First review, so be gentle.

Ancient Battles Deluxe is is the updated version of Bill Bank's Ancients game released by Good Industries and 3W. One might even say that it's a reimagining of that game as the spirit of the rules are the same, but there are some differences in the implementation.

If I had to sum up this game it would be that it is to board wargaming what De Bellis Antiquitatis is to miniatures. It provides a fairly simple set of rules to recreate battles from the dawn of warfare to the introduction of gunpowder. (And ABD will actually cover some early gunpowder battles in future expansions.) This first set covers the battles of Kadesh, Leuctra, Chaeronea, Granicus, Legnano, Hattin, Arsouf and Bannockburn. The first expansion (Elephants at War) has already been announced and is scheduled to add 16 battles. One of the great things about the older game that I hope is soon implemented was the ability to play a simple campaign and build your own army. The set piece battles are interesting, but the ability to buy your own armies and fight those battles is where this system really takes on a life of it's own.

The game comes with 2 11x17" maps, 160 unit counters, 45 unit activation round counters and 58 round counters that represent leaders, command points and other markers, rules, player aid card and 8 cards listing the scenario information. The unit counters represent a scalable amount of men depending on the battle and have a good order and a disordered side.

Rather than give a complete breakdown of the turn order and play I'm going to go over those parts that were "reimagined". (I'm posting by memory right now and don't have access to the game.)

The first major change is in how units are activated. In the old game it was an IGO UGO style of movement. In ABD you dice for a number of command points and receive a bonus for certain leaders. You then use these command points to activate individual units or formations of units with a leader. Quiet a change and I've got to admit that I've liked so far. There are some real tough choices to be made when you've rolled poorly about where those precious command points are going to be used. I should also note that CPs can also be used to automatically rally an individual unit that is disordered or to roll for rallying of disordered units in a formation. They can also be used to move an enemy's disordered units once that army has panicked. And they are also used in a bidding process to attempt to seize the initiative during the initiative phase. Handy they are.

A minor change was also made to movement in that in the old game a unit could move in any of the 3 hexes in it's front and would rotate so that its rear would face the hex it just left. Not units spend 1 movement point to enter the hex directly in front of it and can rotate facing freely before it moves and again after it enters a hex.

The next major change came in combat. Gone are the odds based CRTs and the Missile Fire tables. Missile fire is now resolved by the defender rolling a d6 and adding modifiers for terrain or missile defense listed on its counter and the firing unit rolling a number of d6 equal to the arrow symbols on its counter. If the attacking unit rolls higher it disorders a good unit or destroys a disordered unit, otherwise no result. Melee occurs in it's own phase and players decide on whether to attack with an eligible unit or not. I'll admit that the new melee rules confused me on the first read through, but the next time the light bulb went off. Basically each unit in melee rolls 1d6 and modifies it based on terrain, which hexside it is being attacked through and certain leaders with a "+" rating. There's another modifier which is based on a comparison of the units combat strength (modified by leaders with a "x" rating) expressed as a ratio. For example if your combat strength is more than twice, but less than 3 times, your opponents then you'll receive a +2 on your d6. Once the dice are rolled and modifiers are taken into account a check of the chart determines the results. The new combat system took a little getting used to, but became second nature quickly. Right now I think I like it slightly more than the old one.

If you're looking for a good light wargame that can cover the wide period from the beginning of warfare to the introduction of gunpowder then this reimagined classic is what you're looking for. I'll leave it to others to determine how good of a simulation it is. I enjoy it and can't wait to get some of the chrome from the earlier incarnations reimagined as well.