By Michael “Balbo” Ferres
Nirvana: a state of perfect quietude, freedom, and highest happiness; liberation from attachment and worldly suffering; and the ending of samsara, the cycle of existence
Is it too much to describe yesterday’s wargaming as “ nirvana” but it would appear not. Those twin features of a game, so difficult to attain, playability and accessibility were finally achieved by combining two if not three wargame sets. Yesterday, in Firestorm games, a humble band of players, the flotsam of so many broken dreams, met to play Commands and Colors ( US spelling) with 28mm miniatures.
System X for Command and Colors is available from Boardgamesgeek as a download. It is designed to pit two “ equal” wargames armies on the hex mat using the much maligned De Bellis Antiquitatis ( DBA). The system replaces wooden blocks with miniatures.
DBA of course remains popular but fell out of favour locally due to the necessity of millimetre measurements and the dreaded conforming rules. However, what DBA did provide was a huge range of armylists just calling out to be collected. ( God I miss Tony Aguilar- Ed)
My Goths were nine bases of warriors, one heavy cavalry, one Hun light cavalry and an archer skirmish unit. Easy to collect and an achievable painting project. In fact, Matt spent the afternoon considering how he might use up the denizens of his lead pile to get building armies.
The set up is much faster that either To the Strongest or indeed DBA. Mark had cleverly converted historical battlefield into hex maps and a die roll chose the table. Initiative from DBA decides attacker and defender, but both armies have the same number of C and C activation cards. This set me wondering whether we might try varying the number of cards based on initiative; Alexander guaranteed to run rings around any barbarian host?
Whilst not as granular as most rule sets, the game does proceed at pace and is great fun! The dice speed everything up and the game is very nuanced. Light troops take some thought but they can be deadly.
I’m sure that the club will want to repeat the day. Games lasted about an hour and a half so we fitted three games into the course of the afternoon. This last point makes it eminently suitable for a tournament in the future. We might also consider a six inch hex table? So much positivity.
English Civil War action this Friday at Firestorm. Thanks for reading!
Miguel
Despertaferres 
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