The Grass Crown

Game Design: Amabel Holland
Map & Terrain: Mark Mahaffey
Counters: Amabel Holland
Hex number: 62
Duration: 60 minutes
Players: 2
Solitaire Suitability: High
Weight: Medium
Theme: Ancients
MSRP: $70.00

This second game in the Shields & Swords Ancients series recreates ten battles spanning nearly three hundred years of Roman history. As was the case with the first game, With It Or On It (2019), The Grass Crown is a fresh, innovative taken on familiar material. The primary unit of maneuver is a "Wing" which itself consists of ten or so individual counters. Losses can be resolved by flipping the individual unit that was attacked, or by flipping any unit adjacent to it. Unrelenting pressure in the right places can prompt a Rout Check, causing the line to collapse. As the result of a single attack, multiple units can find themselves in your dead pile.

This simple but compelling theme sees many variations thanks to special rules that chart the evolution of Roman warfare, and contrasts them with the rigid Greek Phalanx, the sophisticated army of Hannibal, and the ferocity of the Gauls.

The ten battles are: Heraclea, Asculum, Trebbia, Zama, Pydna, Second Citra, Vercellae, Pharsalus, Thapsus, and Munda.

• 17" x 22" Mapsheet
• (3) Countersheets
• 28-page Rulebook
• 12-page Battle Book
• A Brief and Digressive (But Mostly Accurate) Military History of the Roman Republic, With Jokes, a 28-page supplement
• (2) eight-sided dice