Huzzah 2019 Game 1

Not quite home yet but there's time for a blog post.

Rob and I RV'd nicely, arriving at our destination about an hour apart after each making an approach march of about 1,000 km. How's that for converging columns?

Rosmark's forces deploy. To keep things simple I set out a few terrain pieces and we deployed symmetrical forces. 

Rob had grabbed a free table and there was just time for a test game of Howard Whitehouse's new A Gentleman's War rules.

I proposed 3 objectives: the 2 houses and the hill. Victory going to the one who held 2 at the end.

The Shuffling-Bushwackers deploy. (I may have spelled that wrong...or maybe I've accidently used the Rosmark slang for the enemy....) 

 After lots of page flipping we were ready and the first card was drawn.

The game was atable! (Sic)

Red for Rosmark! Whats the range on artillery again?"..."FIRE!"  
First shot, first blood.

Rob's Light infantry seized the first house and he was going to take the hill easily.  I used 2 brigade moves to drive him out and occupy the whole village.

"Ah, this is going to be easy....HEY! Where'd that cannon ball come from? Oh well, 5 of my troopers can easily deal with 6 of his." 
First cavalry melee, 5 dice for me: 1 hit, 6 dice for Rob: 3 hits. Doubled and Shaken...Morale test:1.....
"RUN AWAY!"

 Meanwhile, on the far flank, my light infantry whittled down his Hussars significantly and he pulled back. "I shall answer him with my Lancers" (Sorry, just rewatched Waterloo last week) 
Not a great day for my cavalry but at least my lancers didn't run off the board.

The result of a long(ish) multi unit firefight. 

 In the centre and left the game settled into an extended firefight where having my supporting artillery closer and my troops more concentrated and rolling better seemed to be balanced by Rob's troops being  more than a little bit stubborn.

It couldn't last forever though. As MacDuff's Grenadiers closed in on the annoying gun, the  Shoeffen-Busch-Hagen army dropped below 50% of units unrouted and on table. With  both houses being well garrisoned by my troops, Rob gave the order to retreat.

The game is up.

The rules are quite easy but in a few areas there is slightly more detail than I am used to and the charts are more detailed. Won't take long to learn and remember the commonly used bits but there was a lot of page flipping and I was surprised later at how many little things we missed or got wrong on the first go. A QRS, especially a periodic specific QRS would have been useful and will be once we make one.

Overall though, the game was quick, fun and exciting. In the end, victory felt satisfying and earned after hard fighting and manouevring rather than being a random event decided by dice.

We broke for supper with 4 Nova Scotian gamers and 4 HAWKs from Maryland seated around the table. The conversation was lively and it was only when Jeff started a round of self-introductions that I suddenly realized that I was the only one there who knew everyone in both groups and considered them all friends, in some cases friends over decades rather than years. Felt good to have that change.

After supper we had to step out smartly for Rob and I to get our game set up and underway, but that's a post for another day.