Last month we fought the first six turns of this fantastic Franco Prussian War battle and just flat ran out of time. Story here: TMP link
We left things set up and returned to Uncle Bob's den a month later for the second half.
Well this went down to the wire. The French captured Mars la Tour on the last turn. The Prussians only held a single town: Vionville which was not enough to pin the French in Metz. We declared a French victory and broke out the wine and cheese. But it was darn close.
Game was played with some minor tinkering with the rules to account for a 13 foot table and 28mm troops. Because of the larger figures the stands functionally occupied 4 times the footprint of the intended 1 X 1 inch stands preferred in the rules which contemplate 6mm or 15mm figures. We kept the movement distances as well as weapon ranges the same as specified in the rules.
Because we could not bring enough weapons to bear ( a brigade in the rules is about 6 inches wide in line – ours was almost a foot) we had to enhance the weapons by 1 fire factor per base at all ranges.
Because the combats were almost all evenly matched we tossed two dice instead of one to obtain a greater possible variation in the differential calculation. We also modified the spent rule and gave the French more commanders but with only a three inch command radius. To modify the effect of these French enhancements we added 7 more guns to the Prussian side. Without doubt this altered the dynamics of the game somewhat where units lasted "longer" before going spent but the firefights and melees were more deadly.
We had about 8 players going at it and the modifications were designed to keep everybody in the game for all 12 turns without a player's command prematurely evaporating. That said the game was just exciting as could be. By the second half of the game all units were on the board and it was mayhem.
The French "passive" rule was totally realistic ( the Imperial French in reality moved liked slugs and the generals were motivated by fear of failure which meant doing nothing ) and there was much cursing when French units were frozen. The Prussians were on speed pills and feared nothing. The towns were a tough nut to crack: unless lightly defended you need to attack from multiple sides to have any chance of overwhelming the defenders.
This was the first game we played over two sessions because it was so much fun. These rules are just outstanding and are highly recommended. Perhaps next time we will count 1 stand in 28mm scale as 2 BBB 1" stands and play the rules without as much tinkering.
Here is a
link
to ALL Photos; the last two images of the players are actually videos:
AND here is a selection of the photos :
Here is the Death Ride:
the shells on the black stand is a low on ammo marker