....to celebrate having played in a multi-player game with friends at a local (ie about hour away) Tabletop game convention. The first one since COVID hit. Its mostly about non-wargame games but they have made us welcome over the years and it was a pleasure to reconnect.
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| 15mm Battle Honours French Revolution Austrian Cuirassiers that I painted in the 90's but which are now serving Jeff as Spanish cavalry during the Peninsular War, and various other roles when needed. |
The game I played in was a 6 player 15mm Peninsula battle (I forget which one! In my defence, I haven't paid much (any) attention to Wellington's Spanish campaign since the late 80's, maybe early 90's). Jeff made himself a rather impressive hex battle cloth (or "mat" I think they are called these days), and uses the Command and Colours multiplayer game rules, cards and dice.
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| Under my personal command, the Spanish on the right are holding firm. Ok OK, haven't been seriously attacked yet, just probed a little. |
Elected CinC of the Anglo-Spanish army, I immediately chose to personally take command of the right wing since it contained a unit I'd painted in the 90's and passed to Jeff when I was getting out of 15's about 10 years ago. (That way I still get to play with them from time to time!)
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| Overview early in the game. The high ground in the centre will soon be in big trouble. |
I don't mind playing the the C&C rules and cards but I admit that it can be frustrating if the cards you draw are continually poor. Sure, maybe the General I was representing was asleep for the whole game but I'd rather make my own mistakes. Actually, I'm pretty good at making mistakes.......
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| The key town (ie worth a couple of victory points) remained firmly in my hands all game. |
Despite the card thing, the game was damn close at times but it was an overwhelming French victory at the end, largely because the French Commander in chief (a retired veteran Infantry officer) planned well and executed his plan well and gave his less experienced fellow players advice when they asked for it, while letting them make their own decisions.
All in all, an excellent afternoon. Now, back to the game still on my table.
The current trend of reflecting friction on the battlefield by how many units activiate or where isn't one I'm happy with. I much prefer the card system in eg A Gentleman's War - it's my choice as to which unit acts next and I may choose badly but that's down to me.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind the C&C card version with a hand to work from and always the option to discard a card to move one unit of your choice so you're never stuck not doing anything. With the large game version you're going through 3 cards a turn so the deck recycles quite quickly.
ReplyDeleteOur problem was equivalent to AGM when you just don't pull those court cards and aces. It probably didn't help that I hadn't played the system in about 5 yrs.
I think overall the cards in C&C balance out over most games, but it is the moments of a really bad hand that seem to be the noticeable and memorable!
ReplyDelete