Field Of Glory Napoleonic Version 2 - 1812 Russians versus French

Another go with FOGN today st Stephens.
I tried out an 1812 Russian Infantry Corps and Stephen used 1812 French with Cavalry support.
Another excellent game with only difficulty we had with working out the list limitation for attached Divisions (hopefully all will be clarified when (if?) new lists make an appearance).
I selected Positional Defence and French took Prepared Attack.
So I got great terrain selection including a large hill with Reverse Slope and Strongpoint as options.
However this meant I had to deploy army entirely on table and entirely before French and am semi-inert for first two turns (ie no advancing outside deployment zone).
With Frontal Assault French got 3 turns of Bombardment which I managed to mitigate somewhat with extended lines and hiding behind central large hill.
Still a unit of Grenadiers took a bit of a battering but were fortunately able to Rally.

Game hinged on encounter on my left between my 2 small Dragoon Brigades and 2 Large French Dragon units.
The 'dice demon' of course struck in these key combats rolling 6 hits with 7 dice compared to my 1 from 5 (cancelled by Large unit) instantly breaking one unit and causing a cohesion loss on the other (I uncannily rolled 1's on test)
He then gave my other unit 4 hits to 1 Disordering my unit.
This allowed him to roll for my General (we had both put our Generals into combat here) who promptly died causing a another cohesion test and inevitably another cohesion loss breaking my second Dragoon unit.

I did manage to form squares with my Grenadier Division (Veterans are great) nullifying his Cavalry but a further unit lost to his Light Cavalry on my right along with 2 units Wavered saw my army succumb to defeat as French only had 3 Spent Cavalry units.

We are really enjoying the smooth and fast game play, results are certainly quick and decisive (no doubt a boon for competition style games the rules support) but with plausible events and outcomes for this level of play.



Russians setup as French guns deploy to bombard.

French lines counter my deployment

Opposing Dragoon units ready themselves (French 3 deep)

Slow advance in center against my lines

My central command emerges from reverse slope

The big clash of sabers (both my units destroyed in one fell swoop)

Thankfully these Veteran Grenadiers were unfazed and formed squares

French center

Combat Commander three in a row

Three scenarios from the Tournament Pack played tonight against my Dad.

First up had Russians against Germans in an undulating plain with Ivans coming out on top after destroying a Fascist HMG nest.

Second had Cannucks versus a veritable Italian wall of barbed wire and soldiers ! Canadians pummeled in this one.

And third Ivans against Finns in winter tundra with Russkies coming out victors after several hard fought assaults forcing Finns to surrender.

Great stuff once more and we discovered (even after all the games we have played) that we have been using Leaders somewhat incorrectly.
We have been adding Leadership factor 'on top' of a single attack without realizing they can upgrade firepower of each unit they are stacked with both for fire and in melee, making them much more potent !

Hitler's Reich once more

Another game with my son of this highly addictive game.

A very different game from last outing with the Reich facing a war on 3 fronts by 1944 but still managing to hold onto Berlin, The Ruhr and Austria for a Survival win despite ending with only 3 cards at end of 1945.

We also played a scenario from Combat Commander which I won but forgot to take a pic.

Hitler's Reich with my boy

My son Steven home for a few days and we played Hitler's Reich with Steven as Axis.

Another excellent game with varied fortunes until 1944 when my Op Overlord was a virtual failure (only taking Normandy) and Op Bagration having to be used to retake Stalingrad and Moscow.

We went into 1945 but Axis won by having both London and Moscow and Allies failing to retake Moscow.

Great fun once again.

Hitler's Reich another fine outing

Game of Hitler's Reich with my Dad and another excellent game it was.
My Dad as Axis went with a new strategy by essentially ignoring Russia in early war and taking control of the UK and surrounding seas despite the despairing efforts of the Royal Navy !
He then defended gains once Russia entered war holding out for a Survival Win at end of 1945.
Not holding UK means Op Overlord is a bust (ie does not take place) and leaves Op Bagration as only Allied major offensive.
I was unable to knock Axis out of Africa so Italy was not a route to Reich I could access either.
Op Bagration was only marginally successful and what gains I made were lost keeping me away from Berlin.
Fun stuff with this highly abstract but hugely enjoyable game.

Field Of Glory Napoleonic 2nd try with 2nd Edition

Another game with new FOGN edition this time Stephen using an British force circa 1815 and I tried an Imperial Guard force from same time frame.

We both think the new Strategies and set-up rules are excellent (in fact may use for other rule sets) as they generate a nice scenario set up and plausible terrain.

Game saw first use of new Bombardment rules as with Prepared Attack against my Flexible Defence the Brits got 2 rounds of fire pre-game (which is really 3 round as they also get first turn).
French able to utilize the Strong Point and Reverse Slope rules with one Division off-table in Reserve whereas Brit all deployed on-table.

Another excellent game even though my Grenadier a Cheval Superior Guard Shock Heavy Cavalry succumbed in one turn when charged by two British heavy cavalry units.
I had 6 dice scoring an excellent 5 hits however the 'dice demon' managed 10 hits in 12 dice (two re-rolls helped) to destroy the Grenadiers.
My Dutch Lancers where then Disordered seeing their pals Rout and duly succumbed to the British heavy's (Light cavalry lose 1 dice to heavy's who also gain a dice vs lights)
This along with several other Wavering French units (mostly from Artillery fire) saw my army break as being small it has low break points.

Another fun decisive and indeed quick game with a much improved FOGN.
Whilst it lacks the 'chaos' factor I like it does what it aims to do and is great for a points based game that one can play to completion with reasonable sized armies.
Kudos to the Aussie developers.

Field Of Glory Napoleonic 2nd Edition tryout

Managed a miniatures game today with Stephen trying out the 2nd Edition of Field Of Glory Napoleonic.
I fielded a Prussian force from Spring 1813 and Stephen their French equivalents.
Some changes to points values and force structure in 2nd edition with probably main change being reduction in numbers of possible Artillery units (now a max of 1-2 units depending on early/late period) which is certainly more in keeping with the scale (Regimental/Divisional/Corps) of the game.
Also no longer any Skirmish formation but Light Infantry have several other advantages (sort of making them skirmishing types)
Huge and very welcome change to the game set-up phase with a very interesting Force Stance selection which yields much more variety in battle types than the previous simple Attack vs Defence.
Skilled/Exceptional Corps Commanders can have a big effect in this by possibly denying opponent certain selection types.
I selected Probe which has 2 Divisions off-table at start one in Reserve (can arrive in any Move Phase) the other as a Reinforcement (Dice to arrive) and Stephen used Felxible Defence (one Division in Reserve) with him as Defender (fairly obviously) and Prussians nominally attacking.
Terrain set-up was fairly easy and by using Flexible Defence the French were able to occupy 2 built-up areas at start as Strong-points (sort of La Hay Sainte and Hugomount).
Built up areas rules are pretty simple in essence but one needs to break the defenders to get them shifted and not easy to do.

The rule systems at their core are unchanged but simplified in many instances and rules much clearer, if only by virtue of a more readable font !, and thereby understandable.
We certainly found that we seemed to have a lot more action in this game across the table than we remembered from previous edition.
Outcomes can still be fairly brutal in that a Division of 3 units that takes 3 Disruption or worse in a turn is still only able to attempt to recover a single unit per turn.
This does make for decisive actions (something we both like) rather than long drawn out attrition and again seems in keeping with the scale of game especially as turns are 30 minutes (which is a long time to in range of enemy fire or in combat).

First go with new edition but we enjoyed the game (French won by the way) more than previous outings.
Bit like Black Powder we always felt there was a decent system/game struggling to get out.

Of course this did not stop me pledging to the Kickstarter for Over The Hills 2nd Ed !!!!

Combat Commander - two more scenarios

Another couple of games with my Dad tonight (on eve of his 74th birthday) with the ever excellent Combat Commander.

We played 2 scenarios from Tournament pack.

First had my Yank patrol facing a Kraut patrol in the Ardennes and the second saw !st Airbourne assailed at Arnhem by SS.

Two great games as ever the first narrowly won by my Yanks the second by my Brits.