Commands & Colo[u]rs Ancients

& Medieval, Crusades, Tricorne, Jacobite. But mostly Ancients. Sometimes with miniatures.

So, during the plague years, while working at home/locked down Firemonkeyboy & I started a more or less weekly C&C Ancients game at lunchtime using Vassal, which works fantastic, &which has continued on to this day. We also experimented for a while with playing DBA with a webcam & your choice of conferencing software, but settled on C&C as our regular drug, more or less.

A very impromptu partially-painted Viking vs something early Irish IIRC (Germans proxying) DBA encounter by webcam and video conference, with even more minimal and impromptu terrain

The even more impromptu webcam setup for DBA with Early Imperial Romans and Early Germans

The Vassal version of C&C Ancients

I got hooked on the system, & since the Before Times I have now picked up all of the above (with the Crusades on preorder obvs, and a 15mmish army of French and English and assorted other Crusaders in progress using repurposed Joan of Arc figures, to take on the Ayyubids and Salah al-Din). I’ve also done some online games with a few other folks, usually someone from the Fun City ASL crew (hi Renaud and Jim).

In addition to loving the Vassal version of the game as a way to just get a quick hit of something that feels like historical Ancients miniatures, without the hassles of moving units and measuring range via webcam (and yes we tried to figure out the Tabletop Simulator version of DBA but never quite managed to), the game can of course be played with miniatures instead of the blocks. This is something I have been experimenting with using the same DBA & DBM armies. The basing for the latter (three for most Cav, four for most heavy foot, &c.) conveniently matches the C&C number of blocks for a majority of cases, 15mm bases fit on the actual game board, & small coloured beads or tiny dice or the like for hit markers can be used for tracking losses.

Some 15mm Early Imperial Romans try this hex thing, under close supervision

Having 15mm Viking, Early German & Early Imperial Roman DBx armies, & having recently traded my 28mm ECW for ready-to-go & beautifully-painted Spartans, generic Greeks, & Antigonid Macedonian Successors, as well as the start of Sassanid and Ayyubid armies & a largish 15mm lead pile for all of the above to boot, I’m now busy putting hexes on one of my green 4′ x 6′ gameboards, as this would look very cool with actual terrain on a proper tabletop.

DBA Early Imperials about to go on training in an undisclosed location for hexes. I actually have at least a 500 point DBM army, more than that I believe

I’ll use this new hex gameboard with both C&C as well as with Check Your Six, & with any other hex-based miniatures game that might come along. (CY6! might eventually need two of my three 4′ x 6′ tables if we get serious about it, at 1/144 and 2 or 3″ hexes, we’ll see). The Germans may also end up proxying for Gauls, Britons, miscellaneous other Celts & such as well, at least for C&C purposes. And oh yeah, we have lots of 28mm stuff done or in the works for other armies too, which will likely get a C&C call out at some point once they have finished their hex conversion training.

Early German DBA army. These guys started out as Early Imp allies for DBM, but now have at least 500 points of their own to face off against their former allies. They don’t care about learning how to use hexes.

Once we hit the Early Imps & Early Germans in C&C Ancients Expansion #2, it will be time to experiment with some outdoor games & 15mm miniatures this summer. We are very close, having played everything in order at one game a week, & are now nearing the end of the Slave Revolt. If the weather or available time for FtF doesn’t cooperate, Vassal will do in a pinch.