Battalion: War of the Ancients - Learn While Playing

[@atlas2049]

Jon, I just want to say thank you for your uploads all these years. Your videos are my go-to for learning games ever since I started the hobby. The way you explain complemented with great visuals makes everything super digestible for me. Any time I see one of your videos on a game I’m interested in, I know I’m in good hands and feel 100% comfortable that I’ll be able to fully understand and be able to teach the game to others

[@JonGetsGames]

Thank you for the kind words, I am so glad you've found my videos useful :)

[@adriancheck]

Bro. Your voice is amazing for this genre... Subscribed after hearing the first 10 seconds. Lol

[@peterixon8708]

Jon, excellent video, as usual.

[@Skycroft1000]

An interesting wargame! I like how it focuses on cohesion and disorder and the difficulty of coordination across armies without access to modern communication rather than hitpoints the way these sorts of games usually do. It's much more accurate to the way these battles actually went, though I wish cohesion was a little less binary, it kinda makes it just another form of hitpoints but the way disorder makes it harder for the unit to do things is nice. These kind of head to head competitive games aren't really my thing but I appreciate a lot of this design. Really minor quibble, but velites is pronounced closer to weigh-lee-tays. Thanks for the video!

[@JonGetsGames]

Glad you liked this one, I found it intriguing as well. I have just about no wargame experience, but I did like how the disorder mechanic worked for restricting options and reachings.

[@Krabura]

Great video, ordered the game immediately after watching this smooth playthrough. One note though, I think that at the 46:42 minute mark the archers could not have targeted the Carthaginian cavalry because they were engaged with another unit. My understanding is that barrage can only be used against unengaged units.

[@josiahleis6574]

At 43:45 when the Red unit attacks, I think it is supposed to get an extra die because it is overlapping. It did not matter though as you got the hits anyway (and I could be wrong or misunderstanding something).

[@csonti3725]

Excellent presentation! The game seems to have a very streamlined and unique take on the subject however I can't imagine the reasoning behind picking so similar graphic designs for the order/disorder tokens. The black ones are especially confusing and hard to differentiate even on the close-up cuts. My other issue was the length. The battle was basically over after the first rest periods were taken without most of the units even activated once. But I guess this was kind of a demo scenario with very few pieces.

[@richhaaaaard]

Thank you for the video. Unfortunately some mistakes (every video tutorial has some). When you barrage the target must be an unengaged enemy unit, the barrage at 46:28 is not legal. 43:45 red unit attacking rolls one extra die because of overlapping. The ranged attack is either a barrage (at unengaged unit) or it is a reaction to an enemy charge. I like this design as it is going for historical accuracy as shooting into an ongoing fight is very risky and difficult, since your own soldiers are there. From what I can grasp, fighting in the center is not what you would do in this scenario (for rule demonstration it's fine, however the advantage you get is by securing one of the flanks, especially that flank with the roman archers as you can do charges without a reaction and you can shoot the center flank if you take control of it). It also seems like cards are extremely precious, however their effects are very often situational and discarding them for extra dice can be very worth it. It's fun to calculate and see the odds sometimes when rolling more dice than dice slots because there are 8 and sometimes you miss, so more dice generally is good unless it's too many dice.

[@PMMagro]

Interesting!

[@bullno1]

Interesting system, esp the order tokens. If this does well enough, I wish they add more armies and more stuff like terrain even if it's just abstract like placing a terrain card in each sector that modifies things. Or different era like: Napoleonic or ... Space. As of now, not sure if I should get this while I already have Command & Color Medieval.

[@JonGetsGames]

Glad you found this interesting :)

[@OutlawJJ80]

😊 Fantastic Vid! TYVM

[@Ant-Man95]

Are you allowed to Order a unit on the same turn it is redeployed? I think the rule book says you are not allowed to do that. 48:17

[@Spankatank.]

For clarity, why couldn't the romans have used disorder to block that last damage at the end? Can you only use disorder if it is less than cohesion remaining on a unit?

[@bullno1]

When you have as many disorder as cohesion, the unit disbands anyway. Which is interesting because if there is enough disorder and you are forced to remove a rank (no token), it can cause an entire unit to disband just by losing its front rank. I guess it simulates a route which certainly happened in history.

[@gratomek1]

Guys, help please, one thing is not clear for me (I'm still learning how to play), when on my turn I chose to commend can I commend more than 1 unit if I have enough order tokens. So, am I allowed to commend just one unit ore more. Any help would be appreciated before my first game, thanks in advance.