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I’ve owned the game for a long time, but only recently got round to playing it. I had been put off by my perception of the game as very complex, but in fact it turns out to be a very streamlined process, and reading the rules was not a lengthy exercise.
The subject matter of course is the battles of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and the scenarios provided cover 4 of his more important battles.
The game revolves around command, and leaders are by far the most important units on the board at any time. Their ratings determine how many units they can command, how far they can be from units and still give them orders, when they can issue orders and how often in a turn they are likely to be able to do so, and how much effect they have on the combat performance of any troops they are stacked with.
Basically, leaders take it in turns to activate, in ascending order of initiative rating-ratings in this game go from 2 (several Persian generals) to Alexander’s 7. The initiative rating also determines how many orders each leader can issue during his activation. Each unit ordered to move or fight (or move and fight) costs an order, as does moving the leader himself. The leader can issue orders to any unit within his command range, which varies from 3 to 9 hexes. So Alexander already has a big advantage over most other leaders, as he can command 7 units within 9 hexes of his position. It gets better still, however, as at the end of each activation the leader can try to achieve momentum-basically, a further activation. To do this, he has to roll less than or equal to his initiative rating on a 10-sided die. If he fails, his turn has finished, and play passes to the next leader. But if he succeeds, he gets another complete activation, and can issue his full allowance of orders again.
There is a penalty for issuing orders more than once to the same unit in a turn, but even without doing this a second activation allows one leader to mobilize more units. And, in fact, even this isn’t all: momentum can be tried a maximum of twice, allowing each leader a potential 3 activations per turn. This of course gives another advantage to the higher-rated leaders, as they are much more likely to achieve momentum-Alexander has an 80% chance (0 on the die is zero, not 10). Generally speaking the Persians have a clutch of low-rated leaders (mostly 3s and 4s), while the Macedonians have fewer high-rated ones. So command and control factors work strongly in favour of Alexander.
There is a further twist to the activation system, which is the trump option: this allows a player to attempt to activate a higher-rated leader than the one whose turn it would be next. Only the active player (i.e. the owner of the leader who would activate next) can try this; to resolve it, he must roll less than or equal to the trumping leaders initiative rating. If he succeeds, he may activate and issue orders as normal, and try for momentum if desired, after which play will revert back to the leader who was trumped. But if the trump attempt fails, the trumping leader has forfeited his turn, and may not activate at all that turn. This makes it a risky ploy, and one that is likely to be used almost exclusively by Alexander. Especially since, in yet another twist, if the active player succeeds in trumping, the inactive player may then himself attempt to trump the trumper-the only circumstance under which the inactive player may trump. The trumping option allows players to try and alter the normal sequence of activations, to take advantage of (or try to remedy) circumstances such as gaps in the line developing, or a tempting exposed flank.
Moving on to the combat units, the most important rating here is the Troop Quality (TQ). Combat (and movement, in some cases) results in cohesion hits being allocated to units-when the accumulated number of these matches their TQ, the unit will rout. Routed units will keep retreating towards the map edge, until they either a) they are rallied by a leader within range expending an order and rolling less than their TQ; b) such a rally attempt fails, in which case they are eliminated; or c) they reach the map edge, and are eliminated. Which is all-important, as victory in all scenarios is measured in terms of rout points-the total TQ of all units eliminated. Whichever army first reaches the level given in the scenario has lost.
So units move, and may take cohesion hits as they do if travelling across rough terrain or up- and down-slope. Two forms of combat are catered for, as you’d expect: missile fire and melee. Missile fire is very straightforward-each troop type has a hit number, depending on range, and must roll less than or equal to that number to cause the target to take a cohesion hit. Mounted units generally have a worse chance of hitting than infantry do. And not all units have missile capability-heavy infantry and Macedonian heavy cavalry are melee units only.
Melee is rather more involved, but the process is easy to understand and is quickly memorised. Some unit types must attack if they have just moved into an enemy ZOC, for others it’s optional. Basically, attackers and defenders first roll against their TQ to see if they are willing to close/stand. If they fail, they take cohesion hits, and if this takes them over their rout level they will rout instantly. If neither attacker or defender routs, the next step is to determine which column on the Combat Result Table to use. This depends mainly on the type of the units involved: cross-referencing the attacker’s type (e.g. Heavy cavalry) with the defender’s (e.g. Light Cavalry) gives a number, which is the CRT column to use for that combat. This can be modified by terrain, and by the relative sizes of the units involved. The system generally makes very little use of modifiers, which is one of the reasons it’s so quick to pick up. There is one further step before rolling for the result: we need to determine whether either side has superiority. If the attack is from the flank or rear, the attacker will achieve superiority; if not, cross-referencing the attacker type with defender type on another table will tell us whether attacker, defender or neither has superiority. The effect of superiority is to either double or triple the hits taken by the other side. So for instance heavy cavalry attacking light cavalry gets superiority, and will inflict twice the usual number of hits; but heavy cavalry attacking light infantry finds the enemy is superior, and the attacker will suffer three times as many hits. The roll on the CRT will usually result in hits for both sides, and the effect of superiority can be decisive. This emphasizes the need to guard one’s flank, a prime consideration in ancient warfare, and to make appropriate use of each type of unit.
That’s basically it—there are a few other details, such as retreat before combat, advance after combat, the ability for leaders to remove hits from units not in an enemy ZOC and so on, but they are pretty intuitive.
In summary, I like the game and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the period. The system is very unobtrusive, and allows players to concentrate on the situation and their tactics. A further benefit is that, if you like the system, there are now several other games based on it, and more planned.
Components: 600 counters (neat and serviceable, but rather plain—the die-cutting is very bad on my copy). There are two 22x34 inch maps, backprinted. There is not a lot of terrain on the maps, and the graphics are rather basic. Rules and charts are clear and easy to follow.
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