"Maurice - First Game Impressions" Topic

I've posted my first impressions on my blog.

Hopefully of interest…

Cheers,

John
Wargaming.info

So was it fun? Your review is very business-like.

Oh, is it? Yes it was – and it certainly was a bit of a nail biter for most of it too…

(P.S. I have added a short addendum to that effect to my blog post).

Excellent report!

Very good review, thank you for sharing.

Raglan

Sounds interesting. I'd like to give the rules a try.

Thank you for sharing your impressions, Mycenius! That was a pretty comprehensive assessenmt of the "lite" version, (down to your acknowledging that both of you may have been over-aggressive), providing a much better grasp of the rules than from merely reading the pdf.

My only question would be about your suggestion that the system should work well for pontoon-building scenarios: Since that (in the Grantian understanding) is a continuous operation, carried out while fighting goes on around it, I can't quite figure how a card-driven game with the need to carefully shift one's focus around the tabletop would help?

My only question would be about your suggestion that the system should work well for pontoon-building scenarios: Since that (in the Grantian understanding) is a continuous operation, carried out while fighting goes on around it, I can't quite figure how a card-driven game with the need to carefully shift one's focus around the tabletop would help?

@Musketier on the March – Sorry, I meant principally from the game mechanic of being able to insert extra cards with those types of actions in the deck and/or treat the Pontoon or other Engineering task as a 'Force' and activate by usual command span. It then make sit a choice for the player how much focus he puts into that task (e.g. does he leave his battle line inert while frantically building the bridge as fast as he has the cards?)…

I was mainly musing in the Charles Grant and C. S. Grant-esk style about fun scenarios rather than 100% historically accurate stuff… Example a defending force deployed on table with the attackers advance guard just arriving and in their rear they have a river near their baseline they are frantically building a pontoon or repairing an existing bridge (or setting demolitions on good bridges) that must be completed before they can withdraw across – or even there is a small town and they have a detachment of Gendarmes frantically searching the houses for some miscreant or political rebel or such – classic Table-Top-Teaser type stuff where one side is trying to complete a task or two while still fighting a conventional battle… The cards provide a viable way to incorporate these things with some flexibility without having to fudge basic game mechanics, etc, to get a balanced game effect…

Thanks, I get it now. Yes the troops assigned to some special task would definitely constitute a separate Force. Those Teasers are what I'm planning to game as well, hence my interest.

With special task cards though, wouldn't the risk be that the opponent could deny success simply by holding onto some of them? Another option might be to make building (or indeed mining) bridges an alternative use of the "Bombard" card (on the grounds that officers and sappers who might otherwise help to lay the guns would be busy with the bridge, their wagons given priority access to the site over artillery caissons, etc.). Alternatively, a crucial action could also be defined as occurring on a "March" card.Hopefully the full set will include guidance about such things…

Oh, and sincere compliments on your blog Mycenius!

Many actions don't rquire a special card. Most cards can be used to activate a force to charge/march/bombard/rally ro for something else. Just make engineering work another type of activation. The player still has to decide to have the engineers work or respond to enemy moves another way.

Many actions don't rquire a special card. Most cards can be used to activate a force to charge/march/bombard/rally ro for something else. Just make engineering work another type of activation. The player still has to decide to have the engineers work or respond to enemy moves another way.

Yes exactly – @Musketier on the March, @vtsaogames beat me to the response.

…but I'd add in addition to having an Engineering task as an "Action" you'd have the choice to just pay activation as normal (by command span distance – an incentive to keep your C-in-C nearby) or either by setting a fixed amount to activate (e.g. activating your Engineer force always costs "8" regardless of Command Span) or creating a custom Notable to command the Engineers (who instinctively makes activation easier or who may have a special ability to aid the task).

Getting back to the original point:

With special task cards though, wouldn't the risk be that the opponent could deny success simply by holding onto some of them?

Yes – but that'd all be part of the game – you might say you need to play a Pontoon Event Card 4 times to complete a bridge, and you'd only put say 3 in the deck (since you can reshuffle the discards up to 2 times during the course of the game you'd not want to put 4 cards in the deck unless you wanted an option to complete it very quickly – although that wouldn't be untoward given the abstract time in Maurice). If your opponent held one or more that's fine – it might slow the bridge but it'd seriously hamper his command actions too – and such cards would have good command span activation values (like 8 to 12 or even 16) so he'd be hard pressed to resist using them to activate his forces eventually (unless he was being especially passive and just maintaining a large hand by allowing you all the initiative)…? At some stage he/she would run out of cards and be forced to use them – and there are occasionally cards that can cause your opponent to discard or lose card(s) – so I wouldn't see such event cards with that risk (of being held by the opponent to deny) as too much of an issue…

…in fact you could even have (in the Pontoon example) the opponent play cards to retard your bridge-building, and just have more cards in the pack to compensate (within reason of course – adding 10-20 custom cards would significantly change the card dynamics).

Oh, and sincere compliments on your blog Mycenius!

Thanks @Musketier on the March, and the chaps above too for their kind comments…

In case anyone is interested:

Maurice – Second Game & More Thoughts

Our third foray was a historical refight which I think warranted a new thread: Blenheim 1704 – A Maurice Historical Refight.