Over the last couple of years I’ve heard and read a lot of people complaining about all the tiny stickers in Command and Colors.
Brother, they weren’t kidding. That took forever. And I’m still not done.
Sometimes You Need to Listen
January 25th, 2008 by Troy Goodfellow · 9 Comments · Board Games, Me
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The blocks with stickers thing is one of the key reasons why I’ve never gotten around to buying in C&C:Ancients. Such a pity that this didn’t get picked up by someone willing to produce it with miniatures.
Haw haw! ;)
Yeah, ’tis a bitch, ain’t it? It’s actually not too bad if you just do a little at a time while listening to some music or watching a movie. Can even be a little mellowing. The only thing to be careful about is that you follow along the book, as there are excess stickers and if you just plug down the rows, you’ll end up with an incorrect count.
You could also do the ol’ Tom Sawyer bit and invite all your friends over and have all the blocks out, and then start telling them how thrilling and fun it is to sticky them up. Before you know it, everyone is getting in on the fun! Or not.
By the way, what did you get? All releases so far?
Michael, unfortunately I don’t think anyone would be up to the challenge of selling it with minis. Unlike the other C&C games, there are a lot of different unit types just in the base game. And then there’s the fact that many of the units are supposed to represent different nationalities. If they did generic minis you’d be looking at a severe grog backlash.
All that said Battlelore has ended up with a ton of different units, although there I’m guessing that fantasy is always going to be a much bigger seller than ancients, which helps.
I will say though that while initially there is a turn-off with using blocks coming from minis, it actually works out quite well. Since you can grab four blocks and move them in concert you don’t have the fiddle factor of pushing minis, and there is a nice uniformity to it.
Now, if you want to get a little crazy there are plenty of companies that make 1/72 plastic ancient figures that you could substitute for the blocks. Or, go the metal route, which has an even bigger choice selection. While you can go with 25mm, there’s also 15mm and 6mm.
In fact, check this mini porn out:
http://www.io.com/~beckerdo/minis/miniother/BattleOfZama/
D’oh! The “Haw haw” was supposed to be wrapped in Nelson tags, but apparently it took them as real tags and ditched them…
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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?