Review: Commands & Colors: Samurai Battles from GMT Games - The Players' Aid

[@oliverlee2694]

Love all the reviews about Commands & Colors series. I had watched your C&C ranking vedio and then decided to buy CC:N series, which became my favorite wargame. Hope the ranking could be updated with Samurai Battles.😃

[@marccaron6008]

Great review and brief explanations of the rules. I finally decided to buy a C&C game after years of hesitation. The theme (samourai+honor) and the scenario booklet were the deciding factors.

[@cardboardconflicts]

Happy I talked my buddy into this! Hoping to play him this holiday break!

[@LordShibuya]

Love C&C Samurai Battles. It’s also the game I’ve used to introduce my 9yr old to wargaming.

[@nathangoode1089]

The scenario count is huge. I just randomly found battle cry 150 on clearance, the 30 scenario count is a big plus.

[@Caratacus1]

Uh oh I swore C & C Napoleonics had made all the others redundant for me because it has the more realistic 'decreasing attack rolls per block lost' system. But crikey this looks good and I like the theme. I hope you try the Marshalls and Tacticians expansion out for Napoleonics before re-ranking them though 😀 One thing I would add from experience (for what it's worth 😉) is that the deck management aspect of C & C is often overlooked. There actually is real strategy to it. If someone just spams out random single cards in every area trying to react to everything that an opponent is doing then that is bad strategy. The skill is in identifying your strengths and building your deck up ready to lay down multiple cards in a row that exploit that advantage. If someone is sat there saying 'Waaaah I don't have a card' then they probably haven't paid attention to deck management and that situation can usually be avoided. They should also probably try to get out of the habit of wanting to react to everything everywhere - it's impossible - and instead focus on their own plan. If it gives you chance to grab the victory then you can just let the opponent steamroll an irrelevant flank if they want to. I've sat and not reacted even once to opponents doing exactly that. Anyways a great review and you've convinced me to order. I enjoy putting my fave podcasts on and just chilling out while stickering blocks so am actually looking forward to that part 😁

[@Another_opinion_]

Mediaeval C&C is the other game with embossed dice

[@paulbaker5756]

Great video as always chaps, thank you! With the exceptions of Red Alert and BL2 (I own BL1), I own, and play, the rest of the C&C stable, and Samurai Battles is a top favourite for all the reasons set out in this review. It is an awesome game by a highly talented designer.

[@battlemind]

Cool beans - I'm getting this! Thanks for posting guys.

[@johnrogers8876]

Glad you all enjoyed the game.

[@ThymeKeeper]

I'm softening on stickers a little bit but with this many blocks I absolutely would put some on crooked and that would bug me. Love the idea of the game though.

[@Mark-fw8pd]

Jack, at kzbin.info, has a video showing him stickering C&C using a 'jig' he constructed from Lego bricks. Seemed to work really well, avoiding slippage and less tiring. BTW, my 7 year old niece is a Lego fanatic; I asked her for some of her bricks and she flatly refused!

[@hanng1242]

So much of how we think about samurai has been double-filtered through the notions of Bushido from Imperial Japan, as well as though the earlier Tokugawa Shogunate. This "honor" system is a result of this. I'm not saying that there was no difference between samurai and bandits (although this is questionable during the Sengoku era), but samurai honor as a way of life only developed because of the Tokugawa. I will note that for Western warfare, it was bad form to snipe out officers until sometime in the 19th Century. My guess is that we are fascinated in the West by the idea of ritual suicide because the influence of Christianity made such gestures unthinkable for Occidental modes of chivalry. During the Sengoku era, the various daimyo were not above assassination, kidnapping of family for hostages, use of traitors &c. For example, the "One Eyed Dragon," Date Masamune, is known for the an incident in which a rival clan kidnapped his father to use as leverage in upcoming peace negotiations. As the story goes, while the kidnappers were fleeing with Masamune hot on their tail, Masamune's father instructed him to go ahead and kill him so that he could not be held hostage. This story is usually told as an example of filial piety, but it could not have happened if underhanded tactics such as hostage-taking did not exist. Similarly, Hanzo Hattori, who popular culture now regards as the supreme ninja (or something) rose in the ranks because he rescued Tokugawa Ieyasu's family, who were being held hostage by Imagawa clan. Anyway, my point is that honor as the ultimate virtue did not exist during the Sengoku era. Later, after the country was at peace, the Tokugawa wanted to transform all of these potential bandits/rebels/rival etc. into courtiers, which is where we get stories like those telling of the gentleman rivalry between Uesegi Kenshin and Takada Shingen. Of course, sometimes the Tokugawa were too successful, as they had to to enact legislation to prohibit unsanctioned seppuku because too many lower ranking samurai were killing themselves for "honor." The idea of Samurai as a high caste comes from the Tokugawa period as well. During the Sengoku era, the line between farmer and soldier was quite blurry. Peasants would take up arms, sometimes becoming career soldiers, and samurai would often farm their own land when not fighting. The mechanic, therefore, of samurai in the game gaining no honor for killing ashigaru is an anachronism, based upon the Tokugawa caste system separating the samurai from other classes. One thing that I do like about C&C: Samurai Battles is that the game includes only samurai` spearmen and samurai archers - there are no swordsmen. This is true to history. The sword, duels on the beach, etc. is also something for which we can thank the Tokugawa and the peace of the Bakufu. During times of real war, swords were more equivalent to an American soldiers M9 (I guess it is now the M17) pistol than one's M4 carbine - it gets used when things have gone wrong. In any event, I like that the game did not include an anachronistic sword-fighting unit.

[@josephmeyer9411]

Been waiting for this. I have the game but have not had anyone to play against yet. Can't wait to try it out. Playing solo is not as great. Thanks for making great content.

[@johnrogers8876]

Time for an updated ranking gents!

[@BloodyCactus]

I still think Battlelore 2e is best, I love the way it sets up its missions with its hidden placement and such and its lore deck etc. This sounds really cool but I wonder if I need "another" one..

[@ThePlayersAid]

If you're wondering if you need one, then you probably don't! But if you're looking for an excuse; be my guest!

[@battlemind]

It is good isn't it? Hopefully you're playing the PC/iOS game that makes solo play great!

[@mikolajwitkowski8093]

I used to think the same, but actually the half scenario system in BL2 means there is no cohesion to the maps and it does not have any formation system, all your units can operate independently.

[@ohayoumike6845]

@@battlemind I also agree with this. I think B2e is an incredible game and the pc game is fantastic fun.

[@gregfp6612]

Is it possible to create your own scenarios?

[@tempestfury8324]

I really want to give this a go! I like Memoir '44 just fine but prefer BattleLore 2.0. But I hate the idea of spending an hour or so applying stickers. C'mon people!

[@WhatsDaveUpTo]

This was my first and last C&C game. I bought based on all the positive reviews on channels like this and the dice tower review. First of all, the randomess of the dice and the cards is punishing. It sucks when you have the units on the board, they are in position to attack, the enemy is right there, but ooooh sorry, you dont have the cards! Screw you!. Then, the randomness of the dice is also absolutely terrible. This is not much better than a role and move in that regard. Then, the whole thing with the honor and fortune tokens...fiddly as all get-out and not fun at all! Then, the rulebook is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. Its like, you have to dedicate serious time to memorize pages and pages of rules and their exceptions. Each unit has different firing rules, and different units get to ignore different swords and retreats based on rank, and on stature, certain units get to collect honor and furtune, others do not based on the rank of who they are attacking etc, etc, etc. Then, all the figures on the stickers look very much a like and are very tiny. Oh, is that a malee unit? Oh no thats a musket unit! The dragon cards are wildly overpowered and unbalanced and cost almost nothing to play. Also, you're going to have to sticker about 200 tiny blocks with even tinier stickers front and back. Prepare to spend a few hours doing that. The blocks in a unit only denote its health and nothing more. It could have easily been achieved with a rotational block system where if a unit gets hit, it gets rotated as is done in Julius Caesar and saved a TON of wooden blocks. Also the idea that a single health unit can attack with the same strength and rolls as many dice as a unit at full health seems wildly unbalanced to me and intuitively wrong. I mean, in real life, a Unit with 2/3rds of its men dead are not going to attack at the same strength as a fully healed unit. Also, the fact that you cant consolidate units is also stupid, and leaders add very little to the game. Sure they allow a unit to role an extra die, and ignore a retreat flag, but thats about it. Overall i was very disappointed in this game given the hype. It was a giant let down. I have no desire to play it again and ill probably be selling it.

[@twentysides]

I'm sorry to hear this one didn't work for you. If you haven't sold it already, you might consider playing with a variant. One variant that became an official rule in BattleLore 2e is that any card can be played to order 1 unit of your choice anywhere on the field. Another that is an official variant in that game is each player's starting hand includes one of each section card that orders 2 units. Using that variant or something similar, like each player starts with the "order 2 units in each section" card, could help if the lack of unit control rubs you the wrong way. For the dragon cards, if you find them too impactful, try playing without them, and just use tokens for inspired leader attacks and soaking up honor loss from retreats, and at the end of the round you get 2 tokens with no dragon cards involved. That's an untested variant off the top of my head but it may work for you. Or just take out the dragon cards you think are too swingy and leave things like fire arrows and bravery that have significant but not game-changing effects. From my experiences with Ancients and Napoleonics I don't think the system requires variants, but everyone's taste is different and it may help you get enjoyment from it if you decide not to sell it. I hope you find the wargames that make you happy!