With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series (I used to call this “new” but now after doing it for well over a year and now coming to the 50th post in the series, I have removed the new), I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#50: Ambitus from Time of Crisis: The Age of Iron and Rust Expansion from GMT Games

I really love Time of Crisis from GMT Games. This is a very light, introductory wargame that is just plain fun to play. I have been playing it a ton on the Rally the Troops! online platform and really enjoy it no matter what the outcome of those games are. One card that I enjoy using is called Ambitus, which is a 2 value Populace Card that really can be a major boon to any attempt to place your Governor in a new territory. This card was added to the game in The Age of Iron and Rust Expansion and is one of those cards that I just can’t imagine playing the game without.

In Roman law, ambitus was a crime of political corruption where a candidate would attempt to influence an election through bribery. That theme is present in the game as players can attempt to buy additional votes when they are trying to get their Governors elected. I love the attention they gave to history in this game and I also really like that the picture they used for the card shows a Roman coin with an image of a voter casting a ballot.

Ambitus is a very useful card when you just need that one or two additional votes to unseat a Governor. As I’ve stated earlier, you will need to gain enough votes to overcome double the current level of support plus 1 additional vote for each unit located in the capital aligned with the current Governor. I like to use Ambitus when I have no business doing this action as I am just not rolling enough dice to make the attempt feasible. In our example picture below, that means that 7 votes are needed; 4 once you double the current support level of 2 and then there are three units located in the Green General’s stack occupying the capital.

As you can see the dice have been determined, rolling 5d6 needing to tally 7 votes. The dice are rolled and show four successful votes (rolls of 2+) and you will also see that a 6 has been rolled which means you will get to roll 1 additional d6. We do so and roll a 4 for an additional vote but the player is still two votes shy of success with only 5.

As you can see from the 3 cards played that there are two Ambitus cards included. This is allowed as you can play 1 Ambitus and gain its benefit for each point of Influence you have spent. So with the two Ambitus cards the player will garner two more votes as the text of the card reads “Add one to the number of votes you gain from rolling the dice”. This will bring the total votes to 7 which is the amount needed to unseat the Governor and replace with one of yours from the Available Leaders Box.

If you are interested, I wrote a full review for Time of Crisis and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2017/09/04/the-most-recent-fruits-of-wargame-hybridization-a-review-of-time-of-crisis-the-roman-empire-in-turmoil-235-284-ad-from-gmt-games/

We also posted a full review video and you can watch that at the following link:

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at A New Painting for Graf Spee from The Hunt from Salt & Pepper Games.

-Grant