Triple Double Blank (plus one for luck)

"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." - Ecclesiastes 9:11

It is possible that the unknown author of Ecclesiastes (and let's have a warm welcome for the return of Old Testament quotations to the blog) didn't have Usain Bolt in mind when he wrote those words. But he (probably not she) may well have been looking forward in time and considering early twenty-first century wargamers. (Also making an overdue return, the Rhetorical Pedant asks just how likely that would actually be, to which I reply that it is as likely as any of the other stuff in the Bible. Doh, there go some more readers!). Anyway, despite my tip top infantry and my initial deployment turning out to be not nearly as bad as I thought that it might be, my skill did not find favour to men in the legendary wargames room of James 'end of turn rule change' Roach.

Instead, the fickle finger of fate pointed in my direction and, having pointed, stayed pointing. I was probably already doomed through a combination of poor leader (the Command Indecision card cost me 14 initiative on one occasion) and a fairly low morale chip balance. However, the icing on the cake was some truly terrible domino drawing. We played three turns and I drew the double blank each time. Indeed I also drew it a fourth time causing a certain amount of concern about James' ability to manage the bag of dominoes. It was decided in the end that perhaps it was an unfair responsibility to give to him and he was freed up to concentrate on changing the rules every ten minutes.

A familiar sight to the Prussians

Rules that I didn't like included the D8 defence dice, which was abandoned after I had done my shooting and just in time for the Russians to do theirs. Rules I did like included not being down 1 for reactive fire, a rule which seems to be still hanging in there for the the moment. Anyway, back to the game. Inasmuch as I had a plan it was to send my dragoons out to defeat the Russian hussars and get on the flank of the infantry. It was possible that given enough time I could have advanced my pokey infantry out and cleaned Peter's up before the second command arrived. In fact, with the previous two evenings having passed with no sign of the Russian stratagem card, it turned up second pip spent. The net effect was that my dragoons found themselves facing the Russian heavy cavalry and I had to fall back on plan B which was to, well, fall back. The charge is not set; the orders have not arrived from Frederick; it's not looking good.