterranean fashion, they will fight amongst themselves (e.g. the Republicans vs the Triumvirate, Capelianus vs Gordianus, Constantine vs Maxentius). The exception that proves the rule is the battle of Hormuz, where the Parthians met the Persians. Each battle has its own dedicated starting point and terrain, Command Card allocation, victory requirements (from 5 to 9 banners), and additional special rules in place. Expect small yet tricky engagements like Leuctra (10 units against 13 units, with another 8 non-units on the board) and Carthage (10 units against 9 fighting it to 5 banners in what is probably the fastest and tightest engagement in the whole series). On the other hand there are slaughterhouses like Lugdunum (a 9-banner battle with all sorts of special rules and 41 units on the board).
The strong points: The Ancients expansions are based on a very simple premise. You know 90% of the rules, you know most of the units, the only thing you have to do is learn what's new and start fighting. A C&C enthusiast will have zero issues jumping immediately into the action, or at least after he sticks the hundreds of stickers. The components of all the expansions are of equal quality to those found in the basic game. I will repeat only one line from that review: wooden blocks are immortal. The aesthetics of the game-line are unique and inimitable thus far. The end.
The two card holders are pure luxury. It is a pity they were not included in previous expansions, they make however the game feel easier. This is obviously human psychology and not reality. For me however it is liberating to be able to consult my cards without holding them, and have my hands free while looking at the map.
All that however are tangential to what the game is about: war. Forget the Romans you knew; these are their satiated, weaker cousins. At times they are barely holding their ground, with obvious disadvantages in battles like that of Edessa (4 command cards vs 6, and they also face war elephants!). That's however what makes the thing interesting. Yesterday's favourites are today's underdogs, even when they fight against themselves. The bigger battles are grandiose affairs that will take a fair share of your evening, I admit however that I find more excitement in the shorter and the medium-sized ones. Even when a side is clearly favoured they are very tightly crafted. What do you do when a risky rush backfires? How do you confront units of an almost equal value with an obvious terrain advantage (Placentia, coughcough)? How do you react when your opponent goes on a winning streak, eliminating units in all sides of the map and racking up the banners? That latter point is one of the reasons I like this line so much. No matter how well you are doing in one side of the battlefield, all it takes are some good calls from your opponent and a couple of lucky rolls in order for the battle's momentum to change. I have played more than my fair share of games which begun as an onslaught and ended on a razor's edge. For this incredible replayability alone, any expansion in the line is worth it.
It is also worth it for the diversity that it offers battle-wise. No need for me to talk again about the battles' different sizes, or the extra units some battles include, or special conditions like moving wagons out of the way, or using them as barricades. No matter how well you are acquainted with this game, there is always something brand new to excite you. Even though C&C might never become a pick up game (too much set up for that, even in the Carthage scenario, unless you have found a storage method that distinguishes between every single unit), you can still enjoy a good number of games in a time frame that might have been initially unimaginable.
Favourite battles? Many, especially the more crowded ones. Placentia is definitely one of them, due to the struggle of the Alemanni to retain their woodland advantages. Abrittus is a lot of fun due to the extremely versatile landscape; the Romans have to be really thoughtful about how they maneuver around that. I already mentioned Carthage; it's short, it's sweet, it's deadly. It might not teach you advanced tactics, it does teach however swiftness and acting on an advantage. Next to Leuktra from Expansion 1 Greece vs the Eastern Kingdoms, this is one of my go-to games when we are pressed for time but we feel the C&C itch.
This is only one out of the six expansions that have been published for the basic game. If you have enough of Romans on your plate, there is a lot of fun to be had with the Greeks and their own fair share of drama. We will keep on visiting this line until every single expansion is covered, I promise.
The weak points: The obvious note that is valid for all Commands & Colors: Ancients products, and which I have to repeat review after review: don't expect this expansion to resolve the basic game's issues (historical theme vs gamist nature, abstractions, the preponderance of luck etc). When you go to the butcher's, you get meat.
Some might not like the fact of having yet another Roman army. What did you expect with such a title? The whole Ancients line is about the Greeks and the Romans first and foremost. If it's not about the one, it will be about the other. That having been said, the scenarios are not born equal when it comes to balance. The designer had to decide how much to follow historical accuracy and where to go for a more gamist approach. To make a long story short, a handful of scenarios might feel unwinnable for one of the sides. As I wrote in the Greece vs the Eastern Kingdoms review, a better balance could have been achieved through increasing the numbers of the weaker side, decreasing the number of banners the weaker side needs to win etc. I fully understand however that this might have messed with the battles' historical aspects, and could have caused confusion as to what victory really means.
Don't complain about the scarce new rules, and how the game still plays like the basic box with a few changes. If the game altered its ruleset significantly in every expansion, it would have stopped working coherently. As to new terrain, give me a break. Terrain is important in a battle, yet there is a reason why armies opted for plains in order to engage one another. If you want to battle in urban landscapes with scenery every second meter, play Dust 1947.
The C&C line is not plug and play, and if you don't know it by now you should go back and read the review of the basic game. One will need around a full afternoon in order to stick all the stickers to all the units. To achieve the lack of fog of war stickers are attached to both sides of each block. Put on one your favourite series, relax and get on with it.
The price of the expansion stings. When the basic game costs USD 65, an expansion that mostly offers blocks and scenarios doing more of the same shouldn't cost USD 60. The USD 30 to 40 range would have been much more palatable. Even more so because one simply can't begin from this box, if he is particularly intrigued by its theme and battles. Remember: in order to buy this, you need to own the basic box as well as expansions 1 and 2. Seeing how expansions 2 and 3 are now combined in the same product, you need to invest 65 + 60 + 60 = USD 185 in order to meaningfully buy the present expansion, which costs another USD 60. The publisher should have been a bit more considerate here.
Conclusion: Imperial Rome is undoubtedly a heavy expansion to get into, taking into account the prerequisites it has. On the other hand however, it continues the line stylishly with even more units, diverse and exciting battles, as well as a few new tricks. If you are a hardened C&C fan, chances are that you own it already.
For more info on Commands & Colors: Ancients - Expansion Nr. 4 - Imperial Rome, and GMT Games overall, take a look at http://www.gmtgames.com.
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