charles vasey - 05:18am Jul 30, 1998 PST (#902 of 913) CAMPAIGNS OF MARLBOROUGH: From memory the trick was for Marlborough to jump on the nearest French army and beat seven bells out of it. The fact that it took all Churchill's skill to fix, fight and beat the French in the real thing is disregarded by a movement system (from memory again) which disregarded the possibility of the enemy decamping before you jumped on them. It had a neat supply rule where you sent your supply officers out in a number of directions and then revealed where your magazine actually wa s. Bob Kalinowski - 05:33am Jul 30, 1998 PST (#903 of 913) "If you hadn't rolled that lucky 6 and disordered my Cuirassiers, those Saxon gunners would be so much knockwurst by now!" Francois (#889), I have played about 12 scenarios and 3 short campaign scenarios in Campaigns of Marlboro over the last ten years and like the game immensely. It is similar to Frederick the Great in general, but with significant differences, chief being having seige artillery and magazines/depots included as counters, partial random leader picks for both sides (especially in the campaigns), a much "fairer" combat system (John Halvonik, Brandon Einhorn, many others -- here, every sp you have DOES count for something, and you aren't penalized for fielding a bigger army per se). Retreat before combat is possible, but difficult against a better commander. The rules are among the best Keith Poulter put out -- i.e, about average compared to other games. Armies are manned and measured by rotating counters on tracks off-map; trouble is they forgot to put the tracks and rotating counters anywhere. So after a bit of colored marker arts and crafts to make tracks on spare cardstock, and stealing rotaters from other games, you only need to make 2-3 of your own house rulings on rules ambiguities and you're set. Like Frederick, the game is very subtle concerning maneuver. Typically, both players are maneuvering 2-3 army stacks, maybe 1-2 detachment stacks, and leaving 1-2 minor garrisons to bolster all the forts' organic garrisons. It took me 2-3 scenarios and 1 campaign to really appreciate the cat and mouse that can go on involving seiges versus cutting off supply, leading to major battles. Scenarios play in 2-5 hours, and have many "natural" conclusions -- i.e, one side or other gets nailed in a major battle, de moralized 4-6 turns. In the scenarios, this leaves the other side free to besiege key forts unmolested for victory points, and you can start another right there. In the campaigns, one bad year is often offset by a great next year, and though Marlboro is tough, he's not unbeatable, and Dutch movement restrictions often prevent him from jumping French armies nearby (good, virtually transparent political restrictions in play here.) But then again I'm pretty much a European gunpowder freak -- Marl/Fred/Nap. If you don't like Fred, you probably won't like this. But if you found Fred interesting, you'll enjoy this as much, or more -- there's a lot different flavor to it. I put it in my top 5, and would tell anyone it's worth a try (but bring your colored markers!) john Halvonik - 10:25am Jul 30, 1998 PST (#908 of 913) If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it will make everyone think how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them. Bob and Charles: Thanks for your comments. I too am looking for the game as that period is one of my favorites and simulating the Blenheim campaign has always been a challenge to me. I guess I'm more interested in seeing how those designers attempt to simulate all the feinting and counter marching that Marlboro did to keep his enemies off balance. I figured if I could simulate the way he did that long march down the Rhine then any land campaign can be simulated. Frederick used leaders with basically an ordered ranking and then a die roll to move a number of them. Then there was: forced march but we didn't use it much, I can't remember if it was too risky or used up your men or both. the games I was in tended to create large stacks under one or two leaders. Addding supply depots would seem to emphasize an important aspect of Marlboro's campaigns. I'd be curious to know how does marlboro handle the marching? are there extra marches or hidden marches? And are the leaders rated for different factors like marching and fighting or just a simple ranking system? Bob Kalinowski - 12:39pm Jul 30, 1998 PST (#909 of 913) "If you hadn't rolled that lucky 6 and disordered my Cuirassiers, those Saxon gunners would be so much knockwurst by now!" John, Marlborough (okay, finally the right spelling!) uses two leader ratings -- initiative and fight. Marl is a 9 init and a 3 fight; next best I believe is Eugene of Austria with an 8-2, Villars of France with a 9-2, one or two other French with 8-1 or 7-2, many, many worse with 7-0, 6-0, or 6- neg 1,2. The move ratings indicated a range window of die rolls to activate; if done, movement is same for all (forget - 8 mps?). Siege artillery however only has 4 or 6 mp, and must often trail with a detachment (and is vulnerable when doing so). No forced march segment, but enemy stacks can intercept yours during movement within the commander's activation range (based on move init number) if they can activate. Marl's maneuver is handled in a very simple, arguably gamey way. All armies get one depot and one advanced magazine (Charles' V's "supply officers" mentioned previously). At the beginning of the turn you place your depot on the advanced magazine -- that gives you supply. You then repost advanced mag elsewhere. Next turn, you can move your Depot to it or not. Hence, most armies will give away their intended movement path. Marlborough gets TWO advance magazines; he can repost them both each turn, and move the Depot to EITHER next turn. Thus, he can post them, say 8 hexes either side of his current Depot. Thus, let's say he's 4 hexes west of his Depot, next turn, as the French stay west, he bounces the Depot east to the east magazine and hauls toward it. The French are left 12 hexes west, 1-2 marches behind. Simplistic perhaps, but a very clean mechanic to portray his superior march planning. There are a half dozen other great little rules as well. Bob Kalinowski - 01:22pm Jul 30, 1998 PST (#910 of 913) "If you hadn't rolled that lucky 6 and disordered my Cuirassiers, those Saxon gunners would be so much knockwurst by now!" As an aside, amid all you gunpowderers, I can't believe I'm the only person who's explored this game or enjoys it. I think it's a prime candidate for a company to reissue. S&T mentioned re-doing it and expanding it to include the French-Italian-Austrian theater on another map. What became of the idea I don't know, but maybe we can write COA or MIH and get a groundswell going for an update. The map, mostly teal green fields and orange/bronze forts, highlighted by pink/flesh picture inserts, is oddly engaging in a baroque way. The counters, good then (especially for 3W), are only decent now, and the rules decidedly austere in presentation. A modern graphics update (with or without extra theater map) from COA might generate a $30.00 game that would be worth every penny. So get on your emails to any company contacts you have and pitch it. I'd buy one! John Vasilakos - 01:33pm Jul 30, 1998 PST (#911 of 913) Don't listen to Bob The Campaigns of Marlborough sucks, any one who buys it is throwing away good money don't even think about bidding for a copy.. Actually I would love to own this gem, but with praise like Bob's I it seems I will never get the chance :). Unfortuantely this game was released after my 3W subscription ended, but before I subscribed to the Ty era at S&T, so by the time I heard about it, both copies ever printed :) were snatched up. Richard Simon - 07:10pm Jul 30, 1998 PST (#912 of 913) I still miss my ex but my aim is improving! Well, I'd like to offer a little dissent here. I don't have this game any more (which is one indication that I didn't care for it -- I lugged a s**tload of games up and down the East Coast but not this one). IIRC, Each side ends up moving two stacks around the board for a bunch of turns. That's it. Now, you can dress this up all you want. Two stacks is two stacks. After a turn or three, it is about exciting as waltzing. Idf this game was so great, how come it wasn't a hit whe it was released. Time to take off the rose-colored glasses on this one.