Six of us from the local club sat down and ran a couple of small games using the Gå På rules set on Sunday. We have been wanting to play some Great Northern War games and have been shopping around for a rules set.
We ran two very small games back to back, with different players trying their hand in turn. By small I mean about a dozen 15mm units and two generals to a side on a 4'x4' table. Each game was an "open battle" pitting a Swedish force against a combined Russian and Saxon group. Each side had two players, each controlling a wing.
Yes, this was an extremely small game, but it let us get to see the mechanics of the system in action.
The first game was a decisive Swedish victory caused by a unit of hard charging Swedish cavalry rushing downhill and sweeping away two unfortunate Russian infantry regiments. This was enough to demoralize the small Russian force, which led to a rapid collapse of the entire allied army.
In this first game, we had made the mistake of just randomly rolling for each forces' two generals, keeping whatever the dice handed us. (the army you have, rather than the one you want as they say…) But this turned out to be not much fun for our first Russian player who was saddled with a poor quality general with a "2" leadership. This meant that in the first game he got almost no orders off successfully and his troops roamed around leaderless until the Swedes put them out of their misery! For the second game, we picked some more capable commanders….
The second game was a much more satisfying slugfest, with my Saxons using their superior firepower to break up the Swedish advance in their quarter. Counter-attacks ,after the enemy was shot up, by a battalion of grenadiers and some Saxon cavalry finished that Swedish wing off. Sadly, while the Saxons were covering themselves in glory, their Russian allies were being routed by the other half of the Swedish force! The result, amazingly, was a mutual morale failure and a bloody draw.
We quite enjoyed the rules set and found the command and control mechanics to be very engaging. A few more test plays will tell for sure, but I think my local group has found their new favorite game for Malburian era battles. I for one am pleased. I wanted to like this set, and from what I have seen after a couple of readings and these test games, we have a winner!
The highlight for me would have to be my Saxon Grenadier battalion shooting two Swedish battalions into disorder (and one a step loss!) before joining forces with a regiment of Dragoons to see both of them off! But were all amused by the dice produced antics of an unfortunate Russian artillery battery in the first game. At one point, due to freakishly high uncommanded movement roll, this battery somehow decided that limbering up and rolling closer to the enemy would be a good idea. Clearly they had second thoughts as the following turn we rolled up the "artillery drivers desert" random event, which left the Russian brigade watching in horror as their artillery support headed for the hills!
This all being said, I still have one important point I'm not clear on. After the "Receiving casualties" roll is made at the end of the shooting phase, do you remove the casualty markers that have been accumulated this turn and start over next turn? Or do the casualty markers remain in place from turn to turn and build up? The rules are unclear on this point, so we removed them in our play tests. How do other Ga Pa players handle this?
Thanks!
