Playing CM with Miniatures: How to do it

As this picture shows (badly-- sorry about the focus) you can enhance gameplay of CM by bringing it into the third dimension.  I have seen variants of CM done with 15mm and 25mm miniatures-- while they are spectacular to behold and fun to play, constructing the board in 15 or 25mm scale entails more work than I'm willing to put into a game-- so I purchased 6mm Ros/Heroics chariot miniatures (a mixture of Indian, British, Greek and Egyptian types) and mounted them on actual cardboard counters.  HERE is an excellent example of 15mm Circus Maximus using Tabletop Miniatures.

I found a bunch of unused counters in the CM countermix itself... and I have plenty of others laying around.  Most wargamers do.  Paint the miniatures and the piece itself the color of the counter mix colors in the game-- i.e., a pink chariot, a red chariot, a brown chariot, etc.  I made several different ones of different types.   The larger chariot models make great "heavy" chariots, the smaller, two horse team ones without scythes make excellent "ultralight" chariots (see the rules for how these are defined).  Be sure to paint the counters before you glue the painted chariots on to them (I made that mistake).  Use white glue.  NOTE: mount the horse team on one counter, and the chariot itself on another counter.   This is so they can "separate" if that happens during the course of the game.  If you feel so inclined, you can mount some of the extra troops that come with the Ros/Heroics chariot sets on their own counters to represent the charioteer running on foot or being dragged.  Ditto for rubble and flipped over chariots.  To save money, I just use the counters that come with the game for such things. 

The advantage to buying, painting and mounting 6mm chariots on to counters is that you can use the original gameboard to play upon.  I've seen and played some wonderful 15mm and 25mm CM conversions-- but I don't have that kind of time or money.  The 6mm represents a minimal input investment in 3D charioteering.   If you feel inclined to recreate the CM board for 15mm, well, I take my hat off to you! :-)

To actually play the game, play either as written or with any variant rules you may have come up with.  My gaming group plays with some fast and loose variants of CM-- like Chariots of Doooooom, or anything else to speed up the game!

Here, fellow charioteer Bob Sargent explains why we mere mortals might be good enough to eat his dust, as he gloats over his tidy victory in a 3D chariot race.   He proudly displays the winning team.  What he isn't saying is that his driver got dragged over the finish line-- he lost his chariot a while back....

In conclusion, miniatures add a lot to the CM gaming experience that the rather bland counter set might be lacking.  I strongly suggest trying the 3D route.  As you can see from the material presented in the above paragraphs, miniatures don't have to be expensive-- I think my entire outlay for the chariots you see above (and some weren't on the table) was $9.  There are many companies that handle chariots in various sizes and shapes, I suggest visiting a miniatures-related site on the web to find out how to contact them.  My local game store, the Game Parlour in Chantilly, VA, ordered the R/H stuff and had it to me inside of a month.