Großbeerencore

 It's election time, and campaigning seems to be taking up somewhat more of my time than I expected or signed up for. However, I did manage to squeeze in one quick game. I was playing a boardgame with someone who admitted to dabbling in Napoleonic wargaming, so I invited him round to the annexe for an introductory game of Command & Colors, which of course is a boardgame that I happen to play with figures. For reasons I can no longer remember I always use the Großbeeren scenario in these circumstances, and so that's what we played.

I can report that he enjoyed it, as people always appear to, in his case not least because it would seem to have been substantially quicker to play to a conclusion than the home-brew rules he is more familiar with. He won as the French, and a victory always eases one's path into a new game. He went for a very ambitious attacking strategy, pushing units forward piecemeal and absolutely refusing to go into square when threatened by the Prussian cavalry. He might have suffered for all that, but I consistently drew only left sector cards and, especially given that the objective villages are in the middle, I was therefore rather handicapped. Anyway, a good time was had by all.

The Prussians have hardly moved in the centre or on the right

I'm now going back to explaining to voters what they will miss if, or let's not delude ourselves when, they don't vote for me, but there is the rumour of some ACW action shortly. It must be decades since I have gamed that period.

Ferrybridge

 Wargaming has been both infrequent and irregular recently, for a variety of reasons (*). However, Peter came round yesterday and we had a run through of the Ferrybridge scenario from the first Test of Resolve scenario book. It is structured in three parts - as was the original battle of course - and I had been a bit sceptical about it all hanging together. Peter had persuaded me that, au contraire, that whatever happened we would be able to construct a sensible narrative. In the event we didn't have to because, apart from Clifford surviving to see Skipton Castle again (always assuming he gets through Towton alive of course), it unfolded in a very historical manner.

I only took one photo of each phase, so no matter the level of technical quality, they're all going to be included. The first shows the Yorkist attack across the bridge after the Lancastrians have seen off the first two companies of attackers and Warwick himself has been wounded and carried to the rear.  

Notwithstanding these losses, sheer weight of number told and the second phase saw Clifford arrive to try to retake the bridge. The chap with the flag is whichever knightly commander we hurriedly pulled from the box to act as first reserve; I'm afraid I can't remember who had that honour. The defenders had regained some strength, but their diminished resources meant that they were swept away without inflicting any losses at all on Clifford's men.

The only thing in focus in this photo would appear to be the bridge, so you'll have to take my word for it that it shows Fauconberg's flanking attack, after his having crossed the Aire somewhere upstream. Given the Lancastrians being at full strength and having a sizeable complement of archers, I think we both assumed that they would easily see off the threat. But, the rules rose to the occasion and Clifford's archers ran out of arrows before doing anything of note. Fauconberg sent his own archers forwards and after suffering steady casualties that Lancastrians decided to withdraw. At that point they got the luck of the cards and were across the table and off before the Yorkists moved forwards at all. The scenario therefore ended in a draw, although Edward IV was now free to march onwards to  catch up with Queen Margaret at Towton. However, for the time being at least they won't be meeting in the annexe. We have tired of the Wars of the Roses and will move, eventually, on to something else. 

Having played them now about half a dozen times, my overall view of Test of Resolve is very positive, and I would certainly recommend trying them out to anyone looking for some new Wars of the Roses rules. 

* Both known knowns and unknown unknowns.

First Quarter Boardgaming 2023

 Just (mainly) the games new to me.

Anno 1800: This was fun; it's only a shame that I didn't listen more closely to the explanation of how one was likely to win. It's a tech tree game really, but the point of advancing up the tech tree was quite clearly described as being to attract new people to one's territory and then keep them happy. I managed the second part OK, but when we came to add up the scores I had a pathetically small number of inhabitants all of whom were wallowing in low scoring luxury. I'd like to give this another go.

Clank!: Catacombs: The original Clank! was a good game, but this much better. The main change is a modular board, which means that each game is different and allowing players to wander off in different directions, although the size and shape of one's table may influence this in practice. I really liked this.

Fürstenfeld: Economic game about brewing. I wasn't hugely enthused.

Mosaic: A Story of Civilisation: The subtitle is actually 'A Story of Civilization', but the blog must maintain its standards. This has tech tree elements, with a bits of set collection, area control, resource management and indeed very abstracted military conflict. The absolute best bit about this game is how quick each of one's turns is, meaning very little down time. On the other hand with five players, it does go on a bit, although by the third time through we had knocked an hour off the duration. Worth a look.

Mush!Mush!: This isn't a new-to-me game at all, but I can't resist writing about it because it was six years since it last got played. It's a husky racing game, with a clever central mechanism and works well with higher player counts. I hope to get this back to the table this year.

Scythe: This game is currently rated 16th overall on boardgamegeek, which inevitably means that I don't like it. I've had numerous opportunities to play it since it came out in 2016, but never bothered because I didn't think I'd enjoy it. Admittedly that judgement was mainly based on thematic and aesthetic grounds. It's set in some sort of alternate 1920s history in some sort of unspecified geography, precisely the type of fantasy/post-apocalyptic/steam-punk bollocks that gets right on my wick. Furthermore, it has a combination of a few ridiculous looking plastic pieces, which are not in scale with each other, and a few equally random sized wooden meeples making it a visual abomination. Anyway, I finally played it and hated it. I have been persuaded to give it another go tomorrow on the probably specious grounds that it will grow on me second time around. We shall see.