David R. Moody - Mar 9, 2006 1:43 pm (#12857 Total: 12932) "Life is that unfortunate time between wargames."--Larry Leadhead "For that matter, it's not clear to me that they're even proselytizing the respective ideologies of Rachel Weisz, the rocket-powered turtle and the crate of fruit. Although, I admit I'm not entirely sure of this as applied to Dave." I'm not sure she has an ideology. She's a nice Jewish girl like She Who Must Be Obeyed, with the added bonus of a totally hot accent that makes me all gooey inside. "you don't want to know what David Moody thinks about Rachel Weisz. " Nothing but the purest thoughts of respect and admiration for her . . . um . . . talents. On the Table last night at Endgame in Oakland, CA: The Six Days of Glory, from Clash of Arms. At long, long last Joe Oppenheimer and I traveled to the alternately frozen and muddy fields of France in February 1814. As I told She Who Must Be Obeyed as I headed out the door, "Blucher is strung out along the Paris road and I'm going to give him a damned good thrashing!" Alas, it didn't quite work out that way. Boney, with the Young Guard, Guard cavalry, and Marmont's VI Corps, marched up and stomped on a Russian division from Olsuieff's (sp) corps at the chateau of Baye on February 10. Then the minions of the Mouthbreather of all the Russians and Frederich Wilhelm the Wussy showed uncharacteristic initiative-Olsuieff managed to get away to the north, forcing me to chase him for VP, and Sacken quickly reversed his advance on Paris to try and come to the rescue, while Yorck repaired the bridge over the Marne at Chateau-Thierry and moved to join him. (aside #1: in the game, only a small portion of the Allied Army of Silesia is actually on map. The rest of it is assumed to be heading on its merry way to Paris, and can be brought into the game a) if the Coalition player makes two die rolls, one for each force, on 10 February b) if Boney and the boys venture too far in one direction or the other they run into them c) automatically on February 11. In our case, Joe made the rolls on the 10th and got them early.) On the 11th, Boney sent Grouchy and his cavalry to try and screen off Blucher, with a string of vedettes protecting the supply line from marauding cossacks to the west, then turned to finish off Olsuieff, who had taken position on a rise a few hexes north of Chaumpabert. Boney stomped him into little teeny pieces, then turned towards Sacken, whose troops were crossing the Petit-Morin in the neighborhood of Montmirail. Nansouty, with the Guard cavalry, drove the vedettes before them. Mortier was bringing up the Old Guard, but slowly, failing a key initiative roll which delayed his arrival for half a day! Napoleon moved to put him in command as Ney and Marmont moved to confront Sacken. Meanwhile, Grouchy continued to fall back before Blucher, who had collected his troops and was pushing along the Paris road. Tired of dealing with wascally Fwench cavalwy, he decided to go around, sending Kapsevitch (sp) one way and himself the other, to the south. And that was where, during the night of 11/12 February, that he ran into the French baggage train, which I had neglected to screen from the other side. TRIPLE DOH!!!! So in the morning, Marmont and Ney pushed back Sacken's lead elements, partially isolating the Russian VI Corps, while Boney stomped up Yorck, sending his entire corps save the artillery (slowed elsewhere by mud) into the Reorg box. And that was where we decided to call it. Boney could probably mess up more of Sacken, causing him to flee north to Chateau Thierry, but then would have to disengage during the night and fall back on his depot at Sezanne to get in supply. All Joe would have to do is pull off map for the win. All in all, a disappointing defeat for the French, but still a fun game. I blame myself for stupidly leaving my baggage train uncovered. I also fault the blown initiative on Mortier, and credit Joe for getting the dierolls to get his army in motion. Chasing Olsuieff was probably a bad idea, as it diverted me from the main armies, though the VP were nice and it essentially knocked that corps out of the game. The designer's notes say move fast, but it's hard to do with the terrain. I may have to tinker with this one solitaire at some point. We had a few onlookers, including a rather cute young blonde lady from the next table over (they had just finished a game of BANG!). She had huge . . . tracts of land and seemed interested in what we were doing, complimenting the lovely map and saying she'd stick to less complicated games. (aside #2: it's ALWAYS a good thing when cute young blondes with huge tracts of land want to check out your wargame). At that point, it was too late for Mission #2 of the Down in Flames Dunkirk campaign, so we called it a night. Next week, Lest Darkness Fall, and hopefully we'll have time for DiF. I also finally got my own copy of Twilight Struggle (I sold my copy of Samurai (GMT) to raise money for it) and might take it for a spin this weekend against one of my other regular opponents. Joe and I are thinking of playing it again in three weeks. Best CDG I've played, aside from Wilderness War.