Tuesday, March 06, 2018

General D'Armee game played French vs British

Game at Stephens using General D'Armee rules.
Stephen used his Peninsula British and I fielded a French opponent.

We used points system at 2000pts although turns out Brigadiers are now costed (in update) so both were foelding 2300pts
We had 4 Brigades each being 3 Infantry and 1 Cavalry and both had 2 Batteries of guns so fairly similar (British had 15 units French 16).

Stephen had set up the terrain beforehand to save time.

Been a while since we used GDA but both found it was a fast playing game with good period flavour and we had only a few queries that were easily resolved.
It has a fairly arbitrary Command System (not unlike Black Powder in some ways) with Brigades being Hesitant on 1-1 on a D6 although one can get re-rolls by use of ADCs.
The availability of ADCs is however also arbitrary (ie dice dependent) but it all works overall.
Whilst no strict orders system as in Gen De Brigade/Over The Hills/Principles of War the Line Of Battle and Re-Deployment rules effectively make 'on the fly' maneuvering pretty much impossible anyhow.

I of course prefer some level of chaos/inertia in my games and feel the rules do generate a nice narrative (not as dramatic as FOB but close).
Like Black Powder the Brigade Morale rules can be brutal as a single Routed/Destroyed unit (or 2 Retreated units) forces a Brigade to Falter.
And as I found today even the loss of a Skirmish unit can cause the Falter.
We both had several extreme dice rolls (12 on 2D6) though of course balance feel in favour of the dice demon.
This saw a British Brigadier cut in two and a British Artillery Battery cause crippling causalities to a Veteran French column.
My poor dice seemed to be reserved for generation of ADCs (or more accurately lack of) and then seeing several Brigades become Hesitant !

But a fun game overall with a slick rule set although I still think Artillery needs limited as it could dominate a game at this level if Batteries too numerous..




French centre









French right











Wellington loves his central hill locations








British right









French advance on right









French Conscripts advance on left










And central Brigade moves forward










Skirmishing battle on right










Later on right with French assault repulsed










French Cavalry reserve unleashed (eventually) and then stuck Hesitant !








Central French Brigade has been Demoralised with remnants forced back


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