Gaming in the Age of Corona

Last week, Bob & I were able to get in a game the day before our governor imposed a "shelter-in-place/quarantine" order due to the Corona Virus. We set up the "Along the Danube" scenario for Blucher, French vs Austrians. Below are some shots from our game.

 The French army deployed for the game. 

 The Austrian army deployed. It may not be clear in the photo, but the group on the left is on top of a large hill. The red disks in the background are objective markers. French control of both would cause the game to end immediately with a French victory.

 Another view of the Austrians deployed on the central hill. Bob outlined the crest of the hill with chalk.

 An Austrian Grenz brigade deployed in the far wood top left, and a view of the French far-left flank in the foreground (the wooden stick was the left flank table boundary). Note the labels on each brigade. We marked off losses directly on the labels using pens. However during the game, a better way of tracking casualties became evident that we will try in the future, namely casualty counters or markers instead of using pencil/marker to track casualties.

 An Austrian infantry corps defending behind a stream.

 The French slowly advance. The main error in our game was not using reserve movement. With infantry moving at 2 base widths maximum every turn, you can see in the photo above how many turns it will take to close with the enemy at the other side of the photo. If the French had used reserve movement, they could have advanced up to 12 base widths, or nearly all the way to the other side of the photo in a single move. A lesson learned. Reserve movement strategy is something players need to strategize about when deploying their troops in Blucher.

 Artillery fire: A French battery fires on an Austrian infantry brigade. I made the yellow template to assist with determining the firing unit center and 45 degree shooting/charging angles.

 Another view of the battle.

 The Grenzers are hiding in the woods from French Hussars & artillery.

 The French "Marechal d' Empire" urging his troops forward.

 The French slowly getting closer.

French infantry & cavalry. The infantry has a better look in two ranks of stands. If we want to do a larger battle, like Austerlitz, we can use a single stand of infantry per brigade if we do not have enough troops using 2 stands.

Unfortunately, the game turned into an artillery duel. The Austrians came off the worst, forced to retiring two infantry brigades whose elan had dropped to 1 each by artillery hits. Retiring a unit before all of it's elan is gone is a way of avoiding the unit being counted as destroyed for victory purposes. By the end of our game, nothing decisive happened. Most of the French guns had nearly expended their ammo, while the Austrian guns had a couple rounds/gun left. We will try it again after the quarantine is lifted.