TDG: Cody's Top Ten Commands & Colors Games (September 2025)

[Music] Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the discriminating gamer. You know the way I see it, there are three kinds of people on this planet. Those who can do math and those who can't. Ladies and gentlemen, today we're going to go ahead and take a look at my top 10 commands and colors games of all time.

[Music] All right, ladies and gentlemen. So, we're going to go ahead and take a look at my all-time favorite Commands and Colors games. Um, so I think I've played I could only think of 11 that I'd actually played. Um, so I'm going to go ahead and mention those. The honorable mention, because they're all fun, the honorable mention is Battles of Westeros.

This one was a little bit different because in Battles of Westeros, of course, it's based on the um Game of Thrones uh TV show and books. And the Battles of Westeros game, you didn't draw cards. It was you would roll dice and the dice would inform you what units you could move. It was a little bit different there, but still was a lot of fun.

In fact, that was I believe that was the very first Fantasy Flight Games game I ever bought was Battles of Westeros back in the day. So, that kind of opened the door there for me. All right, going to go ahead take a look at my number uh 10. My number 10 is The Great War. And The Great War was from I think PSC games if I remember correctly.

And The Great War was a great commands and colors game where of course you're fighting the the battles from World War I. One of the things I liked here was artillery. You'd have I think at the beginning of most scenarios, you'd have kind of offboard artillery, just random shooting. So there' just be some random carnage before the game played out.

Um, generally it was fun and I liked it, but I remember the the units, the pieces you would use for the units always I think there was some assembly and they were always falling apart and I always had some issues with them. Uh, so I was not a big fan of that aspect and that's probably why I'm ranking it the lowest here is because of the the the the quality of the plastic in that game and and and and what have you.

But still, it was a fun game. great Commands and Colors experience. Uh that is the great war that was from PSC games. That's my number 10. My number nine is Commands and Colors Medieval. And this is a great of course GMT Games great block game uh here that I really enjoyed. And I I like the the the time period because here you're dealing with with the the Byzantines and the um the Franks, you know, and and different medieval kingdoms and empires at the time.

So, it was it was a lot of fun because I like the battles from the game and I like the era that you're playing in from the game. And I think they actually kind of refined and they tweaked a few rules from ancients um with with like the number of dice that like some of the units would have. Um which I liked.

Okay. But as we'll see, I I still like ancients a little better as we'll see here. But that is uh Commands and Colors Medieval. That is my number nine. And that is from uh GMT Games. My number eight is CNC Ancients. Uh CNC Ancients again a block war game. You're you're using blocks. Now, I guess technically a block war game where you rotate, but you use blocks here.

And this game was tremendous fun for me because some of the battles here I really really enjoyed like Ka, you got the great Roman battle and and Zama. I I really liked the the Punic Wars. I like the Zama with the with you know, we're trying to funnel the elephants and stuff. I really really liked this era.

this this this Roman uh the Roman Punic War era and I think there were the some of the Greek um ones in there as well. So very fun game. Uh again great commands and color system but for me the era was the coolest thing about this one. So that is uh number eight that's from GMT games commands and colors ancients.

Okay, number seven is has a very special place in my heart because my number seven was my very very first Commands and Colors game and this is Battlecry and Battlecry was I think Avalon Hill uh I think it was Avalon Hill put it out originally and this was uh probably around 2000 or so or the turn of the century and this game was so much fun because I didn't I didn't see it coming.

I I didn't realize how much I was going to love this system. And uh of course you got the great battles. My only real complaint here is your your cavalry here. Doesn't act like cavalry really did in the Civil War. It was more used as kind of mounted infantry. Um but despite that, I still really really enjoyed the game.

And I remember I was over to Zach's house one night and it was late and we said, "Hey, let's let's just play a game." So we went ahead played a game and as soon as we finished it, we said, "Pap, you know, let's just let's do one more." We played it. We finished it. Let's just do one more. And we ended up playing, I think about seven or eight games that night.

We were having so much fun and it's such a great game. It's such a great system and it lended itself generally well to Civil War, although that cavalry thing. But that is number seven, Battlecry. And that is from Avalon Hill. Number six is one that's came out, I want to say in 2000, 2001, thereabouts.

Um, but this is another great GMT game in this line. This is Commands and Colors Samurai Battles. Commands and Colors Samurai Battles is great. You've got the um, and First of all, this is a the battles here and stuff is I'm not that familiar with it. I don't know Japanese history nearly as well as perhaps I should.

Um, so it was kind of fun discovering a lot of these new new battles and and the history here, which I really enjoyed. But what I liked is you've got the I can't remember what they're called, the the dragon cards or whatever, but there's like a whole another deck of cards that can throw monkey wrenches into what you know your opponent's trying to do.

And so every time you play something, you're wondering if they've got something that they can pull out of their a rabbit they can pull out of their hat to kind of screw you over or mitigate some of the damage that you're going to do to them. Uh but that was tremendous fun. again. Uh it was great learning this new history that I was not as familiar with, but then that new system with those with those again I want to say dragon cards.

Can't remember the name of them off the top of my head, but they were great. A lot of fun. So that is Commands and Colors Samurai Battles. That is my number six from GMT Games. My number five takes Commands and Colors into the fantasy realm and this is Battleore, specifically Battleore Second Edition.

This was the uh fantasy flight games. Now, originally, I think it was Days of Wonder published it. I I never played the Days of Wonder. I just played the Fantasy Flight version. And the Fantasy Flight version was amazing. Again, you had cards that would let you kind of manipulate things on the board.

And um you you had oh was it fake I gosh, I can't remember the names of them, but like fake cards or whatever. Um they were really cool and they kind of did the same thing as the dragon cards in in Samurai. But it was just it was a good fantasy adventure war game. And I loved the minis here. You had some of these uh minis, you know, of course you had humans, but then you had all sorts of creatures.

You had that one like giant spider. I mean, the game I thought was just a heck of a lot of fun. And I'm very very sad to say I no longer own this game. Uh when I moved to Texas, this did not survive the Purge. I ended up giving this one to a friend of mine. And I am sad because that is a great game.

I'm talking about it right now and I'd love to play it again. Uh, great commands and colors game. That's number five. That is Battleore Second Edition from Fantasy Flight Games. My number four takes it into a science fiction direction and this is Red Alert from PSC Games. Red Alert is essentially the commands and color system with spaceship battles.

And you've got these really cool spaceship minis. They're green and red, so it's kind of got a Christmy theme to it. But the mat that you play on is huge. In fact, I don't think I can play it on the table I got right now because it is so big. But you really get a sense of these kind of epic spaceship battles in a really easy to manage rule set.

And again, a lot of fun and interesting things you can do and cards you can play throughout this game. Really, really a fun and surprisingly I was surprised it didn't do better that this one didn't really go the distance because it's great. I actually well I must confess I did give this one away briefly but a friend of mine I got it back from him.

Can I can I have that back because I wanted it and I got it back. Anyway, great game. Um this is Red Alert. That is number four. That is from PSC games. Now up until fairly recently I if you would asked me my favorite Commands and Colors game, my number three would have been my number one. I would have said yeah that hands down it's my number one.

And this is Commands and Colors Napoleonics. Now, Commands and Colors Napoleonics has always been my favorite for several reasons. First of all, I think it's got one of the most mature rule sets of commands and colors where there there's there's I feel like there's um a lot of things you can do historically that make sense both in terms of the game and and in history like your um you know the way your your your artillery worked, but also too your um infantry could form squares.

If cavalry were threatening it, you could put your guys into squares and so there's a lot of lot of fun choices like that. But one of the reasons why I love this one the most is I absolutely love the Napoleonic era, Napoleonic warfare. Um, Napoleonic warfare was one of the sub fields in my PhD. Um, so I've studied a lot of it.

I've actually I taught a course on the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and I I I'm really interested in that era. I think it's just fascinating. And this game, you get the iconic battles, of course, Waterlue. Really good, really fun game. That is Commands and Colors Napoleonics. That is number three.

that is from GMT Games. All right, my number two is a game that just when I'm recording this video, I don't even think it is available in retail yet. Uh, this is a game I've just played and I played a lot of. If you watch the channel, you've seen a lot of my videos on this. This, of course, is Star Wars Battle of Hoth.

Now, I'll tell you right now, the reason why it's so high for a couple of reasons. Number one, I love The Empire Strikes Back. I love Star Wars and this theme is just so well done here, I think. And and I love how this brings in leader cards and you can select which leader you want. So every time you play, each side can select one of three different leaders.

That's going to mix it up a little bit, spice it up, and give you some more uh choice in the game, which is something I really, really, really enjoy. But uh there's also the campaigns. There's many campaigns. I haven't played those yet. I'm looking forward to doing that. But for me, what makes this game uh just amazing is I recently played the two board scenarios.

I got two copies of the game and I played um scenario 18 where one of you is uh the rebels, one of you is the Empire and you've just got this massive board. You've got six command cards. You're going for 10 victory medals. Uh it's a longer game. It's a more epic experience and it was just so much fun.

I just ate that game up. So, uh, that is why Battle of Hoth is my number two Commands and Colors game of all time. Uh, and that is from Days of Wonder. All right. So, you could probably, if you've been with me this long, you can probably figure out what my number one is. And it is what you think it is with a caveat.

This is my number one favorite Commands and Colors game is Memoir 44, the Overlord expansion. Now, I'll tell you with just without the that expansion, I would probably put it would probably be my number three or four. It's World War II, so I love the World War II theme, and it I mean, it it's such a great system for for for World War II, but the Overlord system where you can play with up to eight players.

And again, you put two boards together and you have a massive battle, an epic battle. And when you play with eight players, and I've only done that once. I'm hoping to do that again. I did it with my students when I taught my World War II class a while back. I'm going to teach a World War II class again next spring.

I'm hoping to to do an Overlord session with them again. Man, alive. It is fun. It is so much fun. I love Memoir 44, but the Overlord game just knocks it out of the park. It's one of those rare experiences. Some games are just gems when you play them. Uh you you when you play this one in that epic experience, it's just amazing.

So that is my number one Commands and Colors game of all time. That is Memoir 44 with the Overlord expansion that is from Days of Wonder. All right, ladies and gentlemen. So tell me, what do you think? Uh what are your favorite Commands and Colors games? Uh what what order would you put them in? Uh do you not like Commands and Colors?

Is that maybe something you're you're not too fond of? Let me know. I'm very interested to hear what other people's ideas are about this this great game system. So, let me know. Please leave a comment here on YouTube, on Board Game, on our Facebook page on X. Love to hear what you have to say. Please subscribe to this uh to to our channel.

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