I Know, Its only Block and Sold....

...With apologies to the Rolling Stones....

Well this is curveball into the left field of the unexpected but very, very welcome all the same! It suddenly occurred to me a little while ago that if many gamers were busy playing Command and Colours Ancients and Napoleonics on hex terrain and with models - what did they do with all the blocks and labels? Did they keep them tucked away out of sight, forlorn and unloved; never to be seen again? Well, it would come as no surprise to learn that as a confirmed block user, the possibility of relieving dedicated figure gamers of their unwanted blocks seemed to me to be rather a good idea indeed. The thought process went something like "I get some new units and the seller recoups some of their outlay and gets funding for something else". That looks like a big win all round in my book!

 

So it came to pass and after some gentle persuasion that the very nice Tim Gow of  Megablitz and More  fame has agreed to part with his Command and Colours blocks from the Napoleonic set; the ancients base set and the first 4 expansions - complete with the 30 sheets of labels which indicates the scale of the collection. A very rough calculation of the size of this little lot puts it at around the 1400 blocks mark - all of which are double sided in respect of labels! That will be a man-sized undertaking and no mistake - and will probably take me an age to label!

 

What does this mean for yours truly then? Well, ancient gaming is something that I have played a number of times in the past and have also owned a few armies as well (I have even, shock horror, painted some....!!!!)  My main ancient games were fought using WRG 6th edition and over the years have owned Cathaginian (15 and 28mm), Later Roman (28mm), Indian (28mm), Gallic (15mm), Viking (28mm DBA), Numidian (15mm DBA) and a number of others that I never quite got around to getting painted! Having access to this resource, covering as it does pretty much everything of note for the 800 years from the 5th century BC, means that I can happily indulge in all manner of ancient gaming using the blocks as, in effect, bases of troops - which is what I am doing with the Napoleonics.

 

I have a copy of the core ancient rules and could probably source the combat tables and such like - I may even be able to get the command cards as spares (perhaps - I will need to check this). I believe that there are a lot of he scenarios on the GMT website so again this will be easy enough to organise. To be honest though, this is not actually essential for me as I have in mind a large number of possible rule sets that would merely make use of the blocks themselves.

 

This is very much an instant solution for me as I have no plans to paint any ancient armies in the forseeable future and so the sheer range and variety of armies that could be represented with this collection is huge. The timing of this, given my recent noises about Salamis and ancient naval gaming could not be better and the fact that expansion number 6: The Spartans is now available really brings it all into the realms of possibility.

 

As a thought that has just occured to me there is also the opportunity of being able to run one of those DBA mini campaigns - the ones with 6 armies.

This is a really great coup for me and so if anybody else reading this wants to offload any unused Command and Colours blocks let me know!

My first flight of fancy with this collection may well feature King Leonidas and God King Xerxes and so I will leave the last words to one of the 300....

 

We are with you, sire! For Sparta, for freedom, to the death!