Successors is the second major variant for Command Magazine's issue 10 Alexandros game. Like Xenophon, Successors appeared in Command No. 14.I've discussed the game mechanics and materials in previous reviews on Alexandros and Xenophon, so this time I'll just make some comments of the differences between this game and the others.
First, while there is a two-player game, most players won't bother hauling this out unless they have three or four players. In the three-player game players represent the main Successor factions founded by Antigonis, Ptolomy and Seleucus. If present a fourth player controls various barbarians and other small states and acts as a "spoiler."
This is a very long game, going on for as many as 96 turns. The historical result was a draw as none of the successors was able to reunite Alexander's conquest and instead each settled for carving out a new kingdom. Players are forewarned that the game appears very historical!
On the other hand, the original Alexandros game is a bit boring for the Persians because the Macedonians are so powerful. And Xenophon is short.
In Successors all the various unit types, including the incomparable 8-8 Macedonian pike phalanxes, are available to all the players and therefore Successors is the best-balanced big game in the system.
Set up takes 20-30 minutes, including picking through the Alexandros counters. The game itself will probably take more than one sitting.
Recommendations:
Yes for Wargamers: Most even scenario in the system.
No for collectors: Nothing special.
No for Eurogamers: Too intricate and slow-moving for the taste of more casual players.
Showing posts with label Alexandros. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexandros. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Xenophon comprehensive review
Xenophon is a major variant for the Command Magazine game Alexandros, depicting the epic events of a generation earlier that inspired Alexander's visions of conquest. It uses the same map and many of the same counters as Alexandros, which was an area movement-and-counter wargame from Command No. 10 depicting the Alexander the Great's campaign of conquest against the Persian Empire from 334 BC to 323 BC. The Xenophon variant, which was in issue No. 14 of Command Magazine, covers a two or three year campaign in quarterly turns.
Units are Greek and Persian units of infantry and cavalry with several thousand troops each. Each unit is rated for attack and defense strengths.The 3-page variant builds on changes from Alexandros' 12-page rule book. The game is still of low to moderate complexity by wargames standards.
It uses the same Mark Simonitch map, depicting the entire Middle East from Greece to India. But several areas are not used, including Egypt (in revolt against Persia at the time) India (not involved), Greece, Macedon and several other border regions. Provinces are rated as either rich, fertile, mountain or wilderness with varying ability to support an army.
Xenophon gives players a chance to try a much shorter version of the Alexandros game system. Interestingly, Xenophon, himself, may not always appear in the game. The players start off representing rival Persian claimants to the throne -- Cyrus and his brother Artaxerxes. Cyrus employed about 10,000 Greek mercenaries, resented in the game by powerful 7-8 Spartan hoplite phalanxes. If Cyrus succeeds in defeating Artaxerxes Xenophon will never appear. But if he loses, then the remaining Persians on his side switch allegiance to Artaxerxes and the former Cyrus player now tries to get the Greeks home, under the command of leaders Clearchus and Menon. If either of those leaders die, then Xenophon appears.
The game lasts eight turns, with an option to extend for four more, although it will often play quicker than that. It's in Cyrus' interest to force an early decision because Artaxerxes gets more reinforcements over the long term.
The units use the full-color iconic representations first seen in Kadesh. The Cyrus uses the light blue background Persians, and the black background Spartans. Artaxerxes uses the beige- and saffron-colored Persian and Indian units.The game turn starts with a mutual supply phase. The Macedonians move, followed by the Persians. A mutual combat phase follows, with so-called minor combats resolved before big battles. After field battles sieges are conducted.
Tactical battles are resolved on a separate display, where units are lined up against each other. Like the parent game, in Xenophon the quality units, this time the Spartan and Greek phalanxes, are nearly impossible for the Persian levies to defeat, so the game will revolve around how those elite units are used.
The game adds some simple terrain rules to the battle system, which can be backfitted to Alexandros if desired. Essentially the rules add rivers, mountains or hills to one or both flanks that restrict or block movement.
Victory is very straightforward. If Cyrus kills Artaxerxes he wins. If he dies, that player loses UNLESS, he can succeed in getting at least half of the surviving Greeks home.This variant is easily playable in one sitting and only takes about a quarter hour to set up, even with the necessity to pick through the Alexandros units. There is just one scenario.
Recommendations
(Yes) For Wargamers: A quick introduction to the Alexandros system.
(No) For Collectors: No remarkable collectibility.
(No) For Euro gamers: As a hex-and-counter wargames the game play is intricate and detailed.
Units are Greek and Persian units of infantry and cavalry with several thousand troops each. Each unit is rated for attack and defense strengths.The 3-page variant builds on changes from Alexandros' 12-page rule book. The game is still of low to moderate complexity by wargames standards.
It uses the same Mark Simonitch map, depicting the entire Middle East from Greece to India. But several areas are not used, including Egypt (in revolt against Persia at the time) India (not involved), Greece, Macedon and several other border regions. Provinces are rated as either rich, fertile, mountain or wilderness with varying ability to support an army.
Xenophon gives players a chance to try a much shorter version of the Alexandros game system. Interestingly, Xenophon, himself, may not always appear in the game. The players start off representing rival Persian claimants to the throne -- Cyrus and his brother Artaxerxes. Cyrus employed about 10,000 Greek mercenaries, resented in the game by powerful 7-8 Spartan hoplite phalanxes. If Cyrus succeeds in defeating Artaxerxes Xenophon will never appear. But if he loses, then the remaining Persians on his side switch allegiance to Artaxerxes and the former Cyrus player now tries to get the Greeks home, under the command of leaders Clearchus and Menon. If either of those leaders die, then Xenophon appears.
The game lasts eight turns, with an option to extend for four more, although it will often play quicker than that. It's in Cyrus' interest to force an early decision because Artaxerxes gets more reinforcements over the long term.
The units use the full-color iconic representations first seen in Kadesh. The Cyrus uses the light blue background Persians, and the black background Spartans. Artaxerxes uses the beige- and saffron-colored Persian and Indian units.The game turn starts with a mutual supply phase. The Macedonians move, followed by the Persians. A mutual combat phase follows, with so-called minor combats resolved before big battles. After field battles sieges are conducted.
Tactical battles are resolved on a separate display, where units are lined up against each other. Like the parent game, in Xenophon the quality units, this time the Spartan and Greek phalanxes, are nearly impossible for the Persian levies to defeat, so the game will revolve around how those elite units are used.
The game adds some simple terrain rules to the battle system, which can be backfitted to Alexandros if desired. Essentially the rules add rivers, mountains or hills to one or both flanks that restrict or block movement.
Victory is very straightforward. If Cyrus kills Artaxerxes he wins. If he dies, that player loses UNLESS, he can succeed in getting at least half of the surviving Greeks home.This variant is easily playable in one sitting and only takes about a quarter hour to set up, even with the necessity to pick through the Alexandros units. There is just one scenario.
Recommendations
(Yes) For Wargamers: A quick introduction to the Alexandros system.
(No) For Collectors: No remarkable collectibility.
(No) For Euro gamers: As a hex-and-counter wargames the game play is intricate and detailed.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Alexandros comprehensive review
Alexandros is an area movement-and-counter wargame depicting the Alexander the Great's campaign of conquest against the Persian Empire from 334 BC to 323 BC. The game, which was the issue game in Command Magazine No. 10, covers the whole ten-year campaign in quarterly turns.
Units are Macedonian Phalanx' of about 6,000 men and comparably-sized units of infantry and cavalry from all over the region. Each unit is rated for attack and defense strengths.
The 12-page rule book describes a game of low to moderate complexity by wargames standards. The colorful Mark Simonitch map is attractive and functional, depicting the entire Middle East from Greece to India divided into large provinces. Those provinces are rated as either rich, fertile, mountain or wilderness with varying ability to support an army.
In truth, the game is fairly straightforward as Alexander and his Macedonians totally overmatch their Persian opponents. The Macedonian army with Alexander alone has a dozen units that match or exceed the best native Persian unit (the Royal Guard) in combat strength. Like some rock tour, Alexander and his boys pretty much hit all the sites, steamrollering any Persian force that happens to get in the way.
The only viable Persian strategy is to engage Alexander in combat and hope for a lucky roll (snake eyes) to kill him.
The typical XTR response when faced with a strategically sterile wargame situation is to add in a lot of colorful chrome and Alexandros has it all, from The Gordian Knot and Roxanne to the Indian Prince Porus and his elephants. The game includes a fairly involved tactical schematic battle system for resolving battles. This would be more of a problem if battles were common but the historical campaign only had four major pitched battles and the game probably will have a similar number.
Alexander is such a singular historical personage that any wargame would have some trouble dealing with his campaigns. The game designer is faced with the problem of replicating his success while not having Alexander on hand to do it. If the game player (who necessarily is not "Anyone" all-that-Great) were left to his own devices and talents he'd be very unlikely to get anywhere near Babylon, let alone trapsing through Afghanistan and India!
And his opponent is not likely to be as bad a "Great King" as the hapless and cowardly Darius. So the Macedonians and Alexander are given very high factors and lot of special abilities and the game plays out more or less historically.
The same map and rules and many of the counters were used in two major variants published in Command Magazine ("Xenophon" and "Successors," reviewed elsewhere) which make more interesting games, as they are not saddled with dealing with Alexander. Xenophon and many of the Successor generals were talented leaders, but more within reach for the typical wargamer.
The units use the full-color iconic representations first seen in Kadesh. The Macedonians are on light blue backgrounds while the Persians are beige. Some revolting Spartans are on black backgrounds, Greek mercenaries are "bronze." The Indians are described as "saffron." Some barbarians that may show up via random event are "gold" and similar raiding Arabs are "sand." It will take a keen color sense to pick out the difference between beige, saffron, gold and sand, but the icons are different enough there should be no problems for the game players.
The game turn starts with a mutual supply phase. The Macedonians move, followed by the Persians. A mutual combat phase follows, with so-called minor combats resolved before big battles. After field battles sieges are conducted. Tactical battles are resolved on a separate display, where units are lined up against each other. Each battle is a duel between to units. The only advantage of numbers is the ability to take losses and keep fighting, but there is no way for a bunch of weak units to gang up on a strong one. This feature of the combat system enhances the power of strong units tremendously. A typical 3-2 Persian infantry unit fighting an 8-8 Macedonian phalanx attacks at 1-3 result,with the best result being an "engaged" result with no immediate effects and a mandatory refight in the next round.The most likely result is an "AL" attacker loss which will send the hapless one-step Persian to the dead pile. Meanwhile, the 8-8 phalanx has a solid 4-1 against the Persian duing its attack. The best the Persian can hope for is still an "engaged," but the most likely result is a "DL" which also kills the one-step Persian. The Persian player will be forgiven if it feels like he's playing at the short end of a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition. While there are a few better Persian units, none can manage as much as a 1-1 against a phalanx unless assisted by a leader, and only the very best, leader-assisted, can manage a 1-2 against Alexander if he's stacked with a phalanx or the Companions (and he should never be stacked with anyone else), which is the minimum odds needed to have a chance for a "DL" result and a chance to kill Alexander.
The Persians win if Alexander is killed or captured (fat chance) or if they manage to keep the Macedonian victory point count below 16. Alexander gets 1 VP per controlled objective (there are 11 possible) and controlled province (there are 26 of those). More than 20 brings some level of Macedonian victory. The historical result was 25, which most players should manage.
The game is playable in one sitting and only takes about a quarter hour to set up. There is just one scenario, but there are also two major variants "Xenophon" and "Successors" that were published in a subsequent issue.
Recommendations
(Yes) For Wargamers: An unusual ancient battle with some interesting choices, but play balance is, to put it mildly,questionable. The best solution is to play a match with the player with the higher VP total winning.
(No) For Collectors: No remarkable collectibility.
(No) For Euro gamers: As a hex-and-counter wargames the game play is intricate and detailed and play balance a secondary consideration.
Units are Macedonian Phalanx' of about 6,000 men and comparably-sized units of infantry and cavalry from all over the region. Each unit is rated for attack and defense strengths.
The 12-page rule book describes a game of low to moderate complexity by wargames standards. The colorful Mark Simonitch map is attractive and functional, depicting the entire Middle East from Greece to India divided into large provinces. Those provinces are rated as either rich, fertile, mountain or wilderness with varying ability to support an army.
In truth, the game is fairly straightforward as Alexander and his Macedonians totally overmatch their Persian opponents. The Macedonian army with Alexander alone has a dozen units that match or exceed the best native Persian unit (the Royal Guard) in combat strength. Like some rock tour, Alexander and his boys pretty much hit all the sites, steamrollering any Persian force that happens to get in the way.
The only viable Persian strategy is to engage Alexander in combat and hope for a lucky roll (snake eyes) to kill him.
The typical XTR response when faced with a strategically sterile wargame situation is to add in a lot of colorful chrome and Alexandros has it all, from The Gordian Knot and Roxanne to the Indian Prince Porus and his elephants. The game includes a fairly involved tactical schematic battle system for resolving battles. This would be more of a problem if battles were common but the historical campaign only had four major pitched battles and the game probably will have a similar number.
Alexander is such a singular historical personage that any wargame would have some trouble dealing with his campaigns. The game designer is faced with the problem of replicating his success while not having Alexander on hand to do it. If the game player (who necessarily is not "Anyone" all-that-Great) were left to his own devices and talents he'd be very unlikely to get anywhere near Babylon, let alone trapsing through Afghanistan and India!
And his opponent is not likely to be as bad a "Great King" as the hapless and cowardly Darius. So the Macedonians and Alexander are given very high factors and lot of special abilities and the game plays out more or less historically.
The same map and rules and many of the counters were used in two major variants published in Command Magazine ("Xenophon" and "Successors," reviewed elsewhere) which make more interesting games, as they are not saddled with dealing with Alexander. Xenophon and many of the Successor generals were talented leaders, but more within reach for the typical wargamer.
The units use the full-color iconic representations first seen in Kadesh. The Macedonians are on light blue backgrounds while the Persians are beige. Some revolting Spartans are on black backgrounds, Greek mercenaries are "bronze." The Indians are described as "saffron." Some barbarians that may show up via random event are "gold" and similar raiding Arabs are "sand." It will take a keen color sense to pick out the difference between beige, saffron, gold and sand, but the icons are different enough there should be no problems for the game players.
The game turn starts with a mutual supply phase. The Macedonians move, followed by the Persians. A mutual combat phase follows, with so-called minor combats resolved before big battles. After field battles sieges are conducted. Tactical battles are resolved on a separate display, where units are lined up against each other. Each battle is a duel between to units. The only advantage of numbers is the ability to take losses and keep fighting, but there is no way for a bunch of weak units to gang up on a strong one. This feature of the combat system enhances the power of strong units tremendously. A typical 3-2 Persian infantry unit fighting an 8-8 Macedonian phalanx attacks at 1-3 result,with the best result being an "engaged" result with no immediate effects and a mandatory refight in the next round.The most likely result is an "AL" attacker loss which will send the hapless one-step Persian to the dead pile. Meanwhile, the 8-8 phalanx has a solid 4-1 against the Persian duing its attack. The best the Persian can hope for is still an "engaged," but the most likely result is a "DL" which also kills the one-step Persian. The Persian player will be forgiven if it feels like he's playing at the short end of a "heads I win, tails you lose" proposition. While there are a few better Persian units, none can manage as much as a 1-1 against a phalanx unless assisted by a leader, and only the very best, leader-assisted, can manage a 1-2 against Alexander if he's stacked with a phalanx or the Companions (and he should never be stacked with anyone else), which is the minimum odds needed to have a chance for a "DL" result and a chance to kill Alexander.
The Persians win if Alexander is killed or captured (fat chance) or if they manage to keep the Macedonian victory point count below 16. Alexander gets 1 VP per controlled objective (there are 11 possible) and controlled province (there are 26 of those). More than 20 brings some level of Macedonian victory. The historical result was 25, which most players should manage.
The game is playable in one sitting and only takes about a quarter hour to set up. There is just one scenario, but there are also two major variants "Xenophon" and "Successors" that were published in a subsequent issue.
Recommendations
(Yes) For Wargamers: An unusual ancient battle with some interesting choices, but play balance is, to put it mildly,questionable. The best solution is to play a match with the player with the higher VP total winning.
(No) For Collectors: No remarkable collectibility.
(No) For Euro gamers: As a hex-and-counter wargames the game play is intricate and detailed and play balance a secondary consideration.
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