State of Play: Napoléon 1806 (6/6)

 

 

Finally, we reach game six of Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2019). T came by tonight, ready to overwhelm the Prussian forces with his superior tactical skills. Well, that didn’t happen.

For a game that meant a milestone personally, it was a lacklustre affair. T had been out for a work dinner at a really nice Italian place a couple of blocks from our place, so he parked in our street and walked there, then texted when he was on his way. I’d already set up as much as I could, but had gone with free set-up and offered T the French (I think I may have only played the French in this game once, and never with free placement, but it was likely to be the last time we played this for a while – I’m keen to get Napoléon 1807 (Shakos 2020) to the table when we try this system again), and T really likes playing the French.

On the night, the French were lethargic out of the gate. I can’t speak to the set-up as the blocks are hidden, except to say that T had grouped many of his units in threes, severely reducing their possible movement. Even with the free placement, as the French, the options for positioning your troops still leave a lot of ground to cover between your troops starting point and objectives that will most likely win you the game (the citadels, Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig). Add to this some disappointing movement card-draws, and two successive rounds of Rain, and T’s inherent dislike of accruing too much exhaustion, and a French loss was a foregone conclusion by the end of the fourth round.

To his credit, his French did try to run the wide circuit to the west, up through the forests, feinting at Erfurt, then driving hard to Halle and maybe Leipzig. Twice T had actionable cards to support this ambition, allowing a second movement on a unit, even if it had already been activated in that turn. The first time T tried to gain the advantage of that rather powerful card command in turn 5, his intentions were when I played my Cancelled Orders reaction card. The second time in the following turn, his movement point draw was a single point. Because he had two units and had declared for both of them to be ordered, neither formation was able to make any distance.

Battle is engaged.

I’d planned a response to an expected drive up my Centre Left (the eastern third of the board). I had a couple of weaker unit at pivotal chokepoints to slow T’s progress, and the bulk of my forces in positions where they could feasibly respond to breakthroughs by the French. I had a single cavalry unit skulking around the southern forest near Bamburg, and suspected that T had place most of his cavalry screen around Bamburg to project a show of strength (he had). It turned out, he had left Napoleon and Augereau in Bamburg, a lamentable action considering Napoleon adds an extra card in combat and costs no extra points for movement.

At the end of the game, I'd only just managed to place formations in Halle and Leipzig, but one was already low strength and the other had been reduced to a single block in repeated attacks from a determined enemy. Late in the game, T stopped trying to pound me where I’d set up my forward defensive line and run a couple of individual units up the far eastern track, which was virtually undefended; if he’d chosen this course earlier He may have been in a position to romp past me and take the twin citadels. T’s wide-ranging formations running desperately up the western courses were within six positions of Halle – if his gamble had worked Prussia would have lost Halle and possibly Leipzig as well. But it wasn’t to be the case.

Even if he had, taken Halle and Leipzig, the French would not have gained the points necessary to win the game. The French need to either destroy the majority of the Prussian formations while retaining the bulk of their forces, or they need to make concerted efforts to take all three of the northern citadels while retaining Bamberg. That is the surest way to a sudden death victory for Napoleon.

I can’t blame T too harshly for his not bringing his best game; he’d come directly from a work function to a reasonably serious operational level wargame, and if the situation was reversed, I wouldn’t be confident of offering much of a contest myself. Maybe I should have set up a simpler or more familiar game. (Another bout of Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010), perhaps. On his worst night, T can still snatch a C&C victory about half of the time.)

I’ve had to spend ever more time on a project I’m not at liberty to write about just yet, but I hope to get a review of Napoleon 1806 up I the next couple of weeks.