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Patch came over yesterday for some more gaming. We went with an afternoon full of Commands & Colors: Ancients. Things went pretty fast, we got through six (three sets of two) scenarios with plenty of time left over. We’ve done six before, but these were bigger scenarios and we finished earlier.

I went back to the ‘play through all the darn scenarios’ strategy, so we opened with Bagradas. I had the Romans for the first run, who are distinctly disadvantaged with 1 leader to 3, and 4 cards to 6. The early going wasn’t too bad, as I knocked out Patch’s elephants pretty quickly. However, my dice seemed stuck in ‘elephant hunter mode’ and I kept getting red squares when I didn’t need them. The right flank fell apart and I lost 4-7. In my turn as Carthage, I kept the elephants back a while and tried to commit them when there was less to counterattack them with. Didn’t work out so well, and despite a strong opening, I couldn’t get any better score, 7-4.

Next up was Ticinus River. The little bit of terrain doesn’t really affect things, but the armies are very odd. The Romans are all light infantry and medium cavalry, while the Carthaginians are all light and heavy cavalry. Oh, and 1 leader against 3 again. I took Carthage first, and had trouble with 2/3rds of the army being light troops. 6-4 Patch didn’t seem to have any trouble with it, and I could never get going. 0-6

Finally, we did a set of Trebbia. This one seems a bit tricky. The Carthaginians have a set of reinforcements that come in behind the Romans, and they got slaughtered on both of us. Patch had Carthage first, and I held onto a Order Medium Troops card because no matter where the reinforcements came in, I should have something nearby to counter with. And indeed, they came in on my right, and hit them with the mediums under my leader in the center. They kind of came apart; 7-4. My attempt didn’t do any better. I tried holding them until there was a disordered area to exploit, but Patch moved up as best he could, and when they came in, there was very little within reach. There was a moment where it looked like I was about to get going, but then the game was over; 2-7.

So, 2 victories to 4, 26-32 banners. Definitely Patch’s best showing in one of these one on one days yet.