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Over the last couple of weeks Patch and I played a couple Commands & Colors: Ancients games of the Munychia scenario from Expansion #6. Set right after the Phyle scenario, the Athenians surprise the Spartan-supported oligarchs and drive off their army. Well, at least in history; here, not so much…

I had the Athenians in the first game, with compact formation set up on a line of hills, while the Spartan army is in two disjointed wings. I deployed the flanks of the army with Out Flanked, and got a banner on Patch’s LC to cause it to take two losses from bumping into the baseline. Patch responded by Double Timing the Spartan Hoplites up to the rest of the line. I kept skirmishing on the flanks, and kept forcing his left-flank Auxilia to retreat, but couldn’t cause any losses. He slowly advanced while skirmishing, and caused a loss on my leader-led MH.

I then pressed harder on my right with an Order Three Right, coming off the hill, with both of our Aux taking two hits and my right-most MH retreating back to the hill. Patch Ordered Light to cause another block of damage to my Aux while driving it back a hex. We then skirmished for another round before I swept down off the hill with a Mounted Charge. This broke my line, as I rolled lots of red results (there’s no heavy units in the scenario). I did knock out his damaged Aux, and did two blocks to two allied MH in return for losing two MH outright and taking two damage on another that then retreated back to the hill (where my leader joined them as his unit was wiped out).

Patch then chased me with a Line Command, and forced all three MH still forward of the hill to retreat back to it, two of them with damage, while only taking one block himself. He also attacked the unit my leader had joined, and eliminated it (but not the leader) while losing a MH himself. I partially consolidated my army with Order Mediums, and knocked out his leader-led MH and got the leader with it.

Patch countered with his own Order Mediums, and drove off three of my units while doing two damage to a MH, while taking 1 himself. I used Leadership to get all my MH into a line but lost a two-block unit while doing 3 hits to a Spartan MH. Patch then used Inspired Center Leadership to swarm onto the hill and pick off a remaining MH. 4-5

Similar to my opening, Patch deployed his flanks with a Coordinated Attack, but didn’t get a lucky roll against my LC. I used Order Mounted to move up the Spartan MHs, and then Out Flanked to bring the MC up as the ends of the line continued forward a little. Patch then used Leadership to bring part of his center down off the hill towards the my center. I used Order Mediums to finally get the Spartan MHs up to the rest of the line, and Patch used Move-Fire-Move to rework his flanks, but couldn’t get any hits.

I then used Line Command to come into contact with him across the board. The left flank was separated from the rest, and didn’t do too well, doing two hits to his Auxilia while taking one hit each on two units, one of which was forced to retreat to the main line. After that, hot dice took over, wiping out his leader-led MH in one attack (and driving him away before doing any leader-influenced rolls). Two attacks reduced another MH to two blocks and retreated it for one block, another MH was driven back with two losses, his Aux took three hits while doing one, and then my leader-lead Spartan MH wiped it out and then traded one block each with a retreated MH, while accepting a banner to retreat back into my line.

Patch used an Order Two Center to pull his forward MH I hadn’t attacked back to the hill. I Ordered Lights, but only took a hit on my Aux for my trouble. Patch then played Line Command to shift most of his units one hex to his left and close a gap in his line. I used Out Flanked to pick on the ends of his line, and got single hits on both of his LS, as well as finishing off a 1-block MH. Patch pulled a LS back, and then I advanced my right flank with a Leadership any Section. I finished off one MH, and drove another off with two hits (and taking one in return). My leader then used Momentum to get into the hills, and drove his LS off with a hit.

Patch countered with Clash of Shields, which only gave him two units, and did one damage and two banners to my Aux, and got three damage on a Spartan MH, and took only one block in return. An Order Three Center allowed me to continue to press forward, and I finished off a two-block MH. 5-0

Afterword:

Both of us had trouble with the Athenians. We were in a good position on top of a hill, and had a hand full of good cards. Why go anywhere? But we had to do something, and ran out of ‘little’ cards. The theory would seem to be to charge off the hill and defeat the left line of the Spartan army before the Spartan MHs come up. But both times the other half of the army came up pretty fast, and the Athenians have a hard time of it. I kept it fairly close in the first game despite the worst Mounted Charge I’ve seen, but Patch didn’t have a chance in front of the amazing die rolls I got in the second game.