A quick hello back to Blogger. Wordpress was good..and then, well, it just became a pain in the backside to post with their 'improved' Gutenberg editor...so here we are back with 'ol faithful...Blogger.
In my last post (literally on Wordpress😒) I posted a battle report on the Battle of Tanagra, 457 B.C. using the Commands & Colors Ancients game with 28mm miniatures...lots of them! Commands & Colors is a fine game and much loved for its elegance, simplicity and the all encompassing nature of its subject matter using a core command (card) and colors (combat dice) system. It is however just one of several rule sets that will be able to be used for Hoplite warfare with the armies that have been arrayed.
A good while ago while starting the hoplite project I mentioned the desire to use multiple rule systems to get maximum utility out of the investment in building large and extensive armies. Another firm favourite, and friend of agrabbagofgames, is Simon Miller and his popular To the Strongest! (TtS!) rules system...rules designed for big games that can handle the types of forces our hoplite armies are made for...not always, but going big, means TtS! is part of the mix. See what going big really means at his blog.
With that in mind I thought it would be an interesting exercise to compare the same game played with the two different fast play systems that can handle fairly large numbers of ‘figures’ on the table.
So in this post I'm going detail my explorations with To the Strongest! playing the same scenario. Tanagra, as discussed in my last post, provides a good basis for hoplite engagements as it is a predominantly hoplite encounter with a sprinkling of light troops and a lone cavalry unit.
In this game however, we're not going to play in miniature, but use the commands and colours board game and components to fight the battle but using the TtS! rules set...travel To the Strongest!
Now you may say that To the Strongest! should be played on a square grid? Indeed it should! However, I happened upon a post by another To the Strongest! gamer, and his experiments proved quite successful using hexes instead of squares for TtS! The game most definitely works using a hex grid and I concur with Dave's assessment that there isn't undue added manoeuvrability of the forces involved. The following after action report pretty much proves this is indeed the case. There is also a bit of chat on the TtS! Tapatalk forum with others using hex grids as well. Given that TtS! and CCA are somewhat related this is not surprising.
To the Strongest! rules tweaks.
We played To the Strongest! using the current (standard) rules but due to the 'effect' of the hex grid and unit orientation on it we made one small adjustment.
As units now face two units to their front on the hex grid, we allow the attacking player to choose whichever one he wants to charge first but an adjacent unit(s) must ’select’ its target randomly - thus, when the unit activates it must draw an 'even score' card for the unit's activation (2,4,6,8,10) to allow the player to choose his target, otherwise the opposing player chooses. Similarly, we determine an enemy unit’s ‘ZOC’ randomly from turn to turn thus a unit may be able to rally in a hex adjacent bit to the front of an enemy unit as TtS does not allow a unit to rally in an enemy ZOC.
These two simple additions prevents two units regularly 'ganging up' on a single unit due to the hex mat layout automatically...we don't like the smell of cheese! It also, on occasion allows a unit to Rally in close proximity to the enemy without having to withdraw fro the battle line…this seems reasonable given the fluid nature of combat as it is portrayed.
