Comments on: Sometimes You Need to Listen

By: Vic Davis

Vic Davis — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:44:44 +0000

Michael A. Thanks for the recommendation on the Sabin book! That looks really interesting.

I am really close to pulling the trigger on C&C: Ancients. Part of me is afraid that once committed the completist in me will demand the annexation of the other modules. Which begs an interesting marketing question…at what point does the existence of too many expansions become a deterrent to entry rather than an enticement?

By: Michael A.

Michael A. — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 10:36:51 +0000

While C&C:Ancients interests me (it’s Ancients, what’s not to love?), I just don’t have the time to do the modding/painting/rebasing that would be required to play it with miniatures (I have the miniatures, if anyone feels like a vacation in Norway and a painting job).

But really, when I need a quick-play Ancient Wargame – using miniatures – I usually whip out Strategos 2 by Philip Sabin. Actually, Strategos 3 just came out – in book form.

If you have an interest in Ancient battles (duh), allow me to recommend: “Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World” by Philip Sabin. You won’t regret it.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 03:43:13 +0000

Yeah, I did a good chunk of the stickering on a friend’s copy of the first expansion, and it was pretty tedious. We’d played a lot of the base game, and he’d stickered it himself, so I figured I owed him. I think we only ended up playing the expansion once…

By: Scott R. Krol

Scott R. Krol — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:54:17 +0000

Actually no, you never had to mount your own counters in the era of $6 (yes, really!) games. But yes, the maps were unmounted, and this continues today. Only Avalon Hill really got into mounted maps, one of the benefits of being a printing company first. GMT games are unmounted, although the C&C expansions do come with mounted maps because folks not used to wargaming standards were crying about the original cardstock map.

Now while you didn’t have to mount counters in the old days today that’s actually fairly common, thanks to the rise of DTP games such as titles from Perry Moore, Firefight, or found in Vae Victis. In those cases a scanner and label paper will make your life oh so much easier.

Well Troy, if you don’t let people into the basement (umm, doesn’t have anything to do with the number of college co-eds that come up missing every year near where you live, does it?) just take over the family room. Wives love that I’m told.

By: JonathanStrange

JonathanStrange — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:06:36 +0000

My father did a little wargaming in his time – before he decided golf was a better waste of it, being outdoors and all – and he tells me that “in the old days” SPI would sell $6 games that included printed sheets that you would glue to cardboard…et voila! infantry divisions, air squadrons, cavalry companies, what have you. Basically, you made your own counters. Plus, I think the game “board” was paper – on heavy stock but paper nonetheless.

By: Troy

Troy — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:05:43 +0000

I got the two newest expansions and my wife will be buying me the core game as a late Xmas gift. Very late.

Every time I look at a miniature set up like that Zama one, I get the urge to set up a huge battle tableau in my basement. But then no one would see it, because we don’t let people down there.