The Grass Crown is the second game in the Shields & Swords Ancients Series from Hollandspiele that recreates ten battles spanning nearly three hundred years of Roman history. As was the case with the first game in the series With It Or On It, The Grass Crown takes a new and different look at some very familiar battles. The primary unit of maneuver is a “Wing” which 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 that was in support. Pressure from attacks in the right places of a Wing can prompt a Rout Check, causing the line to collapse. As the result of a single attack, multiple units can find themselves in the dead pile.

The game is simply fantastic and is a very innovative way of dealing with this type of warfare made so famous by the effectiveness of a phalanx of spears and shields. The best part are the Command Chits is that they are double sided and are used to issue commands to Wings. But you can never do all that you want in one turn as you only get 2 Commands and Move and Attack are on the same Command Chit. Really delicious design choice here that creates some real angst!

So you can get a feel for what I am talking about you can read Action Point 2 that I wrote a few years ago for With It or On It that talks about Command Chits: https://theplayersaid.com/2020/08/20/shields-swords-ancients-with-it-or-on-it-from-hollandspiele-action-point-2/

-Grant