Campaign Games for Commands & Colors: ANCIENTS

by Alessandro Crespi (permission granted from an original idea by Leo A. Tischer)

I. Intro - Disclaimer

This suggestion for campaign game rules is just that: a suggestion (from an original idea by Leo Tischer applied to Memoir 44 game). Feel free to tinker as you please and discuss it here.
It requires the Base Game and some expansions as well as scenarios from commandsandcolors.net/ancients website. The intent was just to be able to string scenarios together, in order, that span the course of some specific wars, and come up with some type of composite score as well as ranks and commensurate advantages.
I would appreciate any feedback/suggestions to grow them better.

II. Overview

Ideally, a campaign consists of 20 games. Ten scenarios are played, in order, twice. Each player plays one side for all ten and then switches. There are 3 campaign games listed here, one each for Samnite, Mithridatic, Gallic and Macedonian Wars (all of these are also Romans campaigns). The scenarios are drawn from historical scenarios listed on https://www.commandsandcolors.net/ancients web site, and are played in chronological order. Players start at 1st available Rank and advance as they earn points in the scenarios. There are advantages for achieving a higher rank as well as outranking your opponent.
At the end of the 20 games, highest total score wins.

III. Additional Rules

1.0 Command Chits

1.1 Depending on your current rank and performance, each player will start the game with a number of Command chits (use unused VP blocks). These can be used during a scenario in the following ways:

1. DISCARD - at the end of a turn, a player may play 1 Command chit to discard one card from his hand. He then draws cards to fill his hand according to his hand size for the scenario.
Limit 1 discard per turn.

2. RALLY - Instead of a normal card play, a player may play 2 Command chits which then act as a Rally card for that turn. The player plays no cards and draws no cards for this turn (although he could also use option 1 if he has a Command chit left).

3. DOUBLE TIME - Instead of a normal card play, a player may play 3 Command chits which then act as a Double Time card for that turn (provided Double Time is otherwise allowed in the scenario). The player plays no cards and draws no cards for this turn (although he could also use option 1 if he has a Command chit left).

4. INSPIRED LEADERSHIP - Instead of a normal card play, a player may play 3 Command chits which then act as “Inspired Leadership any section” card for that turn. The player plays no cards and draws no cards for this turn (although he could also use option 1 if he has a Command chit left).

1.2 Each player takes Command chits at the start of each scenario according to his point total as follows:

1.3 In addition, a player may carry over 1 (and only 1) unused chit from one scenario to the next.

1.4 Also, if you route your opponent in a scenario (see route under Scoring, Ranks, and Routes below), you receive 1 additional Command chit in the next scenario.

1.5 At the beginning of each scenario, if you outrank your opponent (not just a higher point total, but actually one or more levels higher), you get 1 extra chit for that scenario.

2.0 Army Specific Cards

2.1 Instead of DOUBLE TIME and INSPIRED LEADERSHIP cards, you could set-up different cards for each army to be activated by 3 Command Chits.
Some Example:

2.2 As always, any scenario-specific rules take precedence over these.

3.0 Scoring, Ranks, and Routes

3.1 Players score their medals for each scenario and keep a running total.
In addition, the winner of the scenario receives 1 additional point (so if the scenario ended 6 to 4 VP, it would score as 7 and 4).
Also, if a player is routed, their score is lowered by 2. A route occurs anytime a player loses a scenario by 4 VP or more (NOT counting the additional point for winning the scenario; 6 to 2 or less is a route). Thus a player could actually lose a point or two if their score was low enough!
For example, if a scenario ended in a score of 6 medals to 1, the campaign game totals would change by 7 and -1 respectively. Your total campaign game score may never go below zero.

3.2 At the end of the first time through the scenarios, make note of the totals, switch sides, and play them again with both players starting at zero. At the end of the second time through, each player adds their totals together to determine who the overall victor is.

3.3 The list below shows the scores required to attain each rank and the ranks for each army:

3.4 Players should use this table for purposes of claiming the extra command chit for higher rank.
For example, if you have 20 points and your opponent has 19, you can claim the extra chit.

IV. Campaign Games

Note: There is no specific Roman game listed. Listed battles also serve as Roman campaign games since they are the opponent in almost every case. Hopefully there will eventually be enough scenarios to create different campaign games too. Shorter campaigns can be run simply by playing fewer scenarios (pick and choose as you like).
You could even just keep a running point total as you play individual games against the same opponent, just to see who can make it to Imperator first.