Sunday, December 15, 2019

Christmas get together Black Powder - Battle of Lobositz

Usual Christmas time get together today with usual suspects at Johns with excellent hospitality as ever.
Mr B had set up Lobositz as scenario using Black Powder (with our own period house rules and a couple of scenario specific rules) and graciously acted as umpire.
John and Richard took the defending Austrians with Mr P, Le Duc (not a BP fan it must be said) and yours truly commanding the Prussians (3 Brigades each).
Cracking game with this fluid fast play set which shines in such big multi-player games.
Very tough proposition for attacking Prussians as virtually impregnable Austrian position (as per history) with Elbe on their right, Lobositz itself then a sunken road, a marsh, another built up area and a narrow end of line (basically 1 unit wide bounded by table edge).
Le Duc struggled against Croats on the volcanic berg on our left with a mass of cavalry he could not really use (sent 1 Brigade to assist wavering right).
Mr P manfully assaulted Lobositz and part of the sunken road but was unable to gain a foothold in either.
I had a to and fro battle with John around the marsh and village on our right.
I managed to restore several shaken units to stop a couple of early Brigade Breaks, partly as John did not push his advantage but also found I had no real place to attack.
Eventually the Prussians had several Brigades break and game was essentially over but we played on for couple more turns.
This saw John assume full dice-demon duties in 2 Cavalry combats wherein he twice rolled 9 hits from 9 dice whilst also saving 5 of my hits twice !!
Needless to say he won both combats handsomely and declared Black Powder to be the greatest rule set ever written :-)
In fact he ordered BP2 online during game !
That it took 65 dice for us to resolve these 2 simple combats is certainly different to FOB model with 4 dice albeit of possible varied types and taking into account odd or even rolls, but ultimately both generate a potentially dramatic and decisive result so you ‘pays your money and takes your choice’
Good discussion with Le Duc about BP compared to FOB2, I essentially agreed with him (though would never not let on !) and I personally prefer the FOB system more overall than BP but did try to show him some merits of BP and how it was not dissimilar in some ways and that it also works for the scale of game we were playing, not sure he is convinced although he did seem to enjoy the game itself overall.
Le Duc take in proceedings here -   https://warfareintheageofcynicsandamateurs.blogspot.com/2019/12/lobositz-christmas-game.html?showComment=1576368727291#c5037651803437716569

All in all a great days craic with toy soldiers.
Indian meal followed which was accompanied by extreme bull-shitting session in which we righted all that is wrong with the world in short order.

























 

8 comments:

  1. Lovely game, good company = great day!
    A shame about the rules, though! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. If FOB is an A, Blackpowder is a C+, but it does work for big games.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great looking game! I'd happily play FOB2 or Black Powder as I enjoy each.

    Christopher

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers. Both enjoyable although FOB is my 'desert island' set :-)

      Delete
  4. Good looking battle, looked like a fun game. Always good when the dice gods are on your side.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes great game. Dice Gods can be rather busy in Black Powder games :-)

      Delete
  5. I hate these reports with only text in the beginning

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Feel free not to read as I love reports with only text in the beginning :-)

      Delete