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Commands & Colors: Ancients

Modern Conquest and War Games

Commands & Colors: Ancients is a two-player board wargame designed by Richard Borg with Pat Kurivial and Roy Grider, published by GMT Games in 2006 and covering ancient warfare from roughly 3000 BC to 400 AD. It applies Borg's Commands & Colors system, in which players issue orders to sections of the battlefield using command cards rather than commanding every unit freely, reproducing the confusion and limited communication of a real ancient battle. Units are represented by wooden blocks moved across a hexagonal terrain board, with combat resolved by dice, and each side wins banners for destroying enemy units or killing enemy leaders, accumulating banners toward a victory total that varies by scenario. The game ships with a large scenario book reconstructing historical battles such as Cannae, Gaugamela and Zama, letting players refight specific engagements with historically informed unit compositions and terrain. Commands & Colors: Ancients won the 2006 Origins Award for Historical Board Game of the Year and the 2007 BoardGameGeek Golden Geek Award for Best 2-Player Game, and became the foundation for a wider family of Commands & Colors titles covering other historical periods.

Facts
Sport
Game Type (category)
Board Game 1
Game Type (category)
Strategy Game 1
Classification
Player Count
Two-Player 1
Origin Year
2006 1
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Source Commands & Colors: Ancients (Wikipedia)
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1. Commands & Colors: Ancients (Wikipedia)
  • Lead, genre
    a board wargame created by Richard Borg
  • Lead, publication
    released by GMT Games in 2006
  • Lead, players
    a two-player strategic game
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