My blog about my wargaming activities. I collect a lot of 15mm miniatures for the American War of Independence and so collect a lot of rules for this period. I started miniatures with Napoleonics, so I have a number of armies in 6mm and 15mm figures for skirmishing. I have15mm WW II figures that I use for Flames of War, Memoir '44, and someday, Poor Bloody Infantry. Finally there is my on-again, off-again relationship with paper soldiers that I sometimes write about.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Command & Colors: Napoleonics - Vimiero

At the last club meeting, Don, Richard, and I got together at the Murr and played a little Command & Colors: Napoleonics. I am starting to get a bit more comfortable with the differences in this game compared to other Richard Borg games. In particular I like the Combined Arms Attack rule. I am still mulling over whether I like a unit's combat power going down with the loss of blocks. When I first played Borg's games it seemed obvious that it should be this way, not the way he had it. But over time I convinced myself that the original way was fine. Now he has switched it to the way we originally though it should be. Go figure! :)

The Vimiero scenario (see the figure for the map) is a tough one for the French. The British have one more Command card than the French and are setup in defensive terrain. Add to it the impassable terrain dividing the French right flank from the rest of the board and you have a tough scenario for the French to win.

Don and I played the first game, with me as the French. I initially drew the Short Supply card, allowing me to send one of his units all the way back to his baseline. I played that card first, sending his artillery ensconced on the center hill back behind the Rifles, opening up the center ridge to attack. This allowed me to pour everything from the French center and left against the central ridge line. I was lucky from the start. At one point I had two of Don's units in square and my cavalry deep into his left flank. Eventually I squeaked out a 6-4 victory, but it was tough.

The second game was between Don and Richard, with Don being the French this time. Again, the ridge in the center served as the focal point of the attacks, but the cavalry seemed to make less of an impression. The winning card play was when the British pulled out a Rally and Don and I discovered that it was just a little different from Memoir '44's Medics and Mechanics or Command & Colors: Ancients' Rally card. With a critical British Light Infantry unit coming back to life, along with beefing up several others, Don's units were too depleted to take on revitalized units. This time the British won, 6-4.

As I was writing this battle report up, however, I was struck with not quite knowing how to show the battle. These are board games with several turns of moves, none of which are typically recorded. Taking pictures does not help much (as you cannot see the type of unit the blocks represent), as I have tried this in the past. The picture of the map is from the VASSAL module and does not show much detail, and certainly none of the details. I suppose I could doctor up the image, like I do with my DBA battle reports, and show arrows where the action occurred, but to be honest I don't remember that much detail. :-/

5 comments:

  1. Battle Chronicler would be perfect.... have a look here:

    www.battlechronicler.com/

    ...been using it for ages - just the best (free) tool for recording battles easily...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Steve. I wrote about Battle Chronicler twice:

    http://daleswargames.blogspot.com/2010/11/battling-with-battle-chronicler.html

    http://daleswargames.blogspot.com/2010/11/dba-battle-report-using-battle.html

    The problem is not one of picture manipulation - VASSAL is far better at that than BC - but of recording the game while you play, without the action of recording becoming intrusive. I think this is a common problem with recording any game.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah - you are indeed correct - the only way I've found to do that is to actually use Battle Chronicler to play the game.... great when your opponent is 300 miles away, but clearly not good when you want to push some real lead about....

    ReplyDelete
  4. I played Vimiero with my friend Brian on Wednesday night. I was able to win as the French 6-1, but I jumped all over some British units on the French right flank early in the game, and like you I sent the British center artillery packing to the rear on the 2nd card play. We are really enjoying playing C&C:N! Can't wait to get the Spanish and the rest of the products when they come out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Re Waiting for the Spanish: I agree wholeheartedly! I hope the Russians or Austrians are next though, after the Spanish. I would really like to see a major Central Powers nation.

    ReplyDelete

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Huachuca City, Arizona, United States
I am 58 yrs old now. I bought a house in Huachuca City, AZ working for a software company for the last three years. To while away the hours I like to wargame -- with wooden, lead, and sometimes paper miniatures -- usually solo. Although I am a 'rules junkie', I almost always use rules of my own (I like to build upon others' ideas, but it seems like there is always something "missing" or "wrong").