David R. Moody - Apr 20, 2006 2:22 pm (#1107 Total: 1107) "Life is that unfortunate time between wargames."--Larry Leadhead Cross-posted from On the Table, a replay of Grossbeeren, which I played with Joe Oppenhemier last night: Had another go at Grossbeeren, from Four Lost Battles, last night at Endgame in Oakland, CA. This time it was face to face; I had solitaired it before, and intend to solitaire all four battles, plus NES Dresden, assuming the Emperor doesn't show up at the Katzbach. The first time I played, the French were able to take both objective villages, Grossbeeren and Blankenfelde, fairly quickly, and rack up VP for them through the morning of the second day, when the Prussians took Grossbeeren back. Still, the French eked out a Tactical Victory. The outcome of our game was totally different, however. It started out the same, with VII Corps marching toward Grossbeeren (March Order). Bertand, however, could not get initiative to save his life, despite being rated a '3'; I haven't rolled this badly in a long time. His men got to the edge of the woods south of Blankenfeld and then stopped for most of the day. Waiting for orders, reconnoitering, tired, whatever. Meanwhile, Bulow woke up early from his pregame inactivity (Joe got him going on the second turn) and managed to get one more infantry unit into Grossbeeren before he too sucuumbed to the slows. Reynier and the VII Corps arrived and a furious, bloody fight raged for the town, part of it in thunderstorms (we each played a Thunderstorm card during the game). Reynier and Bulow both got captured, and their corps were savaged, thanks to lots of Ar* results that became Sk results in the town which in turn became Ex results. Truly nasty. Once again, Oudinot and the XII Corps tried to come up to help and once again they got diverted thanks to 'Cancel One Enemy Formation', though at least the almost totally useless Bavarians showed up to hold Neubeeren. By early afternoon, Reynier's battered corps had seized Grossbeeren, but couldn't get initiative to actually take the VP hex (and couldn't advance into it, as they and their Prussian foes had passed their loss threshold and were Demoralized). So the battle settled into a lull in mid afternoon, with both sides trying to regroup, the Prussians succeeding, more troops arriving, and Bertrand partially extricating his head from his behind and getting moving, as the rain started again. His Italians took frightful losses (more damned Ex results) and went Demoralized pretty fast (IV Corps doesn't seem to have a lot of staying power), but nonetheless managed to savage Taunetzin's (sp) Prussians and throw them out of Blankenfelde by the end of the day. At Grossbeeren, Bulow (or, rather, his replacement) reorganized enough of his troops to retake Grossbeeren, and did so, mashing up Reynier's corps even more thanks to more Ex results and locking ZOCs that forced me to counterattack. Arrighi arrived early and threw in his cavalry against Bulow's troopers west of Grossbeeren, throwing them back, but he was unable to help the Saxons hold the town. And so the battle ended, a very bloody day indeed. Interestingly, both of us had 'Second Day of Battle' (Joe had two) but didn't play it--Joe because he rightly figured he had the battle won on the first day; me because with VII Corps smashed and no decent troops available I didn't see how sticking around to get slapped around some more would help. At any rate, when we counted up the losses and VP, Joe had won a Strategic Victory with better than a 3:1 advantage. Serves me right for backing the Royalists last week in Liberte. My dice were cursed. If I had been able to get Bertand moving sooner and taken Blankenfelde earlier, or if Ney had shown up . . . c'est la guerre. We both had a blast, and it only took about 2.5 hours. We'll probably play one of the other battles at some point. For now, Katzbach set up at home. Maybe the Emperor will arrive to lead his troops to death and glory against Marshal Vorwarts . . .