Review: Command & Colors: Samurai Battles

By Mitch Reed

Recently the NDNG crew had a that emulated the NCAA Basketball championship where a team of four gamers selected our four favorite games and debated until there was only one left standing. The winner was Command & Colors Ancients, which is one of the many games under the C&C banner. This event motivated me to pick up the latest release in the series, Command & Colors: Samurai Battles. While this release is the latest to hit the market, the game itself is not new. The first version of the game came out in 2012 by the Russian company Zvezda and used miniatures instead of the wooden blocks that most of the rest of the series uses. Sadly, the game did not achieve the same popularity as the rest of the C&C franchise and the latest re-boot by GMT Games is sure to change this.
The C&C franchise is probably one of the most popular game series on the market today. Created by Richard Borg, the game has titles that cover almost every major period and conflict to include WWII (Memoir 44), US Revolutionary War (Tricorne) the Napoleonic wars and even the Great War. All the games use the same basic mechanics, with a modular game board split into three sections and players are dealt a hand of cards that dictate what orders they can give each turn. I feel this mechanic emulates the fog and friction of war in a brilliant fashion that keeps each game fresh with unique challenges.

Some may wonder if the basic mechanics of the C&C series are fungible enough to recreate different periods of warfare and due to the tweaks of each game it accomplishes this goal. I have played the Napoleonic and the Revolutionary War versions of the game, and despite these events taking place 20-years apart, each game has a distinct flavor that gives the player the feel of how combat was conducted in each period.

C&C: Samurai Battles focuses on the fighting in Japan from 1517 until 1615 and covers this 100-year period excellently in the same fashion of the other titles in the C&C franchise. The game comes with 316 blocks, stickers for the blocks, the map, the cards and 40 scenarios in which to test your mettle. The units represent Ashigaru and Samurai foot units who some in two main types, spearmen and bowmen.

The game also has arquebusiers, irregular troops along with mounted spearmen and bowmen. Leaders, which are important in the game come in three types, foot, mounted and an army commander with his bodyguard. The Samurai troops are your elite units and you need to work them into a position where they can have a maximum impact on the battle. Leaders stacked with units help with in both offense and defense, however you need to protect these units because in this game they die a bit quicker than in other C&C games.
Some units such as the bowmen and arquebusiers can engage in ranged attacks with the enemy. It is important to get these units in a good position with a clear field of fire to support your close combat attacks. Even if you can manage to get great positioning, you may not have the right cards in your hand during the turn to execute you plan. Do you wait until you get the right card or have your spearmen head into combat without the support? These are the type of challenges you will have during game play that makes this game so much fun to play.

Some of the new wrinkles that the game has is the “Dragon Cards”, which augment your command cards and can change things on the map very quickly. In the recent game I played I was able to play the “Ambush” card in close combat when I was attacked, which allowed me to go first and thus ruining my opponents plans.

What would a Samurai game be without honor and fortune? The game allows you to collect and lose Honor & Fortune token thought the game. If you have to retreat due to a combat result you need these tokens in you “bank” or you have to roll for your “lack of honor” and failing that roll can see that retreating unit and possibly units nearby to lose some of their blocks.

The 40 scenarios cover some of the biggest engagements of the Samurai period in Japan and you can finish them in about an hour. I played with my 14-year-old son and he was able to pick up the game quickly and despite it being our first time with this game we were able to finish it in about 90-minutes.

Many of our loyal readers may know that I normally do not play games of this era, I prefer games in other periods and with other conflicts. My main reason for getting this game is due to the strength of the franchise, I have never regretted getting any game in this series.

The other factor was how C&C Ancients just blew away the competition in our tournament last month. I tried to get a copy of that game and it was sold out (I did the P500), so I opted to get Samurai Battles because of the mystique of the Samurai period and let’s be honest, it just looks like so much fun.

I really recommend this game for any enthusiasts of the C&C series and fans of the Samurai period of Japan. It is a great game that due to its re-release will find its way to more tables than ever before.

Board Game Geek
GMT Games