Nearly...

James has put a review of the finale of the latest game here. As it says I nearly won - at the beginning of the evening we had a run of very short turns ended by double double dominoes being drawn; a repeat of the same at the end would have indeed seen the Russians triumphant - but I have to say that, while it made for a fun last half hour or so, it would have felt like a slightly cheesy victory. What it did do was once again highlight the things I like about Piquet. We tend to write up the outliers in terms of initiative swings and card runs; in truth most of the time the rules give a game much like other sets. But there always exists the possibility that things will work out just right for something out of the ordinary to occur, and that was the case here.

An attack which in all honesty was undertaken just for something to do in a losing situation (I was rapidly running out of morale chips and my troops were in danger of quitting the field) developed a life of its own. Experience had taught me that the only use for Cossacks was to screen formed units from being fired on and that was what I intended to do with them. The infantry to be screened hadn't got there yet and so reacting opportunistically to the cards the Cossacks moved up behind a unit of Prussian infantry, had a very lucky shot, issued a morale challenge and thereby demoralised them. I was unaware that the infantry could now be charged until James told me they could. He in turn was unaware, until we double checked the rules, that this required a difficulty check on the dice, but despite them being a poor unit they not only managed it but also won the ensuing melee. At that point the prospect of actually capturing and holding the village and winning the game suddenly became feasible. As I say, this sort of thing doesn't happen very often, but I really enjoy the fact that one can never rule it out.