Subject: Fw: Battle Cry: Antietam Session Report 5/10/00

Neil Carr <echoota@aol.comwrote in message 
<391d6881.55866058@news.supernews.com>...

ANTIETAM 

My friend Stefan is graduating with his Ph.D. in Mathematics and so I
thought what better way to celebrate then to give him a gift so I went
on down to the game store and picked up Battle Cry for him. He seemed
a little dumb struck when I gave it to him, mumbling that this would
probably be the best present he'd get for his Ph.D., which is what I
figured since graduate degrees don't seem to yield much in the gift
department. Usually it's just a sense of relief and a slap on the
back. 

For the first battle Stefan picked Antietam. We laid out our forces on
opposite sides of the board and mulled over our situation. Antietam
basically sets itself up where the north has more troops but the south
has more command cards in hand and has a better defensive position. I
looked across the field to assess my situation. My right and center
positions had a mixture of infantry and artillery while on my left
flank I had several units bottled up behind a small loop of a river.
The rules for this scenario stipulated that the only way to cross was
at one bridge. It would be hard to pull my units out of there quickly
and efficiently, especially since my opponent starts with units close
to the bridge. As for my opponents composition he had mostly infantry
and a smattering of artillery and cavalry, all pretty well dug in all
over the board. 

In the middle of the board was a sunken road that provided excellent
cover for units behind it and at its tail end was a town that provided
even better cover for units occupying it. Looking over all of this it
was obvious that even with greater numbers I was going to have a hard
time cracking the south's line of defense. Frontal assaults were out
of the question because the odds would be against me and I would most
likely just end up handing over several of my units flags (you need
six of your opponents to win) simply to break through. 

We were off and made some tentative moves for the first couple of
turns, then Stefan made a fantastic move against me. My left flank,
bottled up behind the river with only one crossing now had to contend
with defensive earthworks fully manned by the units that were already
keeping an eye on the bridge. This was bad, very bad. Where before it
was going to be an inefficient mess to move my units past the river,
now it would be just a blood bath. I could still charge ahead but I'd
most likely simply give Stefan free flags as I ran forward to try and
overrun him. Thus for the time being I pretty much wrote off my left
flank. 

I still had a plan though. The one route I could see that did the
least damage to me was to move up my right flank, all the way to the
other side of the board. Under the cover of trees I would be able to
move right up to some of the south's defensive positions without
taking too much damage. If I could break beyond the town and sunken
road then the battle would finally be a fair fight and with my greater
numbers I'd hopefully win by attrition. 

Thus the first part of the game went rather well for me as I kept
getting a steady stream of right flank cards to keep my units moving
forward as quickly as possible. I was also lucky with some rolls at
one point when I performed a forced march, allowing my infantry to
move two spaces. I zoomed ahead and was able to bear down on a couple
of Stefan's units in the area at point blank range, wiping them out or
pushing them off the board before they could react. 

So by mid game my right flank was totally under my control, making
several of Stefan's card draws useless to him, however at the same
time my left flank was still bottle up and so left flank cards were
basically useless to me. A lull came into my game as I slowly moved
the bulk of my units up the right flank and get into position for a
big push. Stefan saw that I was in the process of assembling a
well-orchestrated offensive and so he felt the need to act to
hopefully throw me off balance. Up to this point I'd had a healthy
lead in flags over him, four to two. Now it was time for him to catch
up and so he struck at my weakest link, my center position units. 

The center was a lousy position for me. I had a couple of units that
pretty much just sat there the whole game, right up against the map
edge. Through a mixture of dilly dallying and a lack of center card
draws they stayed put in their out of range yet vulnerable position.
Stefan, seeing that the bulk of my force was behind a screen of trees
on his flank, knew that I was in no position to move quickly towards
him. Thus he played a forced march and out from behind the sunken
road, and out from the town on his end of the board emerged several
units to charge on down the open fields in the middle of the
battlefield. Blazing away with all of his units he pushed back two of
my units into off-board oblivion. Now he was even with me in flags and
all he had to do was move back behind the sunken road and we would be
back at square one again! 

I despaired, at least for a couple of seconds, however I saw that a
blessing in disguise was given to me. The units that had been sitting
idylly behind the river all game now had something to shoot after
several units had run down the center of the board. Further, Stefan in
his offensive had moved out of the town that was guarding one end of
his sunken road defense line. The town was the key point of his
defense and was the major goal I had at the beginning of the game to
take. Unlike the sunken road line that only provided a defense bonus
from certain directions, the town had a 360-degree defensive bonus.
Whatever way I moved on him he was going to have several rounds of
clear odds in his favor. If I could take that town that gave me the
toe hold I needed to move past the sunken road and open up on him with
nice clean shots. 

Having held onto an assault card for my left flank for a rainy day I
was now ready to exploit this newfound opportunity. Shifting units
here and there, moving a commander up to the front I unloaded across
the river into Stefan's infantry in the middle of the board. The
results weren't perfect, no kills, but I had hurt his units, the
closest one being reduced to just the flag. Stefan saw his fragile
position and on his turn made an about face and started marching back
towards his defenses. On my next turn I opened up with a full total
offensive card (one that I had held onto for most of the game) which
let me give orders to all of my units. More fire from across the river
raked into Stefan's center position, killing that lone flag bearer.
Now I needed just one more flag. 

On my right side I moved my entire line forward towards his defenses.
I was going to take a more cautious route but instead I saw that I was
in a race now for the town. All of my other units were unable to fire
due to the woods (having just entered them, or simply out of line of
sight) and so all I could muster was one fresh unit of infantry with
commander attached to step out from the woods and hopefully make an
imposition on Stefan's flight back to the town. I fired away and I
didn't do much damage but I did roll some flags which resulted in his
closest unit to the town having to retreat away and he plopped him
behind the sunken wall. 

On the next round my exposed unit took a lot of hits and was pushed
back, thankfully into some cornfields which provided cover. On my turn
I cycled the unit back behind the lines to ensure that this brittle
unit didn't get whacked by Stefan. 

The endgame was somewhat methodical. My units were closer to the town
now than Stefan's so I was able to enter unopposed and set up shop.
With this as my anchor I took the next several turns to provide a
broad line of pressure, all the while moving one of my units up and
past his sunken road line. Once this happened I rounded the bend and
blazed away with a fresh unit of infantry. He was already chewed up
and so I scored my final kill and the north was able to claim victory!

This was my second game of Battle Cry and I enjoyed it much more than
my first outing. The later scenarios with a variety of interesting
terrain features gave a much better feel over the first scenario in
the book. By having terrain advantages that broke the board up into
approaches that were sound and foolhardy it was able to convey much
more of the tactical feel of battle and made the card management more
interesting. I look forward to picking up my own copy of the game and
testing my wits on the battlefield. 

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--
Neil Carr
MetroGamers - Dallas/Fort Worth
http://www.earthsea.com/metrogamers/