by fentum
Hello all. If you are reading this then I guess that you have at least a passing interest in Ancient Battles. If so, run out and buy this fab wee game!
It is very, very simple - in a good way. It is so easy to set up, very quick to play, yet gives a good sense of meaningful choice. MUCH of this choice is made in the TROOP SELECTION, UNIT BUILDING and DEPLOYMENT phases rather than in the actual battle itself. So consider the game as a meta game of troop selection as well as actual battle, and you are good to go.
Components are great. Chunky stylish tiles of just the right size. Simple order markers doubling as wounds. Basic but nice dice. Neat little box. One crazily daft error is that the summary cards for each side don't have all the necessary info for their side. Mad but only slightly irritating in practice.Just a crazy oversight.
I visualise playing as a very high level strategic commander. If you think it is a tactical simulation, you will be disappointed. The flow and the movement/orders, in fact the whole game, is about top level decision making. 'Assign these units to that sector, general orders to attack'.
So here are my thoughts on what it is like and not like ...
A LOT like WARHAMMER... the agonising over troop choice is very similar in feeling. Troops have basic stats and costs, with special traits to think about.
A LOT like GBOH... now GBOH is a much much, much more complex game, without army selection, but I somehow still get the flavour of this when playing PB.I was a big fan of GBOH, so this is is praise. A bonus is that I can play approx 12 matches of PB in the playing time of 1 GBOH match! The limited number of orders and order token placement remind me of the flow of GBOH, though the actual system is very different.
A LOT like HEROSCAPE...no I have not been drinking! The limited orders, alternate order sequence and simple unit v unit battle are quite a bit like Heroscape. The order placement is really very much like H with the same juicy dilemmas as to who to order.
A BIT like ANCIENTS I, II... just a bit. It looks superficially similar but the flow is different... and better.
NOTHING LIKE C&C ANCIENTS... I know that it has been compared, but I just don't feel it. C&C:A is a lot more restricted by cards in hand (not a bad thing, just very different game). Same for MEMOIR 44, which had also been compared.
I just love this game. Elegant, quick, lots of choices and decisions in the meta game.
I played it 6 times straight with my 8 year old son over 3 hours. I could SEE him develop his thinking on TROOP choice, UNIT generation and BATTLE tactics with each game - brilliant.
I played several games with my adult mates - they loved it too.
So it seems suitable for a wide range of players.
Well done to the designers!
Regards,
fentum
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1 comment:
Excellent review for an excellent game! Have you gotten ahold of expansions yet?
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