Friday, August 2, 2024

Rapp 'n Raupehelms, 1809 at Historicon

 

Table set for game 1 with Field of Battle 3rd edition; Rhine Confederation near, Hiller's Austrians far.

I wound up having extra players who wanted join in, so we had 6 Austrian and 5 Allied players. 

Herman has the Austrian Morale chips hidden behind the placard in true FoB style. 

Both dies had superiority of numbers and position on opposite sides of the field. One objective was to control the river crossing and the villager of Bad Bierstein. 

The Wurttembergers are stretched a bit thin, but look to secure defensive positions. 

Bavarinas and Austrians mix ip over control of a key hill; the Bavarian supporting formations are lagging behind due to poor LD rolls on the MOVE. 

We had a nice mix of experience and new players. 

2 Austrian Hussar units charge the Wurttemberg Light Dragoons. 

Firefight between the Wurttemburgers and the Austrians

Hessian Chevaulegeres and Baden Light Dragoons charge 2 Austrian batteries. 

The charge failed, but the Bavarian infantry is getting the edge on the Austrian defenders. 

Overview of the action mid game. 

A Wurttemberger General goes down on an ARMY MORALE card!

Battle for the Town! An Austrian attack is repulsed. At one point the Austrian s reached zero Morale points, and were paying the Rheinbund troops, but they managed to reverse the tide and before long it was the Rheinbund who were in negative Morale territory and paying the Austrians. Overall, a hard fought battle with the edge to the Kaiserlicks!

I reset the table, and had dinner, returning the run the second game with Battle Command. We had the official 3 players per side. The game played out fairly similarly, with the Rheinbund winding up with the edge in that version. I would say that both game pretty much played the same speed regardless of the rules. It looks like I forgot to take pictures on the second game; by now the hoarseness had developed into a definite runny nose. One of the players very helpfully assisted me with packing up the troops at 10 - 11 PM, so I hope he didn't catch the COVID it became apparent that I had come down with by the following day!  I have some thoughts about FoB 3 vs Battle Command, but those are for another time...

14 comments:

  1. There must be a mistake or a bit of skulduggery! The Bavarian player who has “trouble” bringing his formation up in a timely manner wears an Austrian flag on his shirt. Great looking game with lots of troops and LOTS of payers.

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    1. That's Herman on the Austrian side, with the Ordinarfahne on his shirt!

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  2. Super looking games again and well attended too.

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  3. Great to see you were oversubscribed for the first game Peter. I'll be very interested in your thoughts on the two rulesets. I wondered at what point in these reports your bout of COVID was going to emerge.

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    1. More forthcoming about Fob3/vs BC, which are really very closely related rule sets, and a sort of Fob 3.5 ideas he have. The onset of the symptoms of what would later become verified as COVID was really during this evening game, which is perhaps why I neglected to take any photos of it!

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  4. Congrats, this looks great! : )

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  5. Now that I look at it, I think the very last shot is near the end of game 2!

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  6. Great AAR and excellent game(s). Personally I prefer FOB3 for multi-player but its not by much.

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    1. Overall, I think I agree, but I'll have some thoughts on that later this month.

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  7. I see there's short shot of the first game on the Little Wars TV Historicon review video. :-)

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  8. Great looking game! I am also quite interested in your thoughts about Battle Command vs FOB. We are longtime FOB players. I am quite curious if the feel is the same and speed of play. Our is there something that Battle Command does better? I own both sets and your thoughts would be very appreciated. Sorry to hear you got sick. Thanks.

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    1. I have some thoughts about FoB, BC, and, yes. classic Piquet. It may be a few weeks before I have time to write them up in a coherent fashion!

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