Bruce is correct. 431BC is the outbreak of the Peloponnesian Wars; the Athenian's Delian League was reasonably cohesive. 413 would be the end phase, after the Athenian's disastrous Sicilian expedition, and the Spartan's Peloponnesian League (with covert Persian assistance) was rolling up Athens' empire and fomenting numerous revolts. One question: I see Sicily is on the map. Do they have a scenario covering the time of the Sicilian expedition?
There are 4 scenarios: 431. The Sicilian Campaign. 413. And 415 - which just combines the Sicily and 413 scenarios into a longer campaign with some extra units.
So confused. 431 BCE should be earlier than 413 BCE. You mean the later campaign is full of revolts? (Historically true dat though). Have really enjoyed the one playthrough of this game - can't remember the scenario. It was very evocative of the histories. The Gods aspect, I think, simplifies things like logistics, technological advances, good commanders - and you do have to chose this - so an abstraction but would be too much like an AI task in a video game to be good in this one. . For just military\battles I use miniatures or Commands & Colors. GMT also has an online revised rule set and other aides for this game. There must have been a ton of good games in 2009 for this to be overlooked.
I own but have not played Hellenes. The designer Craig Besinque is a master of the block war game, with excellent games like East Front and Triumph & Tragedy. Anyone interested in the world of block war games should come down to Prezcon in Charlottesville, VA last week of Feb where we have a whole week of block war game tournaments. This year we are running Dunkirk from Worthington and several Columbia Games: Crusader Rex, Texas Glory, Julius Caesar, Hammer of the Scots, Liberty, and Rommel in the Desert. A little bit of hearsay history with Hellenes. The original design was to be published by Columbia but a dispute about rules length led Craig to GMT and Columbia to publish their own design, Athens & Sparta, which was not well received.
I would go so far as to say that first scenario is bad. It's just "Make Athens die of plague and watch everyone rebel.". You really need to ignore that one and jump straight to the other one. That first scenario is very asymmetrical. Athens has to sortie out and use the navy to strike back because Sparta has a hard time responding but if Sparta has a good hand you just get punished.
Nice review! Not trying to be a smartass but since I am greek, I would like to point out that the stress is on the first e (also the h on the beginning is silent in modern greek) and it is the term we use for ourselves (Hellenes = Greeks).
I had this game for a while and enjoyed playing it.I loved the block game approach. It's an accessible treatment of the wars. Ultimately I let it go when reducuing my game collection and kept Mark Herman's Peloponnesian War. I also retained Caesar from Columbia Games as a good ancients block game.
I have played the 431 scenario once (well 60% of it; we ran out of time). It is more complex than your average block game and took us a turn or 2 to properly get it. I think you will enjoy it more, but, since you reset for winter you are often repeating similar strategies so it can get repetitive (at least it felt like that to me). I await the update with interest!
