Tuesday, November 26, 2019

Bataille Empire - first face to face play

Game with Bataille Empire today with Stephen.
We used 200pt forces on the small 120cm x 80cm board using 30mm UD despite our units being 80mm wide (works fine on small board).
I fielded my Prussians and Stephen used French both lists taken from Spring 1813 options.
A very nice game was generated although with struggled with a couple of concepts in particular just exactly when Opportunity Fire is used.
Rule a bit ill defined in some ways but we came to consensus that only to be used if a target passing through firing arc or retires to longer range essentially.
Otherwise when a unit moves into range its a simply standard shooting/firefight or reaction fire.
Everything else was addressed clearly in rules and once we stuck to following play sequence for activated commands it all made sense.
We did use Orders which worked fine.
Think we covered most things with Charges/Counter-Chargers, Preparatory/Final Fire, Reserves, Orders and various types of Combat addressed along with Movement/Formations and Control/Morale tests and all pretty straight forward in execution.
Stephen did try a Flank March but needing a 5-6 to appear it is risky (it failed to arrive) but did make me turn a couple of units to face its possible arrival.
We both had 2 units each destroyed but I had a few Disordered which is difficult to Recover as you need to be outside 4UD of enemy and have 1 or 2 Pips left to recover Disorder and Cohesion hits respectively.
Compared to FOGN this has more tactical nuances and depth but consequently slower playing but all Napoleonic combat boxes ticked and like any new set a few more plays would quicken things up (we failed to finish game).
Both sides had 14 units and this seemed fine on table size.
Expect these will see more action in due course as the lists are rather good.














2 comments:

  1. I haven't decided on these or FoGN. To me they read better than FoGN but I can see how they may be slightly slower to play. Maybe after a few games under your belt they will speed up significantly.

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    1. BE feels feel more tactical than FOGN but FOGN has a genius set up system.
      Certainly on first blush BE is bit more involved rather than slower per se but both are good.
      FOGN suits our basing (40mm x 30mm) a bit better than BE which involves some minor fudging with small units.
      FOGN very much geared to competitions and certainly games seldom last beyond 2-3hours often less.
      But BE ticks a lot of historical boxes and maybe has bit more 'meat on its bones'
      Happily play either

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