Oh dear, these steppe tribes are SOOOO touchy

Of course the Russian Guard performed well under your magnificent generalship Dave
Thought that was a given so that is why I didn't mention it!

Oh dear! those French are so condescending

Many thanks to Adrian and Kevin for another brilliantly organised game, to Barry for a great ruleset and to all the gents for a thoroughly enjoyable gaming weekend.
Even though I didn't have a Priest this time I still felt like a tank commander from my pit.
Now I'm really looking forward to the November episode.
Cheers, Andrew

This was my first introduction to the new rules and I really enjoyed them. Barry, I can tell that there has been a lot of detailed thought gone into these and no doubt at some point you have said to yourself - now how would Andy / Peter / Adrian / Dale etc challenge me on this point? The fact that you have rules for some of the obscure things we raised shows how well researched and play tested a set they truly are.

My Saturday bash with Bob was a real ding dong affair which could have gone either way especially with Bob's spectacular morale throws which kept him in contention for most of the day. My poor quality Russian 1st Infantry brigade eventually drove him from the town and accepted the surrender of the remnants of his force. I think we put the FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Areas) rules through their paces and they worked very well.
Oh and I mustn't forget the magnificent contribution of the three shots fired in anger by the Russian Guard. Thanks Dave!

Our Sunday conflict was in danger of being finished really early with Dave O'Brien's limbered artillery having been hit in the flank by Dave Imrie's cavalry and Dale launching a head on cavalry assault on my newly unlimbered guns and 1st infantry Brigade. Such a shame that both of his cavalry units rolled ones and failed to charge. I was also very grateful to Dale for walking his infantry right past my guns next move. Now where did I put all of those rout markers?

I'll need to reread the rules to properly follow the command/ order markers which is a great concept but takes some practice to fully understand. Artillery rules were simple to understand and the refit after firing four times was fair and forced you to conisder carefully each barrage.

My thanks to Kevin and Adrian for organising another excellent weekend. It was great to have some open terrain to game on and personally I appreciated that we were not hindered too regularly with special events.
My thanks to everyone as ever for the spirit in which the game was played. I am really looking forward to our November game and now have a task in hand to get my Russkies back in shape.

Peter,

what I have occasionlly lost sight of myself is that R2E was written specifically FOR the LoGW and our big Naps games. So, when taken into consideration, the fact that many a peculiar situation is actually covered in detail is not too surprising as they are not built on hypotheticals or abstracts but on actual weird situations which You, Dale, Andy, Adrian and the gang have experienced!

I have been very happy with the way the larger games have played as there have been no show stoppers or meltdown situations.

I realised when we did the marathon combat with Ade's Prussian regiments against the Polish Guard lancers that it seemed to go on for a long time. Yes it did and was both intense and tiring for the players however, the flip side of that is:

If you take the time (about 10 minutes) and think about what would have happened if the experience had been split over 2 or 3 turns as is normal, each of those turns would still have spent 2-5 minutes on the combat so the overall time to complete is probably less or the same BUT the outcome is achieved in a single activity in a single turn thus placing it in context of a battle and not running a melee over 1 - 1.5 hours of simulated time which is absurd.

Oops, there I go again....

Glad you enjoyed it. That is the beginning and end

Excellent game lads. Well organised by Adrian and Kevin and a good run through of the rules on a table size that the rules were meant for – not the four feet square of a recent magazine review.

It came as no surprise to the noble French commanders when six regiments of Prussian cavalry, belonging to the totally unbiased Prussian umpire, appeared on the table in my rear. Ade’s insistence that my remaining lancers had to make a compulsory charge at his Prussian lancers was readily agreed. I was feeling sorry for Adrian after his football team stumbled the night before and thought,”Och well, Adrian dererves something positive to cheer him up”. So, sorry Adrian, but your beautifully painted Prussian lancers were last seen high-tailing it off the table towards Padanaram (east of Kirriemuir), oops, deepest Prussia.

In fairness to Adrian, he took it all on the chin and I was able to get that dastardly Prussian lance surgically removed from my rear end later.

Good weekend lads and I’ll try to run a big Sunday game at the Kirriemuir club in the near future. And yes Barry, I’ll be using the Republic to Empire rules, with assistance from Dave T.

Dale,

I feel the warm glow that once must have fired the souls of trailblazing Christian Missionaries in 4th century Caledonia. Taking the word into the darkness!

I look forward to your report of the outcomes!

Peter, the Guards had every confidence in your ability to hold the town and didn't want to get their uniforms dirty. Plus we had those Pesky Prussian Allies???? on our flank so I had to keep an eye on them.
It's interesting to see that my general lived up to his name (Buggeration) when it came to dice rolling all weekend. Consistantly managed to roll under average all weekend perhaps I need to replace him with an appropriately named one, or replace the dice, or me??

Even with my crap dice rolling the weekend was excellent and I never get tired of seeing tables full of beautifully painted Napoleonic troops. The only trouble is that it inspires me to want to collect even more armies.
Cheers
Dave

Gents


Thank you for your attendance and support at the weekend - much appreciated. I am always amazed how organised we are and how easily we can set up and pack away these weekender games. There were 91 tiles/364 sq ft of table for Sundays game but I think we could 'break' 113 tiles/ 450 sq ft if we needed to, without much more effort - no mean feat (feet)! Special thanks to Dale for organising the food (he really is 'our catering corps') and thanks for what is becoming somewhat of a 'Friday Night Special' at Chez Smith!
The banter and leg pulling is always a fantastic part of the 'weekender'!

With regards the game, there was always a chance that due to the fact that Kev had never played the rules before and I had a 'limited exposure' to them only a fortnight before; the game may not have worked. I think that Kev and I are quite relieved that it went well enough, everyone seemed to enjoy it and most people have tales of 'daring do'.

Having now played the rules properly, from my perspective, I can honestly say that these rules are the closest that any Napoleonic ruleset has come to in giving an 'accurate feel' to gaming this period. It has taken Napoleonic gaming to a different level, in my opinion. No other ruleset combines to give what I would term 'thinking mans rules' and the ability to still have the opportunity to have the 'right' amount of chances of getting to 'chuck' loads of dice! Massive leap for for Napoleonic gaming!! Excellent!!!

Over the coming months both Kev and I will be getting our heads together and planning 'Paris 1814'. The main objectives of the last weekend was to get used to the rules, and the new dimensions it takes your decision making and gameplay. The commands/troops/quality that you get will have the last weekends results taken into account - the 'fame and infamy' of certain players and units that was achieved, will be taken into account.

Finally,I feel that Colin is owed a slight apology as he was probably the only player who had it 'quiet' over both of the two days gaming. Unfortunately for Colin, his 'opponent', Dave O'B, 'minced around' and did not getting 'stuck in' on Day 1. With Colin having one of the 'furthest from the action' commands on Day 2, he never got into action - sorry Colin. This will not be repeated in November, I can assure you. You will have one of the more 'forward commands' for 'Paris'. However, Kev and I have already decided it will not be in the environs of Montmatre, as this would be too much of a 'distraction' for you - even though you could probably provide the 'female civilian figures' we would require!!!!!

Thanks again Chaps - great weekend.


P.S .....'it's coming home, it's coming home.........footballs coming home!!!'


Adrian

What's happened? have England jacked it in already and decided to return home????????????????

Cheers
Dave

Great weekend guys! My thanks to Kevin and Adrian for all their hard work. Looking forward to Paris!

Thanks for letting me join in at the weekend. I must say that of all the games I have stood in at the last moment I enjoyed this the most.

For me I learned quite a bit.

1/ Army size. I always thought you needed loads of figures for Napoleonics but although you could do that with the rules you can can also play with just 10 units and some artillery. Food for thought

2/ That I would partly responsible for Barry setting up future scenarios !!!
Double gentlemenly bit. Why would you suggest to Barry what you would do only to see you suggestion accepted and play a part in your whole force minus the guns run back to Russia. I will rate myself as a plodder from now on.

3/ Nearly made a mess of Sunday but took note of my previous mistakes and eventually had my troops in proper order.

I did shoot the mans head off.

4/ Need to buy average dice.

Thanks once again.

Dave T

Thanks to everyone who helped Adrian and myself pull the games togeather by bringing along everything we asked for.
As Adrian has said, between us we had little experience of this version of R2E to draw upon before hand so it was a relief to us both that things worked ok and seeing the rules in action will help enormously in planning Paris in Nov.
Personaly I think I learnt more about how not to handle a Prussian Brigade on the tabletop rather than the other way round but they do say you learn by your mistakes, I was glad to witness some quite stunning pieces of Generalship from Peter and his Brunswickers on both days, if my Prussians have half as much success in Nov I will be happy!
Only dissapointment on Sunday was that Kellerman was skulking around the other end of the table while sureshot Schnapps and his boys took a Sunday stroll out in the open .
Goes without saying I enjoyed everyones company and am looking forward to the next one.
Kev

I am sure you inpartial umpires will contrive/connive to bring old adversaries like Schnapps and Kellerman together once more for a dance in gay Paris...
Will their be three Napoleons again
No one ever really explained that to me....

I hope not!
Napoleon wasn't at the fight for Paris and this is supposed to be an historical game but knowing what these rascally Frenchies are like they will probably be whining about a what if scenario and hope that Old Boney arrives to save the day.

Cheers
Dave