State of Play: Commands and Colors: Napoleonics - Peninsula hijinks

 

 

I had a lecture to attend Monday evening – I’m on the committee of a community group that arranges various public talks on subjects related to the history of science and technology – so I told T so set up a short game, and suggested a Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) scenario, since it’s the game we’re most familiar with, and I know there are some shorter, five-banner games in the mix.

The talk was interesting; it was on the nascent passenger air-transport industry in the 1920s and ‘30s. It was a small crowd, and I managed to extricate myself and get to T’s place not much later than when we usually meet for a game. When I got there, T was setting up Rolica (French first position), 17 August, 1808, the first scenario in the base set. Five banners, so a nice quick game. We thought.

T likes to play the French. Personally, I like to mix it up. When we first started playing – thinking about it, it was the year that C&C: Napoleonics first came out – we worked through the scenario book two weeks per scenario, taking turns playing each side before moving on to the next one, and we did that for every box (except for the largest scenarios in the Epic Napoleonics set). I think he feels like he wins more games as the French. I’ve never come out and asked him this, but I’m usually happy just to get a game in.

Rolica (French first position): Opening situation.

Another thing I just realised; whosever house we’re at, we play on our respective dinner tables. Probably out of habit, we always sit on the same sides of the tables, at each table. The guest sits on the sideboard side in both instances. It probably started as something to do with convenience of access of something. Nothing sinister or superstitious - we’ve both won and lost plenty in our respective spots – just a random observation I decided to bore everyone with.

Returning to the Peninsula was like catching up with an old friend. We’ve periodically returned to the base set, and just have played all the scenarios at least six or seven times each, mush more than any of the other sets. Rolica – first position is an interesting situation because it finds a component of the French army on the back foot, conducting a fighting retreat from a well-disciplined army of superior numbers that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Anglo-Portuguese Alliance force, left column.

In the set-up, the French force is inferior in numbers, but in possession of a good defensive position. T would have been best served waiting on the hills for me to come and try to push him off them, using his useless cards to rearrange his forces to cover the two hills on the French baseline that offer temporary Victory Banners for possession for the Anglo-Portuguese force, and hoping for better cards. But we’ve played for many years, and I know my opponent.

To be fair, he did try. No shot was fired for the first three full rounds. T and I made adjustments to your respective force dispositions. I started to bring my left and right columns forward, but still well out of musket-range. I also made the decision to move my Line up into the trees. I have a Bayonet Charge card that would allow me to reach the hills from that position, but I wanted to have enough troops within range of the charge to make it worthwhile.

French forces probe the Anglo-Portuguese line.

By the fourth round, T had lost patience. I confess I’d kind of counted on this. Early on in our playing together, I’d quipped “A fast game is a good game,” when T was wrestling with himself over the use of a couple of cards. It was something members of the Wednesday (then solely RPG) group would say to each other when somebody was taking too long with their turn in combat or waiting ‘til they were up to look up the effects of a particular spell. T took it to heart and it has become a philosophy and a mantra in our Monday games. 

For his fourth turn T played a Cavalry Charge, bringing up his two Light horse units to fairly good effect. No units wiped out, but some damage. Their presence slowed my progress on the two banner-hills. I managed to push his cavalry on my right flank with my Portuguese Light Cavalry, taking one of his blocks in the process. By this time his patience was running thin. With his next action (Assault Center) he brought some of his line down off the hill to take reduced shots at my line troops in the trees. One hit out of three actions. His cannon, still on the hill, also took one block of my Foot Artillery.

Roll result for a First Strike against French Line. Rarely do the dice-gods smile so.

After some minor backwards and forwards action, I was two banners up, and managed to get my Portuguese Light Cavalry onto the hill on his Left flank for a third at the beginning of my next turn. Realising my movement on his Right flank, T played a Coordinated Advance, allowing him to whittle my Cavalry on the hill to a single block, and to get his Light Cavalry and an intact Line unit down to engage with the troops I was painstakingly bringing around to try to take the second hill, and to take pot-shots with his Light at the Portuguese cavalry which has taken the prize hill on his left. 

I had a First Strike card that I’d been nursing since the third-round draw, and now it paid off in spades as I routed his Line regiment. This gave me my fourth banner (three permanent), and took the wind from the sails of T's attack. His Heavy Cavalry, reduced to three blocks, withdrew from combat, having done some damage (and thereby retaining the squadron’s honour), but ultimately not earning themselves a flag. For the last action, my Portuguese Line mounted the hill at centre-right, and attacked a remnant Line unit that had already been thoroughly punished (down to one block) and took the last banner.

End state. Look at that row of Victory Banners...

The final score was 5-0, though T had dealt some punishment of his own, just not enough to annihilate a unit. It would have been a much tougher win if I hadn’t managed to get the Light Cavalry on my right to the prize hill, and to keep it in the face of withering fire from the French Light. All in all, a very satisfying win.

Brutal fighting on the outskirts of Rolica.

The plan for next week is to get back to 6x6 gaming, though I'm not sure what we'll be going on with at this stage. There is a lot going on, family-wise, that impacts the both of us, so we'll have to see what we can manage. Stay tuned.