Recap of Maurice Game in May Courtesy of William

Seems William forgot to crosspost his game so I am adding a link to it here for any one interested the Maurice rule set plus a few pics of his game. Check the link for his full commentary : http://williams17th18thcenturywargaming.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=8

From his blog: "Thursday, June 6, 2013 - I had all of the best intentions of posting just after our last game in May.  It was our second playing of Maurice and once again we enjoyed it and will most likely use this set of rules from time to time.  I had started the hoped for post and saved it to come back to later and being new to the whole blog thing I seem to have lost it!  In a nut shell we had 6 players, using 3 decks of cards.  Yep, I know this set of rules doesn't really intend for more than 4 players.  Our way around that was to have a river dividing the table about one third of the distance in from one of the flanks.  Each set of players used their own deck of cards.  That seemed to work our well.  My lost entry had more details of the game and I will post more on that later if I have the time.  In the mean time I will attach some poor photos I took with my phone."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continued Commentary from June 8th -

Saturday, June 8, 2013

Here is an attempted recap of the game from May.

Our last monthly game here was a success.  We played our second game of Maurice and it went well.  Eight of us were in attendance with 6 playing and Greg and I helping out with the rules.   Realizing that there are limitations with the number of players with the games current edition players 5 and 6 were a flanking force located on one side of a river that split the battlefield into 1/3 and 2/3s.  Players 1,2,3 and 4 deployed on the larger portion of the battlefield.  We had Rob, Jim, and Steve as the generals for the French/Bavarian army and Daniel, Mark and John as the generals for the League of Augsburg/Grand Alliance side.    As we were playing War of Spanish Succession we didn't place many woods and similar disrupting terrain as we were not playing with any light infantry.  Each side placed random hills on the table.   We allocated 8 to 10 infantry, 3 to 4 cavalry and 1 artillery battery per player and then instead of adding extra units to the attacking side (we decided on 2) we had the defenders take off 2 infantry units.  This was done as even using right at 18 feet of the 20 foot table things were still looking a little cramped.   More about that later.   Daniel and Rob faced off as the flanking battle on the other side of the river while Jim went against Mark and Steve against John.

Daniel and Rob pretty much fought to a draw on the river flank.  Jim and Mark had a nip and tuck battle going on in the center with Mark being able to play one of the that's not on the map cards to disrupt Jim's attack which stabilized the center of the League of Augsburg/Grand Alliance side.  Steve was able to attack with the Bavarians and through a combination of good luck and die rolls (Steve) and some poor luck and die rolls (John) was pushing the British contingent back.

We called the game about 3PM due to a few of the players having family commitments later in the day.  At that time both armies only had 3 army morale points left.   The attackers (French/Bavarians) were poised to break through on their left center and may have been able to capture the objective if the game had gone longer, providing the army morale held.  

Our next game will be a WWI aircraft game that Jim will be running.  I will post photos afterwards.
Until next time.  Bill  

AWI - Whiskey River American Style

Based loosely off a AWI battle fought in Scotland recently - Stephen and I duked it out this Memorial Day Saturday evening - Pics and story to follow

William's 17th&18th Century Wargaming & Musings:

William's 17th&18th Century Wargaming & Musings:
So in my last post I mentioned how much we enjoyed playing our first game of Maurice and I am hoping to get a few photos that John took to post, hopefully.

As many of you know times have been tough for many of us.  Another consideration is that with the numbers of gamers we have regularly attend and the huge number of WSS units we currently have I am thinning out my War of Spanish Succession armies.  Greg and I have talked about this for a while and given what we perceive as the number of units per player for Maurice we have come to the conclusion that we may currently have too many toys in our collections.   John is building WSS armies and one of our other gamers is also building so I don't think we will ever be short of figures.  I believe Greg will be posting some of his excellently painted figures on his own blog in the near future.  I too will be posting some photos of the units I will be willing to part with.  My figures are very nicely painted but not to the expert level of Greg's.  Then again mine are cheaper as a result.  LOL

I have still not begun painting but I hope to change that this weekend by spending a little time dabbling with a brush.

Greg just inventoried his unpainted SYW which has made me start to look at mine again.  A little over a year ago I had gone through all of my SYW and organized them into 18 man units for Might and Reason.  Greg and I had thought we were going to use the larger unit size as seen in many of the blogs,  mostly from the Australian and New Zealander gamers.   A great plan until we played Maurice!  As there are several of us building armies we all decided that all of our units will be 4 stands of 6 figures to better match both sets of the rules.   I guess all of that work will have to be done again.  While the idea of 18 figure units for units is still appealing  I have to say it will be easier to paint up 24 figure units as that would then equal 1 Maurice unit and 2 Might and Reason units.  Quicker vs. painting up a total of 32 figures to create the same number of units.  I will try to get that inventory done this weekend also.

Cheers

Pirates in Missouri

From fisfull of Seamen The Largest Pirate game ever Wow what a trip that would be----
Can you say Tortugaaaaaaaaaaaaa or Blimey they have how many cannon on that ship?
http://fistfullofseamen.blogspot.com/2013/04/recruits-2013-photos-by-greg-moore-used.html

William's 17th&18th Century Wargaming & Musings:

William's 17th&18th Century Wargaming & Musings:
So after setting this up a YEAR ago I am finally in a place to feel like I can do some posting.  I have been lurking around in many blogs the past few years.  I have read some great stuff, found great ideas and interesting stories.  I have never felt that I was able to put down into words my experiences but what the heck I will put it all out there and on the line to see what happens, hopefully good.  I know everyone has different ideas on what is fun in the gaming world we inhabit and I am sure that some of my views will not be  yours.  I will say now that my intention is to have fun, share ideas and who knows what else.  I never intend to insult anybody in anyway and hope to always treat everyone and their views with respect.  That said, my first post officially starts now.

I have been gaming along time and have run the gamut of rules, figures, and periods (mostly historical).  I have to tell you that recently I have had trouble finding the spark I used to have painting and gaming.  The reasons are many I am sure.  Not meaning to bore but I have found that age has mellowed me plus 3 corporate downsizing in the past 15 years and most recently my data position was sent to India soooo that has not helped my outlook much. 

So what brings this change in my willingness to post on my blog and hopefully start seriously painting again?  Yesterday my group, The Kennesaw Mountain Wargamers,  played our fist game of Maurice.  While the group plays in my game room once a month and I enjoy the games the various members run this was the first time in ages that I so thouroghly enjoyed playing in a game!  There have been many reviews written about the rules in various blogs that I surf I must tell you that I believe the positive reviews were not.....wait for it....positive enough!  The 5 of us who played the game had a wonderful time and we all agreed that these rules brought the fog of war, friction of war and command tension (in a positive since of the word?) to whole new heights.   While we made a few minor errors once we got the game running we found it play smoothly.  I have to give Greg thanks for becoming our rules expert and running the game.  John and he had gotten together a week or two before and had a run through game.  I have enjoyed Might and Reason and it is indeed true that the core combat resolution is the same.

 John and I were pitted against Jim and Rob.  We used our collections of 28mm WSS figures as most of us parted with our SYW figures years ago, me due to one of the downsizings.  Each commander had 9 or 10 infantry and 4 cavalry regiments and 1 artillery battery.  We did not use the "national" modifiers like oblique march etc.  We did not use any elite units and very little terrain as this was our first official game and we didn't want to take any chances of making the game more complex than it had to be for our first outing.   

John and I commanded a mixed army of British and Germans while Jim and Greg had a mixed force of Bavarians and French.  I faced off against the French with my Germans and John used his British  against the Bavarians.  We used 8 feet of my game table which we thought would be enough for the game as the game table was basically featureless.  It turned out that we were a bit cramped and actual maneuver was limited.  We plan on using another 4 feet next time, I think if we had paid more attention to the rules and suggestions there and posted elsewhere we would have started with 12 feet.  John and I were the attackers so we drew the appropriate number of extra cards.  We were a little surprised when both Jim and Rob surged forward with their troops also.

The extra attack cards gave us the early advantage that evened out as the game played out.  Jim was very aggressive for a "defender" and he put John on the defensive for most of the game.  As a result of good die rolls, play of cards and such the Bavarians were able to turn our early advantages to a close game.  So how did I do?  Surprising well all things considered.  I attacked with 4 infantry units in my front line while Rob had deployed in 3 lines each of 3 battalions.  This turned out to give me the advantage for most of the game.  I was always able to double up fire on one of Rob's units as a result.  Truth be told if Rob had not had some of the most horrible die rolls any of us have seen the game may have well turned out differently.  When he would roll hits, which wasn't too often he couldn't convert those hits into disruptions.  So my luck allowed me to end the game with 2 infantry and 1 cavalry unit removed from play while I was able to destroy 5 of 6 of his infantry units.  Robs loses helped us stay ahead on army morale until the very end as Jim was very successful with his attacks on John.  The game turn had army morale at Brit/Germ at 4 points and the Bav/Fr at 3 (if I remember correctly).

John and I had several units with disruption markers that would have given our opponents the chance to win the game.  Fortunately both John and I each held a passage of lines card that we played to replace our shot up units.  I was then able to destroy another of Robs units which he rolled the maximum to lose the 3 remaining army morale points on their side.  This was on the turn that Rob destroyed my 2nd infantry unit and I was able to roll the minimum amount and only lost 1 point.  John and I each held a  "Rogues! Do you want to live forever?" that we would have both played had we gone one more turn.  This card allows you to regain 1 or 2 army morale points.  We both rolled to see how many points we would have gained back just to "see" and we gained 3 points back which had the game gone one more turn may have given us the added cushion to have still won the game, but that is a big may have.

Neither side had any light troops so those cards were discarded quickly when drawn.   We all got to use assorted devious cards on each other including the death of a hero cards.  I was hording the "That's not on the map" card but never got to play it.

So what's next?  Well let me see.  If all goes well I will reread the rules at least once so we minimize our rules interpretation errors.   Finish a unit of pirates that I had promised John a year ago, these are the only lead 28mm figures that I have painted in over a year and a half.  They languish half completed on the painting desk.  Actually start some 28mm WSS/LOA or SYW figures for myself.  If I can swing that it will mean things are really going well indeed!  Add to my 1/72 plastic armies for SYW and Imagi-nation campaign I have had on again and off again for the past 30 years.  The plastic armies are actually something relatively new for me that I have started over the past 2 or 3years.  More about this later.  Cheers

36th ANNUAL ATLANTA MILITARY MODEL FIGURE

Too bad this does not have a wargaming convention tied to it. Should be a nice little convention to take some pics and maybe see if any vendors have anything interesting. Pics to follow