Managed to get some time to put this game up on table and have a quick play. Really impressed with this as a game, whilst reasonably simple and abstract (without being simplistic) it seems to convey the period quite well. Always a tough decision whether to stand and fight a land battle against a larger or on parity army (as battle is a simple you roll your number of dice vs mine to hit - with a few variations) or to slide off and force the enemy to lay siege to newly entered fortress area (of which there are many). The consequences of losing a battle (Demoralization) or woe betide giving enemy a Famous Victory are not desirable. This seems rather in keeping with events of the time. Action cards are simply that a method to generate actions and the Event cards have a nice historical flavour without being dominant (certainly not to same degree as in Age of Napoleon). Lots of other stuff goes on with Fortified Lines and attempts to Bypass same, transfers of troops, replacements and so on but all limited by amount of Action rounds per turn (mainly 5 as in the usual number of action cards drawn per side) and number of rounds per Action (max of 3 with 2 or 1 being other options on cards). Only played first two years but found it very engrossing and already thinking about how to do things better as both sides next time. Whilst I found the physical components (thin counter, unmounted map) rather underwhelming, compared to my other recent board wargame purchases, they are nice enough and perfectly functional within the game. Tis the gameplay which is the main thing in the end and this game seems to have it in spades.
Just found this informative but a tad lengthy Vassal tutorial (I really must try this programme) for the game which shows most of the basics of the game at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjpmOzGsp9k )
Couple of iPhone pics as I was too engrossed (ie lazy) to go downstairs to get proper camera
The full game on display
Some of the very nice card art (looks better in reality)
French army holding boxes
Their Alliance counter-parts
Reinforcements on Turn Track
In Flanders fields 18th Century version
Sounds and looks brilliant, Postie said no but I'll work on him as we may be going.....
ReplyDeleteIt does look an interesting game!!
ReplyDeletePotential for campaigning miniatures games?
ReplyDelete"Potential for campaigning miniatures games?"
ReplyDeleteUsing the map certainly a possibility but not so sure re the game system itself as one would have to translate tabletop losses into strength point losses in game and using the leader combat factors also hard to translate to tabletop. But of course certainly an idea I am toying with :-)