Nobody really knows how the ancient battles looked like. There is a lot of piecemeal evidence, including types of units involved, armor, weaponry, etc. but there is no way to recreate / simulate such engagements with certainty. Does that stop us, boardgamers, from playing such a games? Of course not! And The Great Battles of History is another series I have weakness for and love to explore new volumes in it. Mark Herman and Richard H. Berg created here something which gives us a feeling how those antic engagements could actually look like.

Hoplite: Warfare in the Persian-Hellenistic Age 4th-5th Century BC – Volume XV – was published in 2014 and recently got a second edition. I was lucky to acquire it on one of the GMT sales. If you thought that after so many installments in the series you have seen all, you would be surprised at the amount of novelty you can find here.

Great Battles was always a very solitaire-friendly system, as there is no hidden information here. Hoplite goes and extra mile here, as it introduces a chit-pull mechanism to activate particular types of forces. And as you know, soloing such mechanic is pure joy. If you add to this beautiful as always components, interesting rulebook with historical and designer notes, you are getting a great product. Today we shall present the components and describe the rules. More content, including gameplay, to come!

Enjoy!