Piquet: Les Grognards French defeated.............

Finished off PK game with Prussians as victors against the Young Guard.
Prussians got a few large Impetus runs (16, 18, 12 & 11 in a row) allowing them to move and deal a lot of damage to the static French.
Prussian Artillery done some fearsome carnage with some timely Artillery Reload and Move cards.
French did get some small amount of Impetus and use of their Opportunity chips causing Rout of two Prussian units but not enough to counter the dominant enemy.
French Morale chips dwindled to naught quickly and they ended up gifting chips to adversaries.
Major Morale checks saw French suffer numerous Morale Checks and they quit the field with their whole right wing and center virtually gone.
Really enjoyed using PK after all these years.
Not as fast playing as Field Of Battle but some more tactical nuances with Interpenetrations (ie lack thereof) and separate Morale stats.
However only real gripe I had was the numerous counters needed to track unit status with Unformed, Disorder, Rout, Out Of command, Officer Check, Silenced and of course Unit Losses all required during game at various times.
Cavalry are fairly brittle in the system with stand loss at 2 hits per stand compared to other 3 hits per stand and need a bit of careful handling.
Against a live opponent the use of Opp Chips and Tactical/Cavalry Morale checks would be more telling but the card system of PK is excellent solo tool.


   French left wing in trouble

   The center with soon to Rout French Light Infantry in wood and 7e Young Guard in line

   The French right with Prussians in the town and flooding over the hill (all French Infantry      here were Routed or Destroyed)

 
   Prussian view of their right wing as they mass against French

 
   Prussian center again massing to break the French

   Prussian left about to break the French right wing

         French advance breaks on a Prussian wall...............

Piquet Les Grognards game continues

Some limited time spent playing this game solo.
Prussians had a long run of Impetus (I am using the basic D20/20 Impetus limit method) which saw them deliver some hurt to the French.
In true PK 'swings and roundabouts' style the French then saw a lot of action but the Elite Old Guard Horse Grenadiers found themselves decimated by artillery fire losing three from four bases !! survivors did however manage to pass the ensuing Prussian Morale Challenge.
A unit of Prussian Dragoons were caught in Column by Young Guard and similarly decimated.
Elsewhere a unit of Young Guard were routed by a devastating volley from a Landwehr unit.
A Prussian Reserve Battalion suffered a similar fate to French fire.
Another Landwehr Battalion also managed to occupy one of the town sectors just before a Young Guard unit and will be tough to dislodge.
A large cavalry melee is developing on other flank.
So far honours pretty even but French Morale Chips whittled down a tad more than Prussian
Great stuff for solo play with only the use of Opportunity Fire and Morale Challenges requiring me to use a 'what is best' decision/dice roll to implement.

More Napoleonic action this time with Piquet: Les Grognards

Another rule test this time Piquet: Les Grognards (newer edition) using my Prussian and French 15mm troops.
Forgot how much preparation required with PK rolling up unit statistics, Command quality and card decks. But for solo play something satisfying in the range of unit status that results. Used the Theatre Of War supplement (would really like to use this for a campaign) to generate the terrain for an Encounter type battle.
I have only played a turn (not a strict concept in PK) or so but another set I have forgotten how much I enjoyed in the past.
Bit more tactical nuance than the faster playing Field Of Battle spin-off but has the 'chaos' factor of the card sequence that I like.


Hope to get more time in with system but free-time rather limited at present (boo hoo).

More Combat Commander

Another couple of Combat Commander scenarios played.

First set near Aisne River in France 1940

Forgot how awful the French hand can be with single discard ability and they were duly trounced by well equipped Germans

Second scenario was set during Falaise Pocket with Germans trying to stream past some Polish troops during night hours.

This one was a nail biter and huge fun going to wire with Huns winning by a single Victory Point.

Super stuff as always with Combat Commander.

Age Of Reason: Russia versus Prussian in Seven Years War

Played a game with Stephen today using the venerable Age Of Reason rules.
We reckon we last used these in 1998 !!.
We used a points system we found on web with some SYW changes to Army Lists and found them to be a nice little change to the rather bland lists in original rules.
I rolled up the terrain map the previous evening and we then rolled for sides.
A great game it was too with the Prussians being less numerous using points but having several nice advantages.
Prussian foot can move half and shoot with -1 dice Russians can only move half and shoot.
And a biggie was Prussian mounted being allowed 2 charges before becoming blown (Disorganized in rules).
We had a large cavalry melee on one flank in which the Prussian horse were victorious allowing them to charge into a Russian Brigade holding a hill and turning whole Russian army (very SYW).
A few discussions (not unexpected) with charge distances and pre-charge moves but nothing we could not work out.
Well worth another outing these rules.

Combat Commander (and couple of new arrivals)

Managed three games of Combat Commander at my Dads last night.
We played two of the WBC 2014 Scenarios and a RBG game all Germans (Dad as ever) versus Russians.
First was a draw (first ever between us methinks) second Russian victory and third went to Germans.

As usual great stuff with a great game system.

These board wargames arrived in last week or so