Dear List
The next battle in the Imagi-Nation Campaign will be "The Battle of Chimichanga." Once again this will coincidentally test some aspects of the campaign system, particularly the effects on table top, of the interplay of resources in the campaign.
The game came about with the chivalrous and totally unexpected intervention by Sweeta under Dennis Largesse to come to the rescue of the much put upon Ikean Empire, commanded by Ian Richardson. Dennis sent an army and three Brigades to Ikea, not to ATTACK it, but to help DEFEND IT. In this he used his Army strategic unit and his special brigade, the Siege Brigade, to invade Spam, the country of Mike Lorenzo. He also sent two brigades to help defend Ikea in any attack from another player. This is fortuitous for Billy Smith made just such an attack with his country of Flounce and these Sweetan Brigades will face the might of Flounce, who will have an Army and a Brigade..
More of that next time.
One point, there will be no game at my place in December. After canvassing the players, the problems of working one in during the Holiday season is just too difficult and I will be holding the game sometime in early January
Anyway, back to the game,
This is going to be an interesting game, again because of the Strategic Options involved.
For Sweeta the use of his Siege Brigade deprives Spam of using his fortress to blunt the attack. Doing so would send the fortress to the Bank and be ineffective in stopping the attack as a fortress would to any other combination of Army and Brigade.or any attack whatsoever. The Siege Brigade does count in battle but only as heavy artillery which makes it still a formidable field force. Int his case however the siege guns (4) could not move once placed on the table top and so are of limited utility.
Mike, in Spam, COULD counter the attack with an army and a brigade. He has them in his hand. They are recovered from the bank. However stating "He had other plans for them." He has determined to not use them and thus, instead, meet the attack with a Single Brigade, which would be a gross power differential of 1 to 4. One for the Spam Brigade and four for the Sweetan Army and a Brigade.
There are several things to say about this. In addition to picking a single Brigade, Mike has chosen a Headquarters Brigade, which will give him ALL the officers that an Army would notmally have, but only one Dragoon Regiment, one Elite Regiment, one light gun, and one light wagon. That is a huge disparity and Mike has often toyed with the idea of using a headquarters Brigade with an Army because of the extra benefits having double the officers would bring. In Oh God! Anything But a Six, officers may use their abilities (1 to 4) to add to any normal "stat" of a unit, thus raising it up to 5. It can never be more than 5. There must always be a chance of failure (just as you cannot lower a units stat to less than 1, there must always be a chance of success). But with all those officers they could add to each stat of the unit, from movement to fire, thus raising it say from 1 to 5 for firing, which makes it a sort of "super unit." So by judicious use of officers he could raise his Dragoon unit from a 3 for move, 2 for charge, 2 for Rally, 2 for "To Stand" and 1 for fire to 5,5,5,5,5 for each. The range of the unit would remain one and cannot be increased by officer agility. To give you an example this would be pretty much making the unit as powerful as if it were in permanent fortifications.
It also throws a challenge to me in that being so outmatched (1 to 4) I must choose the terrain from the most defensible group of maps, which is reserved for such cases. As there will be so few defending units, I have also decided to not use all six tables to make a 6 x 9 table top but use four to make a 6 x 6, with very defensible terrain. This is discharging my duties as a facilitator umpire for the game. Regardless of the strategic situation my job is to arrange battles so that they have some chance for both sides to win in some way, or at least make a credible defense. This was the case in the last battle of Froggieboddom where two brigades of the Neverneverlands held off a vast army of Ikeans. and where both got a victory point.
This brings us to the truly dangerous part of the game. Victory in a battle goes to the side which has the most tactical victory points. These can be from four sources, all of which are signified by small business sized card token placed by the combattants on the table top or garnered through actions in the game. These are strategic points, which are placed on various areas, and special units which are the camp, headquarters, and line of retreat of both armies. In addition if you eliminate an enemy unit in the game you get a chance to roll a 5 or a 6 and if you do you get one "skull and crossbones" token signifying that unit lost was a critically important unit. There are also a token if you accomplish certain actions in the game. These latter aren't used much, though I may add them for this game.
Anyway the superiority in Victory chits held by one side over the other is the number of STRATEGIC VICTORY points you get in the campaign. So for example if in a battle one side has eight victory points and the other five, that is a difference of three, and that side with the three points superiority gets three STRATEGIC Victory points.
Now… in this battle if the Sweetans win, and sweep the field, they will have the three Strategic Victory Locations of their own, plus their special units of camp, headquarters, and line of retreat. If they manage to take the same items from the Spammamians, then that will give them TWELVE Victory tokens to 0, and that means the Sweetans will get TWELVE Strategic Victory points. If this happened, then as one player in the game (Sweeta) would have 10 or more Victory points and he would have a total of 13 total (he has one point already), and not only would he end the game, but he would win the campaign in a single battle!
Perhaps but…..
There is one more battle to be fought. This is where Billy of Flounce is attacking Ikea with an Army and a Brigade. At that point Ikea will have no resources left except his fortress, however he does have a fortress.! If Ian plays his fortress then he would frustrate the Flounceasian attack and Sweeta would win. If on the other hand he allows Sweeta to use his two Brigades to defend him from the Flounceaseans, there Is only a chance that Sweeta will gain more victory points, but there is a large chance that he will lose and Bill will gain points. Now… Billy already has six points towards his total, so that would mean that if he got 8 points in victory (not an untoward possibility if he displays genius) he could have 14 victory points to Sweeta's 13, which would mean not only the campaign would end, but that Billy and not Dennis would be the winner. It is interesting how the strategic interplays with the tactical and one battle can turn things around.
Perhaps but….
Let's not forget Lorenzo. Mike is a crafty player and he is I think plotting something. One of the things I always allow players to do is suggest or try special actions or ploys and tactics not in the rules. I generally take a dim view of anachronisms and don't allow people to do such things like designing tanks even ala Leonardo in a game, but special ploys and politics are always encouraged. Even if, though Mike is "testing" the rules to see if they can be broken which is a playtesting skill that is invaluable. I have no idea what is in Mike's mind, as I said, he is a crafty fellow, but I suspect he may be planning a semi-political action, a truce or some sort of battlefield armistice. We shall see. This unexpected is what makes the game fun for both sides and the umpire.
At the same time I have no idea what is in Dennis' mind when confronted by these possibilities. His intervention on behalf of Ikea was a complete surprise as well.
Otto
ponders nirvana.