Grossbeeren

In an unexpected turn of events we switch abruptly from politics to wargaming.

Or perhaps not that abruptly. The recent election required me to drop my usual - and natural - curmudgeonly persona and actually talk to people. In conversation I discovered that one of my fellow candidates was a wargamer and so invited him round for a game.

He is apparently a competition wargamer, playing 15mm Ancients with some form of DBA; I've never played any of that family of rules so I'm afraid I can't be more specific. I had suggested C&C Napoleonics and thought it best to start a newcomer to the game with the original card deck and size of playing surface. I therefore set up the Grossbeeren scenario, which as I had all the stuff printed off and to hand I must have played at some point before. Note that the bits of coloured felt previously used to denote different terrain types have been upgraded to something more aesthetically pleasing; and not before time.

The French capture the town

My guest played the French and I took the Prussians. He managed to deploy his troops away from the baseline much more quickly than me and it didn't look to good for Blucher after an hour or so. It took him a while to adjust to not being able to shoot everything every turn, but for a complete novice he was making fairly shrewd card selections. But then I embarked on a run of good fortune with the dice which would have embarrassed even James, who is notoriously lucky at C&C. In the end it was a comfortable win for the boys in dark blue.

But not for long

The game was well received and hopefully we shall fit in another in the not too distant future, probably using the rules in expansions 5 and 6.