Grossbeeren, August 23, 1813

Started by MengJiao, September 27, 2022, 08:46:53 AM

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MengJiao


  It's a little odd how quickly things went downhill for Napoleon after he lost half a million men in Russia in 1812.  After all, Stendal got back to Paris at about the same time as Napoleon and was surprised
when no one else turned up.  Never mind, come summer of '13, Napoleon had a central position in Germany stretching from Silesia to Hamburg and 400,000 troops with plenty of artillery to man it.  But not
very many horses and not much food or fodder.

  And then weird things started to go wrong.  Marshal Oudinot heads for Berlin with thousands of Saxon, Wuerttemburger, Italian, Bavarian and French troops, forced marches around the defensive lines put up by ex-Marshal Bernadotte (now the Crown Prince of Sweden) and collides with some very scrappy, ill-trained Prussians who have lots of horses and even more artillery:

   

MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on September 27, 2022, 08:46:53 AM

  It's a little odd how quickly things went downhill for Napoleon after he lost half a million men in Russia in 1812.  After all, Stendal got back to Paris at about the same time as Napoleon and was surprised
when no one else turned up.  Never mind, come summer of '13, Napoleon had a central position in Germany stretching from Silesia to Hamburg and 400,000 troops with plenty of artillery to man it.  But not
very many horses and not much food or fodder.

  And then weird things started to go wrong.  Marshal Oudinot heads for Berlin with thousands of Saxon, Wuerttemburger, Italian, Bavarian and French troops, forced marches around the defensive lines put up by ex-Marshal Bernadotte (now the Crown Prince of Sweden) and collides with some very scrappy, ill-trained Prussians who have lots of horses and even more artillery:



  By 5pm, Buelow has repulsed one attack, but two more French (or mostly French allies) corps are coming up.  He has reinforcements  arriving a day early (good card pull that one), but
it seems unlikely he can hang on to Grossbeeren long enough for the reinforcements (the Russian xiv corps) to save him from being overwhelmed by 3 enemy corps:


MengJiao

Quote from: MengJiao on September 27, 2022, 01:00:05 PM


  By 5pm, Buelow has repulsed one attack, but two more French (or mostly French allies) corps are coming up.  He has reinforcements  arriving a day early (good card pull that one), but
it seems unlikely he can hang on to Grossbeeren long enough for the reinforcements (the Russian xiv corps) to save him from being overwhelmed by 3 enemy corps:

  The French do have some horses -- in Arrighi's III Cavalry Corps for example...anyway Buelow and the Russian Reinforcements are slowly getting pushed back in the gathering Dusk:


W8taminute

I really admire your patience Meng.  What I mean is you're willing to play so many board wargames which means you need to read a lot of rulebooks. 

I so desperately want to play board wargames myself however I'm finding my aged brain just can't absorb and retain rules like I could when I was a teen. 

Dammit!  Youth is really is wasted on the young.
"You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

Romulan Commander to Kirk

MengJiao

Quote from: W8taminute on September 28, 2022, 03:01:52 PM
I really admire your patience Meng.  What I mean is you're willing to play so many board wargames which means you need to read a lot of rulebooks. 

I so desperately want to play board wargames myself however I'm finding my aged brain just can't absorb and retain rules like I could when I was a teen. 

Dammit!  Youth is really is wasted on the young.

  It's funny.  When I was a teen, I had a terrible time with rules of any kind.  I've gradually evolved a lot of techniques for sticking to rules pretty closely.  BUT I will say many things have
improved about war game rules.
The rules are better organized and lots of rules are pretty much the same over a range of games PLUS when you find a series like OSG Library of Napoleonic
battles, you can evolve your understanding of the rules along with the system.  I've already been through 3 versions of the rules and 2 versions of the cards for this series.  The changes are
pretty minor, but they highlight the rationale and impact of the rule structures.
Plus I play solitaire so any foul-ups confuse only me and I can usually work out house-rule type solutions.