Waterloo 200 opposed play

2015-06-30 19.32.36
1100 AM The French Prepare to attack!
2015-06-30 19.54.07
French crash into combat in the 2nd Impulse.
2015-06-30 20.21.19
Amazing flank maneuver catches Welly off guard.

2015-06-30 20.23.23
At the end of Turn 1 Wellington does not re charge pips, but sits pat. A little too smugly!
2015-06-30 20.29.35
Papolette holds with the help of Uxbridges ‘red dot’ reinforcements.
2015-06-30 20.43.25
Similarly the Le Haie Sainte forces are reinforced and counter attack. and in the far right, the Allies attack with some of Hills men
2015-06-30 20.43.42
Round two…of beers
2015-06-30 20.47.51
40% of the way to losing… the French are nipping away. But paying in Pips for Leader activation.
2015-06-30 20.47.59
Druout and Milhaud are running amok in the rear. Dual Leader activation put pressure on the Left flank. 1400-1600
2015-06-30 20.58.42
Bam..Wellington under pressure! D’Erlon is a jerk!
2015-06-30 20.58.47
Thankfully the French fail to realize just how weak the Chemin Croux is, as I peel units away to protect the left.
2015-06-30 21.11.27
CRAP! Welly under fire!
2015-06-30 21.20.15
Fricken grim. thank goodness Mon St Jean is 5 on defense. But now we cannot re org as French are in our space!!!!
2015-06-30 21.22.05
Turn 3… we have held. Here comes good old Blucher!
2015-06-30 21.24.33
If the guard had Tactical Leader support and or Arty, it might have been game over. But we force a stalemate.
2015-06-30 21.46.24
We fake to Placenoit and then go around and jam into Napoleon alone!
2015-06-30 21.46.30
Hill drives men to Le Belle Alliance
2015-06-30 21.53.53
Stalemate here.
2015-06-30 21.53.59
By capturing Le Belle Alliance, even tho it is now contested it counts as our VP location, meaning that the French will need to either finish off Wellington or Capture some VP locations. Uxbridge isolates the Guard attacking Wellington, effectively shutting them down.

2015-06-30 21.54.13

French concede. Touch and go for 4 turns! Very interesting and this opposed play exposed some interesting additional choices that need to be evaluated as you play. All the time you are faced as both players with the hard choices of activation versus stagnation, and using or not the initiative disk etc …. really thought provoking.

2015-06-30 21.55.41 2015-06-30 21.55.44

 

Bradys notes:

Kevin and I tried out the new Waterloo 200 yesterday at the Emerald Tavern. After about a half-hour of set-up and explanation, we made it through four turns of a five-turn game in about three hours. We played to conclusion as the Prussians sacked the VP town of Rossomme—with Napoleon in it! Congratulations, Kevin!

 

W200 is a block game with some standard-ish block-game mechanics with a big exception: combat is diceless. This gives the game a “Napoleon’s Triumph” impression as you count the factors going into the attack and compare it against the defender and their terrain to determine if you had any effect.

 

Movement is area to area and units are ordered by activating their corps commander. There is a “Strategic” option for ordering some units or bringing in reinforcements, but it gives your opponent “the Initiative”—which can be important. There is a Reorganization step when you pass play for the turn. This helps to “refresh” your leaders and bring up reinforcements, but takes a toll on the big commanders (Napoleon and Wellington).

 

In our game, I pushed hard to get around the Allied left by bringing in the Guard to assault Papolette, pin the forces at La Haye Sainte, and using a small force to cover Hugoumont. Three turns of assaulting Papolette got nowhere, other than masking the place while the French army swung around it and into the rear of the Allied lines. Combat in La Haye Sainte was also disastrous, though it also kept the British from attacking through there and also pinned down the Allied center. The Prussians also turned up on eastern edge of the board and made a bee-line for Plancenoit.

 

Eventually, units managed to push into Waterloo, pinning Wellington’s HQ but not making much headway. This is because towns and key pieces of terrain allow admit a limited number of units and offer defensive bonuses besides. The game starts with the Allies holding a lot of good terrain. It is possible to break through, but it did not happen in my game.

 

On the the fourth turn, Prussians captured Plancenoit and even drove cavalry into Rossomme, catching Napoleon in his carriage before he could make a break. Inflicted a lot of casualties upon one another, but I don’t think it was the near-run-thing, casualty-wise, that the actual battle was. Instead, both armies maneuvered into one another’s rear areas and made grabs for the enemy’s HQ. In our game, the Prussians pulled it off.

 

Good game!