Unfortunately, Mike's rematch demand is going to have to wait.
Due to my heading off to WBC next week (I'm playing in the Combat Commander, Commands and Colors: Ancients, Amun-Re, and maybe St. Petersburg and Ingenious tournaments) and Mike and many of the rest of the gaming group heading off to "WBC West" a week after I return, there won't be any Two Sides reports for the remainder of August. Mike and I are tentatively planning something for Labor Day weekend that may involve resumption of our Sicily campaign.
Unless we decide Burma's the thing to do as the new version just arrived at my house yesterday.
I'll be blogging my WBC experiences on my personal blog: Incunabula.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
NT - take 2
OK, let's see if we can do it right this time....
This time I tried doubling up my artillery, trying to create a situation where I could seriously hammer his defense across a wide approach, and follow up with a crushing attack. To this end my artillery went with Miloradovich, on my center right, and Langeron, on my center left. Both flank corps were heavy on the cavalry, and most of the guards and 3-strength infantry went with Liechtensten and Kollowrath.
I started with a general advance, which swiftly developed into a strong push in the center left with Doktorov and Langeron. I successfully used my artillery against St. Hilaire's corps at Robelnitz, following up with a devastating attack that pretty much blew him away.
In the mean time he'd pushed forward on my right with a couple of corps, leaving a gap between them and the support. I pushed through this gap with Miloradovich, managing to surround and destroy Lannes' corps.
At this point things were looking good. I had 3 corps on my right to take care of Bessieres' corps, and my left looked in decent shape. He was down to just a few morale points left. Several turns to go, and it didn't look too hard a task to score those final few morale points for the win.
And then it all went pear shaped. Bessieres turned out to be all cavalry, and kept retreating from all my threats. He marched a couple corps down my center and I couldn't bring strength to bear to stop him occupying the VP spaces. Over on the left he kept bobbing and weaving enough that I just couldn't pin him down to bring my superior force to bear, and he was able to survive with one measly morale point. One freakin' point.
Very much this was a game I lost. I was in a commanding position, and should have won, but I got very complacent. I started spreading the commands all over the battlefield, rather than concentrating, and even had my strongest corps stand around and do nothing for several turns. If I'd focused on surrounding Bessieres and bringing him to battle, his push in the center would have been immaterial. Although I'd forgotten the part about losing morale points for committing heavy cavalry, that didn't really impact the outcome, as all I needed was to force him to lose a strength point in a losing battle. With my own morale being up around 10 points I could afford to grind him down.
And that really comes down to my sole criticism of the game. In the end it became a game of 'find the infantry', trying to force a retreat for the required morale point loss. However, with the hidden strength you don't even know if the unit(s) you're facing is cavalry or infantry, which is a trifle silly. This is just the way this particular game came out, of course, and if I'd played a better end game it wouldn't have been important.
All I'm left with is 'next time....', which is the sign of a great game, that after you're finished you want to immediately play again to do better. In the previous report I gushed about how great I think this game is, and putting it on the same footing as OCS is the highest complement I can give it, and this playing has just reinforced that impression. This is truly one of the greatest and most innovative games that I've ever played. The handling of corps and detached units works. The concept of locales and approaches works. The hidden units and battle mechanism works. And with all that, the presentation and how it looks while playing is just gob-smackingly amazing.
Simmons Games should be rightly proud of this design, and it comes as no surprise to find that other game designers are leveraging the design to apply it to other battles, which is surely one of the greatest compliments that can be bestowed. Simmons also plans to use the system for other battles, and I'm already signed up for their Gettysburg game. Can't wait, in fact.
In the meantime, I demand a rematch!
This time I tried doubling up my artillery, trying to create a situation where I could seriously hammer his defense across a wide approach, and follow up with a crushing attack. To this end my artillery went with Miloradovich, on my center right, and Langeron, on my center left. Both flank corps were heavy on the cavalry, and most of the guards and 3-strength infantry went with Liechtensten and Kollowrath.
I started with a general advance, which swiftly developed into a strong push in the center left with Doktorov and Langeron. I successfully used my artillery against St. Hilaire's corps at Robelnitz, following up with a devastating attack that pretty much blew him away.
In the mean time he'd pushed forward on my right with a couple of corps, leaving a gap between them and the support. I pushed through this gap with Miloradovich, managing to surround and destroy Lannes' corps.
At this point things were looking good. I had 3 corps on my right to take care of Bessieres' corps, and my left looked in decent shape. He was down to just a few morale points left. Several turns to go, and it didn't look too hard a task to score those final few morale points for the win.
And then it all went pear shaped. Bessieres turned out to be all cavalry, and kept retreating from all my threats. He marched a couple corps down my center and I couldn't bring strength to bear to stop him occupying the VP spaces. Over on the left he kept bobbing and weaving enough that I just couldn't pin him down to bring my superior force to bear, and he was able to survive with one measly morale point. One freakin' point.
Very much this was a game I lost. I was in a commanding position, and should have won, but I got very complacent. I started spreading the commands all over the battlefield, rather than concentrating, and even had my strongest corps stand around and do nothing for several turns. If I'd focused on surrounding Bessieres and bringing him to battle, his push in the center would have been immaterial. Although I'd forgotten the part about losing morale points for committing heavy cavalry, that didn't really impact the outcome, as all I needed was to force him to lose a strength point in a losing battle. With my own morale being up around 10 points I could afford to grind him down.
And that really comes down to my sole criticism of the game. In the end it became a game of 'find the infantry', trying to force a retreat for the required morale point loss. However, with the hidden strength you don't even know if the unit(s) you're facing is cavalry or infantry, which is a trifle silly. This is just the way this particular game came out, of course, and if I'd played a better end game it wouldn't have been important.
All I'm left with is 'next time....', which is the sign of a great game, that after you're finished you want to immediately play again to do better. In the previous report I gushed about how great I think this game is, and putting it on the same footing as OCS is the highest complement I can give it, and this playing has just reinforced that impression. This is truly one of the greatest and most innovative games that I've ever played. The handling of corps and detached units works. The concept of locales and approaches works. The hidden units and battle mechanism works. And with all that, the presentation and how it looks while playing is just gob-smackingly amazing.
Simmons Games should be rightly proud of this design, and it comes as no surprise to find that other game designers are leveraging the design to apply it to other battles, which is surely one of the greatest compliments that can be bestowed. Simmons also plans to use the system for other battles, and I'm already signed up for their Gettysburg game. Can't wait, in fact.
In the meantime, I demand a rematch!
Nappy done right
This week, Mike and I sat down again to give Napoleon's Triumph a proper go. Last week's botched attempt left us wanting more. We took the same sides as before as that would make it easiest to jump right in. In all the pictures, the French are blue, Allies red.
One of the key parts of playing the French at Austerlitz is how you organize your forces. I'm sure with more experience I'll get better at this. I wasn't sure which way to go with things so I decided on a balanced approach. With one exception, I gave at least 3-strength infantry and one 2-strength cavalry to each corps. The exception was Bessieres. I gave him a cavalry-only corps including the heavy cavalry. My idea was to use them to exploit a gap I was hoping to open on my left flank. That's not what he ended up doing, but he still proved mighty effective.
I kept my guard infantry with my reinforcements. My feeling was if I was going to need to bring them on, I was going to need the big guys. Davout just got a command full of 2-strength infantry. I was intending to go the entire game without bringing on reinforcements as the French victory conditions become MUCH harder if they arrive.
Here's the initial deployment:
So, let's see how things progressed.
Mike started out closing up the loop in his line and pressuring on my weak right. However, my right was weak for a reason – there's a lake and swamp down there that is impassable. Around it are difficult narrow approaches so it doesn't take much of a force to hold down that flank. I responded by solidifying my line, with the cavalry on my far left.
Mike pushed further in the middle, and I drew back a tad, leaving my left a bit exposed. At this point, he's driven down to the lake, but I have the approaches on either side blocked with high-strength units.
Here, I make what could be a mistake by pushing again on my left. I also begin a more active defense on my right. Mike responds by reinforcing against my left, pushing harder in the center, and feinting against the gap between my center and left.
I give a little ground while Mike starts applying pressure all along the line.
I then try to exploit a gap he leaves in the center and he responds by pouring through the gap between my overly advanced left and my center.
Here is where I'm able to start breaking down his center. I've isolated the fighting into two distinct areas, and have some control over where I'm able to reinforce. However, Lannes' corp, the infantry that Bessieres was escorting disappears at this point. Also, Mike used a rule I'd simply forgotten (you can attack twice over the same approach in a turn if the first attack was led by artillery) to destroy St. Hilaire's corps in the center.
After two more turns, I now only have Legrand on my right and a small handful of detached units scattered between there and the middle. I've dropped onto the last column of the morale chart, and things are looking iffy.
There's now three turns left. I'm down to 5 on the morale chart as you can see in the bottom left of the above photo. I've begun dropping off units from Bessieres' corp as a screen. As cavalry in reserve don't lose strength when they retreat, I can avoid committing my heavy cavalry and taking the morale hit. I've also got Vandamme's and Murat's corps that can skirt into the middle and push for VP spaces. It's just a matter now of me not dying too fast and I might be able to squeak out a marginal victory.
Around this point I considered bringing on reinforcements for the morale boost, but the change in victory conditions would make it nearly impossible for me to win. Mike had a huge corps on the main road in position to scoop up victory spaces – something that matters if I bring on reinforcements but doesn't, really, if I don't.
So, now it was a game of chicken. Make it hard for Mike to trap me, push deep in the middle, and screen on my left.
The following is the final position. Believe it or not, I was down to 1 on the morale track. One more loss (or being forced to commit my heavy cavalry) would have caused a loss. As it was, I had taken VP spots, so I ended up with the slimmest of marginal victories.
It wasn't until after we were finished that we noticed the infantry that occupied VP spaces at the end needed to be able to trace a supply line back to the French side of the board. Mike merely needed to cut me off to prevent my victory, but I'm not sure he would have been able to. I could have traced down the left (as pictured) the right, or the middle. The supply trace down the left would have been particularly difficult for him to cut off. At least by the time he realized the game situation (which was with about three turns left.)
So, the slimmest of French victories. And, looking at that final position, it's difficult to see how it's a French win, but that's what the rules say – so I'll take it :)
Overall Thoughts
In recent years, there have been many stellar wargame designs geared for shorter play. (i.e. less than four hours.) This is absolutely right there at the top. Actually, I think it shares the top with Combat Commander, and they're polar opposites. NT is no-luck, CC has tons of it. Both are incredibly fulfilling experiences. Items that struck me as particularly good with NT are the following:
Command and control modeling. The fact that you only get three or four independent unit orders each turn despite the fact that more and more units get detached from their corps over the course of the game means you can control a smaller and smaller percentage of your force as the battle progresses. Exactly as happened in reality.
Attack feints. This beautifully simulates the effect of a defending unit being surrounded. Use a series of feints to pull the unit in multiple directions and the remainder is too weak to resist the true thrust. The great thing about this feature is it's simply an offshoot of the standard combat mechanism. No special rules about attacking over multiple approaches, etc.
Fog of War. Okay, this is pretty much a given for any block game, but it's still a big benefit.
The “Look.” Bowen Simmons has done a wonderful job breathing life into the old-style battle maps. And I love the corps markers in NT. Need to find where I can get some more – I've got some ideas on how to use them for a couple miniatures games.
There's more, but they're things you notice when you're down deep in it that make you go "wow. great design." (Like a simple rule - cavalry do not take a loss when forced to retreat while in reserve in a locale - that just makes cavalry screens work beautifully.)
It's going to be a long time before this game plays itself through. There are so many options available that you could play this game once a month for at least a couple years before you start running low on ways to run the battle.
Simply a fantastic game. Glad I've got my copy before they sell out (Bonaparte at Marengo frequently goes for triple-digit prices and it's a smaller, slightly worse game) and I can't wait for his next offering – Gettysburg.
One of the key parts of playing the French at Austerlitz is how you organize your forces. I'm sure with more experience I'll get better at this. I wasn't sure which way to go with things so I decided on a balanced approach. With one exception, I gave at least 3-strength infantry and one 2-strength cavalry to each corps. The exception was Bessieres. I gave him a cavalry-only corps including the heavy cavalry. My idea was to use them to exploit a gap I was hoping to open on my left flank. That's not what he ended up doing, but he still proved mighty effective.
I kept my guard infantry with my reinforcements. My feeling was if I was going to need to bring them on, I was going to need the big guys. Davout just got a command full of 2-strength infantry. I was intending to go the entire game without bringing on reinforcements as the French victory conditions become MUCH harder if they arrive.
Here's the initial deployment:
So, let's see how things progressed.
Mike started out closing up the loop in his line and pressuring on my weak right. However, my right was weak for a reason – there's a lake and swamp down there that is impassable. Around it are difficult narrow approaches so it doesn't take much of a force to hold down that flank. I responded by solidifying my line, with the cavalry on my far left.
Mike pushed further in the middle, and I drew back a tad, leaving my left a bit exposed. At this point, he's driven down to the lake, but I have the approaches on either side blocked with high-strength units.
Here, I make what could be a mistake by pushing again on my left. I also begin a more active defense on my right. Mike responds by reinforcing against my left, pushing harder in the center, and feinting against the gap between my center and left.
I give a little ground while Mike starts applying pressure all along the line.
I then try to exploit a gap he leaves in the center and he responds by pouring through the gap between my overly advanced left and my center.
Here is where I'm able to start breaking down his center. I've isolated the fighting into two distinct areas, and have some control over where I'm able to reinforce. However, Lannes' corp, the infantry that Bessieres was escorting disappears at this point. Also, Mike used a rule I'd simply forgotten (you can attack twice over the same approach in a turn if the first attack was led by artillery) to destroy St. Hilaire's corps in the center.
After two more turns, I now only have Legrand on my right and a small handful of detached units scattered between there and the middle. I've dropped onto the last column of the morale chart, and things are looking iffy.
There's now three turns left. I'm down to 5 on the morale chart as you can see in the bottom left of the above photo. I've begun dropping off units from Bessieres' corp as a screen. As cavalry in reserve don't lose strength when they retreat, I can avoid committing my heavy cavalry and taking the morale hit. I've also got Vandamme's and Murat's corps that can skirt into the middle and push for VP spaces. It's just a matter now of me not dying too fast and I might be able to squeak out a marginal victory.
Around this point I considered bringing on reinforcements for the morale boost, but the change in victory conditions would make it nearly impossible for me to win. Mike had a huge corps on the main road in position to scoop up victory spaces – something that matters if I bring on reinforcements but doesn't, really, if I don't.
So, now it was a game of chicken. Make it hard for Mike to trap me, push deep in the middle, and screen on my left.
The following is the final position. Believe it or not, I was down to 1 on the morale track. One more loss (or being forced to commit my heavy cavalry) would have caused a loss. As it was, I had taken VP spots, so I ended up with the slimmest of marginal victories.
It wasn't until after we were finished that we noticed the infantry that occupied VP spaces at the end needed to be able to trace a supply line back to the French side of the board. Mike merely needed to cut me off to prevent my victory, but I'm not sure he would have been able to. I could have traced down the left (as pictured) the right, or the middle. The supply trace down the left would have been particularly difficult for him to cut off. At least by the time he realized the game situation (which was with about three turns left.)
So, the slimmest of French victories. And, looking at that final position, it's difficult to see how it's a French win, but that's what the rules say – so I'll take it :)
Overall Thoughts
In recent years, there have been many stellar wargame designs geared for shorter play. (i.e. less than four hours.) This is absolutely right there at the top. Actually, I think it shares the top with Combat Commander, and they're polar opposites. NT is no-luck, CC has tons of it. Both are incredibly fulfilling experiences. Items that struck me as particularly good with NT are the following:
Command and control modeling. The fact that you only get three or four independent unit orders each turn despite the fact that more and more units get detached from their corps over the course of the game means you can control a smaller and smaller percentage of your force as the battle progresses. Exactly as happened in reality.
Attack feints. This beautifully simulates the effect of a defending unit being surrounded. Use a series of feints to pull the unit in multiple directions and the remainder is too weak to resist the true thrust. The great thing about this feature is it's simply an offshoot of the standard combat mechanism. No special rules about attacking over multiple approaches, etc.
Fog of War. Okay, this is pretty much a given for any block game, but it's still a big benefit.
The “Look.” Bowen Simmons has done a wonderful job breathing life into the old-style battle maps. And I love the corps markers in NT. Need to find where I can get some more – I've got some ideas on how to use them for a couple miniatures games.
There's more, but they're things you notice when you're down deep in it that make you go "wow. great design." (Like a simple rule - cavalry do not take a loss when forced to retreat while in reserve in a locale - that just makes cavalry screens work beautifully.)
It's going to be a long time before this game plays itself through. There are so many options available that you could play this game once a month for at least a couple years before you start running low on ways to run the battle.
Simply a fantastic game. Glad I've got my copy before they sell out (Bonaparte at Marengo frequently goes for triple-digit prices and it's a smaller, slightly worse game) and I can't wait for his next offering – Gettysburg.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Napoleonicus Interruptus
Last week, Mike and I played Napoleon's Triumph (NT). This is Simmons Games' followup to Bonaparte at Marengo (BaM) and covers the battle of Austerlitz, considered Napoleon's greatest tactical triumph.
I'll say right away that this is a difficult gaming session to report for one primary reason – we had to abort about halfway through as we had completely botched a rule obviating many things we may have learned.
I'll give some early impressions, though. First, don't assume anything you've learned from BaM when playing NT. The games look remarkably similar, but play VERY differently. Someone on BGG likened BaM to chess, and NT to poker. That's not too far off.
The first thing you notice is that the armies are deployed by Corps, not by unit. Throughout the game, the bulk of what you're going to do is by Corps, and units get detached over time. Both armies are able to make more orders to Corps than units, so this degradation does a wonderful job of simulating command and control.
Corps can do any one of the following move, attack, detach (and move) units, or attach a unit on any given turn. Units can move (including an optional detach), or attack.
Combat is completely different in NT. It still uses the same no-luck approach from BaM, but how you arrive at a final result is much more involved. First, the attacker has to declare the approach where combat is taking place. Then, the defender must declare the pool of defending units (there are a number of restrictions on who's eligible for this.) After this, the attacker has the opportunity to call it a Feint and possibly split off a unit from the defending pool. If it's not a feint, then there's another bit of give and take including possible counter attacks before you arrive at a final number.
This sequence is where the poker analogy comes in. It's not always obvious where the main thrust into a locale is coming from, and it may change depending on the choices the defender makes.
Our session included a fair amount of give and take, and usually held to somewhat of a battle line. I did feel the need to bring on reinforcements while playing the French, however, which would have made it rather difficult for me to win had we played to the end. (The victory conditions become much more onerous for the French if they bring on reinforcements.)
The rules have a fair number of special cases, and they can seriously effect play. You have to be careful when playing this for the first time. The rule we botched was that attacks declared during road movement (which incidentally have to be feints) can only be done by cavalry. We exploited this quite a bit declaring a number of road-based attacks to split up defenders before moving in with the big group to take the locale. It shouldn't be quite that easy, as there's not THAT much cavalry in the game.
First impressions were very good, however, despite aborting the game. It's definitely bigger and more involved than BaM, and the play time increases accordingly. The French have some very tough decisions to make regarding their reinforcements.
We're playing the game again this week, and I hope we'll remember (nearly) all the exceptions. Look for a much more involved report in the coming days.
I'll say right away that this is a difficult gaming session to report for one primary reason – we had to abort about halfway through as we had completely botched a rule obviating many things we may have learned.
I'll give some early impressions, though. First, don't assume anything you've learned from BaM when playing NT. The games look remarkably similar, but play VERY differently. Someone on BGG likened BaM to chess, and NT to poker. That's not too far off.
The first thing you notice is that the armies are deployed by Corps, not by unit. Throughout the game, the bulk of what you're going to do is by Corps, and units get detached over time. Both armies are able to make more orders to Corps than units, so this degradation does a wonderful job of simulating command and control.
Corps can do any one of the following move, attack, detach (and move) units, or attach a unit on any given turn. Units can move (including an optional detach), or attack.
Combat is completely different in NT. It still uses the same no-luck approach from BaM, but how you arrive at a final result is much more involved. First, the attacker has to declare the approach where combat is taking place. Then, the defender must declare the pool of defending units (there are a number of restrictions on who's eligible for this.) After this, the attacker has the opportunity to call it a Feint and possibly split off a unit from the defending pool. If it's not a feint, then there's another bit of give and take including possible counter attacks before you arrive at a final number.
This sequence is where the poker analogy comes in. It's not always obvious where the main thrust into a locale is coming from, and it may change depending on the choices the defender makes.
Our session included a fair amount of give and take, and usually held to somewhat of a battle line. I did feel the need to bring on reinforcements while playing the French, however, which would have made it rather difficult for me to win had we played to the end. (The victory conditions become much more onerous for the French if they bring on reinforcements.)
The rules have a fair number of special cases, and they can seriously effect play. You have to be careful when playing this for the first time. The rule we botched was that attacks declared during road movement (which incidentally have to be feints) can only be done by cavalry. We exploited this quite a bit declaring a number of road-based attacks to split up defenders before moving in with the big group to take the locale. It shouldn't be quite that easy, as there's not THAT much cavalry in the game.
First impressions were very good, however, despite aborting the game. It's definitely bigger and more involved than BaM, and the play time increases accordingly. The French have some very tough decisions to make regarding their reinforcements.
We're playing the game again this week, and I hope we'll remember (nearly) all the exceptions. Look for a much more involved report in the coming days.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Aborted Triumph
As planned, Eric and I met for my choice of game, Napoleon's Triumph. After my enjoyment of Bonaparte at Marengo in a previous session, I was keen to see how this game worked. Same, but different, is the answer, and still very excellent.
However, we majorly screwed up the rules, allowing all units to advance along roads and create a threat, rather than just cavalry units, which we didn't discover until around 2 thirds the way through. By that point the game was a major bogey, and we bagged it, planning to have a second attempt the following week.
The basics of BaM is still the same in NT, but the combat is more involved, starting from the concept of an attack threat, to which the defender has to respond. This response is either in the form of retreating from the locale or by moving troops from reserve to the approach. At this point the attacker can declare the threat to be a feint, and an attempt to get he enemy forces committed, or can continue with an attack. At this point the defender selects the leading unit (or units, for a wide approach), the attacker selects leading units and the initial result is worked out. This part is the same as BaM. However, the defender now has the opportunity to counter-attack if there are available units, and the battle result is recalculated, again using the same evaluation criteria as before. Losses are removed, retreats applied, and morale levels adjusted. However, in another change, only the side that lost the battle actually loses morale points.
In practice this all works smoothly, but does take a fair bit of getting used to. Remembering all the possible combinations of reserve and approach, threats, feints, the difference between defending units and leading units, and which units may be leading, all take time to internalize. Artillery took a long time to figure out, but I think we got it right by the end.
So, how did our aborted effort go? I was the Austrians, and set up with the plan of holding him on the left, with a mix of artillery and weaker infantry, trying to encourage him to advance in the center/right towards his VP spaces, hopefully opening a seam or exposing a flank, so put a lot of my best units into Liechtenstein's corps behind my left/center line. On both flanks I kept some cavalry and infantry, in order to try to work around his flanks to occupy a VP space or two, or at least threaten to do so.
Eric was very weak in front of my left flank, a corps with 3 units, and a couple of independent units support in the adjacent locale. Most of his strength appeared to be in his corps on my right flank, although I couldn't tell how strong those units were. The weakness on the left flank was just crying out to be taken advantage of, so my initial moves created threats on the independent units, and moved one of my holding corps to administer the coup de grace, for a good start in a French morale loss. On the right my initial flanking threat worked as he moved a whole corps to balance my single unit, leaving a gap in the middle of his line. As it had worked so well in our Manoeuvre games last week, I pushed a corps through the gap.
Eric responded by bringing on both his available corps reinforcements, to shore up his rapidly disintegrating right flank and to meet my incursion. Due to my misreading of the rules (and in a change from BaM) my cavalry heavy advanced corps retired from the gap in his line, losing 3 steps (and, more importantly, 3 morale points), and restoring the battle lines. Not sure I'll try that again...
He retired a little in the center/right, and I pushed forward, hoping to get my artillery more into action. However, now I'd left a gap in the center/left of my line, and Eric was threatening to exploit it. Over on the left flank I'd removed LeGrand's corps, as well as an independent unit he'd detached.
It was whilst I was removing this independent unit on my left flank that we spotted the rule about road moves and attacks, and we agreed that it had seriously impacted the game to the point where it was better to start again.
This is truly up there as one of my favorite games, on a par with OCS. The concept of attack threats and feints works superbly, and gives a great feel. The handling of corps just feels right. Tension like you wouldn't believe, it has more in terms of bluff then BaM, and just feels even more accurate in portraying Napoleonic battles.
I can hardly wait to get it back onto the table on Monday. Let's hope we can actually play without screwing it up, this time.
However, we majorly screwed up the rules, allowing all units to advance along roads and create a threat, rather than just cavalry units, which we didn't discover until around 2 thirds the way through. By that point the game was a major bogey, and we bagged it, planning to have a second attempt the following week.
The basics of BaM is still the same in NT, but the combat is more involved, starting from the concept of an attack threat, to which the defender has to respond. This response is either in the form of retreating from the locale or by moving troops from reserve to the approach. At this point the attacker can declare the threat to be a feint, and an attempt to get he enemy forces committed, or can continue with an attack. At this point the defender selects the leading unit (or units, for a wide approach), the attacker selects leading units and the initial result is worked out. This part is the same as BaM. However, the defender now has the opportunity to counter-attack if there are available units, and the battle result is recalculated, again using the same evaluation criteria as before. Losses are removed, retreats applied, and morale levels adjusted. However, in another change, only the side that lost the battle actually loses morale points.
In practice this all works smoothly, but does take a fair bit of getting used to. Remembering all the possible combinations of reserve and approach, threats, feints, the difference between defending units and leading units, and which units may be leading, all take time to internalize. Artillery took a long time to figure out, but I think we got it right by the end.
So, how did our aborted effort go? I was the Austrians, and set up with the plan of holding him on the left, with a mix of artillery and weaker infantry, trying to encourage him to advance in the center/right towards his VP spaces, hopefully opening a seam or exposing a flank, so put a lot of my best units into Liechtenstein's corps behind my left/center line. On both flanks I kept some cavalry and infantry, in order to try to work around his flanks to occupy a VP space or two, or at least threaten to do so.
Eric was very weak in front of my left flank, a corps with 3 units, and a couple of independent units support in the adjacent locale. Most of his strength appeared to be in his corps on my right flank, although I couldn't tell how strong those units were. The weakness on the left flank was just crying out to be taken advantage of, so my initial moves created threats on the independent units, and moved one of my holding corps to administer the coup de grace, for a good start in a French morale loss. On the right my initial flanking threat worked as he moved a whole corps to balance my single unit, leaving a gap in the middle of his line. As it had worked so well in our Manoeuvre games last week, I pushed a corps through the gap.
Eric responded by bringing on both his available corps reinforcements, to shore up his rapidly disintegrating right flank and to meet my incursion. Due to my misreading of the rules (and in a change from BaM) my cavalry heavy advanced corps retired from the gap in his line, losing 3 steps (and, more importantly, 3 morale points), and restoring the battle lines. Not sure I'll try that again...
He retired a little in the center/right, and I pushed forward, hoping to get my artillery more into action. However, now I'd left a gap in the center/left of my line, and Eric was threatening to exploit it. Over on the left flank I'd removed LeGrand's corps, as well as an independent unit he'd detached.
It was whilst I was removing this independent unit on my left flank that we spotted the rule about road moves and attacks, and we agreed that it had seriously impacted the game to the point where it was better to start again.
This is truly up there as one of my favorite games, on a par with OCS. The concept of attack threats and feints works superbly, and gives a great feel. The handling of corps just feels right. Tension like you wouldn't believe, it has more in terms of bluff then BaM, and just feels even more accurate in portraying Napoleonic battles.
I can hardly wait to get it back onto the table on Monday. Let's hope we can actually play without screwing it up, this time.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Manoeuvre-ing
Wow, okay, life just slammed me last week. (And it's looking to do so again this week.) Hence, a late post.
By now, you've probably read Mike's account of our Manoeuvre game last week. We tried a couple odd matchups (Ottomans vs. Prussians, and Spanish vs. Russians.) And, in both cases, Mike beat me pretty well. The first game ended on time, but I wasn't in any sort of position to threaten him. The 2nd game ended 5-4 in Mike's favor, but I had better opportunities that time.
I've now played this game five times, and I think I've won one. What am I doing wrong? I've thought about this a bit and have some ideas.
Planning ahead
I don't take into account how the results of an attack will look when considering counter-attacks. The part that probably throws me the most is I forget about advancing after combat. I don't take enough care to avoid over-extending, and that's where I get beat back most often. Because of this, I also manage to get myself into positions where I cut off my own retreat paths. Bad news can only follow that.
Underestimating Threats
In our first game, I let Mike get a unit through my lines. The unit itself didn't do a whole lot of damage, but what it did was allow him to far more easily surround my units and I believe two or three units were killed that way. Had I been a tad more conservative, I could easily have kept that unit out from behind my lines, and may very well have won that game.
Using Terrain
I'm getting better at this, but the high ground is vitally important. The +2 for attacking off hills is huge, particularly for artillery (which is frequently weak in this game – it's hard to get a step loss result against a fresh unit with only a 1d10 roll). The drawback is taking the hills can lead you into a defensive mindset as you try to keep the hills.
Tracking Spent Units
I need to mentally keep track of which units have seen at least four of their cards go by – in the 2nd game last week, I was counting on getting a card for a unit to initiate an attack and it turned out none were left in the deck. Had I been tracking that, I'd have known to plan differently.
Using the Forced Move
You must move a unit on every turn. There were times I had myself in a position where I simply didn't want to move. Not good – I ended up weakening my plans a couple times as a result. I need to keep a unit in reserve able to move when I don't want to move anything else.
Knowing your army
I'm still in exploration mode with this game, and I've yet to play the same army twice. Over time, I'll get in more games with each army and I'll begin to understand their strengths and weaknesses better. Each army really is different, and must be played differently.
This game gets deeper and more complex the more you play. It certainly looks like chess, and in many ways begins to play like it. The cards and dice simply modify the decision tree somewhat. I'm going to keep pulling this game out until I get good at it. It's a very large amount of game inside an hour.
By now, you've probably read Mike's account of our Manoeuvre game last week. We tried a couple odd matchups (Ottomans vs. Prussians, and Spanish vs. Russians.) And, in both cases, Mike beat me pretty well. The first game ended on time, but I wasn't in any sort of position to threaten him. The 2nd game ended 5-4 in Mike's favor, but I had better opportunities that time.
I've now played this game five times, and I think I've won one. What am I doing wrong? I've thought about this a bit and have some ideas.
Planning ahead
I don't take into account how the results of an attack will look when considering counter-attacks. The part that probably throws me the most is I forget about advancing after combat. I don't take enough care to avoid over-extending, and that's where I get beat back most often. Because of this, I also manage to get myself into positions where I cut off my own retreat paths. Bad news can only follow that.
Underestimating Threats
In our first game, I let Mike get a unit through my lines. The unit itself didn't do a whole lot of damage, but what it did was allow him to far more easily surround my units and I believe two or three units were killed that way. Had I been a tad more conservative, I could easily have kept that unit out from behind my lines, and may very well have won that game.
Using Terrain
I'm getting better at this, but the high ground is vitally important. The +2 for attacking off hills is huge, particularly for artillery (which is frequently weak in this game – it's hard to get a step loss result against a fresh unit with only a 1d10 roll). The drawback is taking the hills can lead you into a defensive mindset as you try to keep the hills.
Tracking Spent Units
I need to mentally keep track of which units have seen at least four of their cards go by – in the 2nd game last week, I was counting on getting a card for a unit to initiate an attack and it turned out none were left in the deck. Had I been tracking that, I'd have known to plan differently.
Using the Forced Move
You must move a unit on every turn. There were times I had myself in a position where I simply didn't want to move. Not good – I ended up weakening my plans a couple times as a result. I need to keep a unit in reserve able to move when I don't want to move anything else.
Knowing your army
I'm still in exploration mode with this game, and I've yet to play the same army twice. Over time, I'll get in more games with each army and I'll begin to understand their strengths and weaknesses better. Each army really is different, and must be played differently.
This game gets deeper and more complex the more you play. It certainly looks like chess, and in many ways begins to play like it. The cards and dice simply modify the decision tree somewhat. I'm going to keep pulling this game out until I get good at it. It's a very large amount of game inside an hour.
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