Mongol Empire Part 1: Commands & Colors Medieval Unofficial Expansion (Download and play, no extra materials needed)

The Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty, also known as the Mongol–Jin War, was fought between the Mongol Empire and the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty in Manchuria and north China. The war, which started in 1211, lasted over 23 years and ended with the complete conquest of the Jin dynasty by the Mongols in 1234.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_conquest_of_the_Jin_dynasty

The expansion features two new armies and 20 scenarios and is playable with just the components of the C&C: Medieval base game.

The two armies are:

The late Genghis/early Ögedei era Mongol army

The late Jin era Jurchen army

Each army comes with new units and new rules. The two major factions come with their own new leadership inspired action sheets.

Their various allies, including the Chinese, the Khitans and the Tanguts, are also included in some scenarios.

The scenarios are organized in three main phases:

1. The Genghis Khan era, starting with the Battle of Yehuling (Wild Fox Ridge) and the initial Mongol breach into the Great Wall and ending with Genghis Khan's return to Mongolia after delegating the Jurchen campaign to Muqali.

2. The Muqali era, where general Muqali expanded the Mongol foothold in Northern Asia and made many alliances. The scenarios feature some smaller conflicts with unconventional armies such as Chinese guerrillas.

3. The Ögedei Khan era, starting with the death of Genghis Khan and succession of  Ögedei Khan. Ögedei Khan launched an unprecedentedly large scale invasion of Jin and many of the bloodiest battles were fought during this era. Meanwhile the Jurchen Emperor Aizong responded with his own reforms that strengthened the Jurchen military in order to respond to the Mongol invasion. This era culminated in the epic battle of Sanfengshan and ended with the sieges of Bianjing and Caizhou, after which the Mongol conquest of Jin was complete.

I hope you enjoy this expansion! 

  

Future Plans:

I would like to make more expansions for Medieval Asian history covering the Mongols, their descendants and the neighboring cultures they interacted with, as I suspect that official GMT contents are unlikely to move away from Europe.

However, I am placing design restrictions on myself in that I will only use what's actually available in the CCM game box. I know for a fact that players are far more likely to actually play a fan expansion if no additional physical contents are needed. Having completely original material, while nice, is a huge hassle for most players and people are very unlikely to print and sticker completely new units for this game, for example.

Luckily, the Jurchens and the Mongols of this specific era were able to be adequately represented by the original game blocks, as the army compositions were compatible (though I do wish the purple army had more than 3 medium infantries). The other armies of the same era, however, would be a challenge to fit into the base game. This is why I am looking forward to the first CCM expansion which will hopefully come with a new army of divergent composition from the original two. This way I can use the Crusader army to represent other armies such as the Song Chinese, the Western Xia Tanguts, the Khitans, the Qara-Khitai, and obviously the actual Europeans.

I would love to use the new materials to cover the Mongol Empire-related wars that occurred in various parts of the medieval world. 

In the East Asian theater, some of the wars of interest include:

1. The Jin-Song War and the Jurchen-Khitan War, where the Jurchens defeated the Song Chinese and the Khitans to establish dominance in North Asia. This would serve as a prequel to the expansion I have here, where an early Jurchen army would be featured rather than the late one in the Mongol-Jin War.

2. The Mongol-Song War, where the Mongol Empire (and later as the Yuan Dynasty) conquered Southern Song and effectively unifying Chinese lands. This would be a sequel to this expansion here.

3. The Toluid Civil War. Also known as the Mongol War of Succession. This would feature somewhat symmetrical Kublai-era Mongol armies, as it was a war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke.

4. Qaidu-Kublai War. This is often considered an extension of the Toluid Civil War, where Qaidu, a descendent of Ögedei refused to recognize Kublai's role as the overall Khagan of the Mongol Empire. Qaidu established the Ögedei  Khanate in Central Asia (while concurrently being the de facto leader of the Chagatai Khanate) that used a Mongol-based army that was divergent from Kublai's East Asian counterpart.

5. Kublai's Invasion of Japan. This would feature a very different medieval Japanese army, though the battles were rather brief. This could serve as a mini expansion.

As for the Central Asia/Eastern European wars, the Golden Horde established by Genghis Khan's son Jochi would play a major part in these expansions

1. War with Europeans and the establishment of the Golden Horde. This would include Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus, Poland and Hungary. These would feature asymmetrical armies and depending on what GMT provides in the expansions, can be a fun challenge.

2. Berke-Hulagu War, another extension of the Toluid Civil War where the Golden Horde under Berke Khan went to war with the Kublai-aligned Ilkhanate led by Hulagu. Ilkhanate was a Mongol state under Middle Eastern influence and the armies would be asymmetrical to that of that of the Golden Horde.

I think some scenarios tracing back to the earlier days of Genghis Khan and his unification of Mongolia can be interesting, though the tactics used were relatively primitive and the nomadic armies featured would be rather symmetrical. However for completeness I should at least make them available. One of his earlier outward expansions such as his invasion of Khwarazm can be included.

1. Genghis Khan's unification of Mongolia (and becoming "Genghis Khan").

2. Mongol invasion of Khwarazm

Moving beyond the 1200s-1300s era will yield even more material for the topic, such as the dissolution of and power shifts in each Khanate (I recently started reading about the dissolution of the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate, and the later rise of Moghulistan and the Kazakh Khanate). I guess you can also argue that Timur's claim to Mongol lineage allowed him to be considered a Mongol-associated power. The decline of the Yuan Mongols and the rise of Ming Chinese/Muslims and the Oirat Mongols could also be interesting. 

And if we include the Renaissance era stuff, the large series of battles between the Manchu led Qing Dynasty and the Oirat Mongols' Dzungar Khanate, featuring several battles in Tibet. This might actually work better as a C&C: Napoleonics expansion as the weapons used were a lot similar to those in that game. Though I think those topics are even more obscure than the ones listed here so they might not be as enjoyable to most.

It would be a lot easier to achieve these goals if we used materials from C&C Ancients by taking advantage of the sheer block volume and different colors, but I think it is still an unreasonable request of the players to own both CCM and CCA so I will stick to official CCM contents in my expansion creations.

Thanks for your attention and hope to see you in my future expansions!