Robert Gamble  - Dec 23, 2007 10:49 am (#21291 Total: 21291)  
"Fallen in war, we belong to history. Fallen in war, sleep six feet
below. Heart of the brave, cannnot bring me back to life. Fallen in war,
still brothers in arms," (Sabaton, "Purple Heart") 

Yesterday a friend and I played "Marengo", a game in the Napoleonic
Battle Series by "The Gamers/MMP". 

My friend knows Napoleonics. Me, not so much. A few years ago we tried
the same game with the 2.1 rules and were not impressed. The game felt
confusing (there were some areas in the rules which we termed 'black
holes', usually centering around events happening with stacked cavalry
and infantry on the attack/defense.. we could put all the energy
possible into figuring out the right answers based on the rules, but no
answers would come out). Additionally, it just didn't feel right in some
parts. We would have termed it a personal "valiant failure" because it
was a game we really wanted to like given the potential of the "orders"
rules. 

Fast forward to today, one day after our playing of the game yesterday.
We don't have to just "want" to like it anymore, the new 3.0 rules make
this a very fun game system Almost every time we saw a rule that
initially seemed odd (no fire from infantry - they only use close
combat, the rules for close combat in villages, and some other rules),
once he thought about it for a couple of seconds said "No, that makes a
lot of sense." This compared to our first playing where he seemed to say
"This makes NO sense in Napoleonics. every 30 minutes" 

I wouldn't say that the rules are a model of clarity, but they aren't
poorly written and we were able to use them to learn the game quite
nicely. The game would benefit from an Index, and one day after
mentioning it, they seem to be making it a priority, plus we got answers
back on questions as we were playing (most of them answered by the
rulebook which we just didn't notice on reading it). 

A quick recap of the action. We played "Ott Turns the French Right" (a 7
turn scenario). I had the Austrians and looking at the situation, I
thought it would be pretty easy. Sure, my troops were poor quality but I
had a LOT of them, and more importantly, a large concentration of
unblooded troops were across the main barrier, a river and ready to
swing south onto a relatively exposed French flank. 

Then my divisions started rolling attack stoppages (basically each
division has separate orders, and if they're "engage" orders, they roll
every turn to see if they keep going or have to be issued new orders. I
had to roll above a 3 in most cases on 2 dice, and managed to fail for
two of the four divisions with orders to engage at the start of the
scenario, over the first few turns). 

Plus, my die rolling wasn't particulary good AND my best cavalry force
(E-Div) ended up with distorted orders the first time Melas (Army
Commander) gave them some. This means that the player has to roll each
turn and get a 5 or a 6 just to DISCOVER that the orders are
misunderstood, after which the command then has to be issued new orders
all over again. Melas didn't discover that "E-Div" was arguing over
whether the attack orders were towards Moscow, London, or Washington,
DC, until one turn before the scenario ended, thus leaving E-Div out of
the fight. 

Fortunately enough, Monnier's force for the French, the only one with
engage orders and the force that could probably have turned the battle
into a complete disaster for the Austrians, also rolled an attack
stoppage on the first turn of the game, while Napoleon had trouble
getting his consular guard to do anything for a couple of turns. 

On the other side of the river, the various attempts to cross the
obstacle and assault Marengo failed miserably, primarily due to a charge
by Murat's cavalry with cleared the two hexes of Austrian forces that
had managed to cross. It came at a price though as Murat was
injured/killed and the cavalry only recovered from being blown within a
couple of turns of the scenario end. 

For the the last few turns, there was a lull in the battle as the
Austrian attacks had all failed miserably and there were two groups of
confused, wounded Austrian forces all attempting to recover and form a
new battle plan from the rather inefficient Melas (who could really only
create one "engage" order a turn), while the French consolidated their
gains and began to think about counterattacking. 

This might have been the thing we liked most about the game, the
enforced lulls. Because of the order system, the French were unable to
take immediate advantage of the holes in the Austrian lines, and
disorder in the Austrian forces because the French were under defend
orders and would have had to receive new orders to move forward. 

The game ended as a French Minor Victory. 

It was a blast to play.