Gloire: A rendezvous at Santa Catalina

[Mad Doc Morris]

Tonight we had our first game with the Gloire rules. Although we might have got some rules wrong, the game was real fun. We had a small patrol of a Grade 3 villain, who led a squad of Grade 1 fusiliers. They were opposed by a team of one Grade 3 and one Grade 2 heroes. All together they had to search for some items hidden in the area.
Here are some impressions:

Northern Spain, summer 1813: The old church of Santa Catalina shines resplendent in the evening sun. Some locals are returning to their homes on the road to Burgos. All seems to be peacefully...



But the commander of the nearby French fort, Capitaine de la Vére, has sent out patrols in search of a British Navy officer who's said to be on observation duty in order to prepare a landing attack in this area. De la Vére himself enters - accompanied by some voltigeurs recently arrived from France - the scene, only to...



... discover one of the French's most feared foes, Richard Sharpe & loyal Patrick Harper, are to rescue their officer just in time.



The voltigeurs dash forward to get into an advantageous position.



But some get distracted by the charms of Spanish mentality.



In the meantime, by systematic interrogation of the locals (each civilian representing an Encounter marker) Sharpe and Harper discover some pamphlets and intelligence papers (additional Victory points)...



... and eventually they reveal the missing officer who disguised himself as a cabbage trader. Although he seems rather unwilling to take his leave from this lovely place.



Finally the captain is 'gently' forced to take cover in the church, while Harper makes a stand against the - again attentive - voltigeurs...



... and Sharpe tries to come to grips with De la Vére who appears on the corner of the church in a great pincer movement.



The British captain sneaks out of the building through the backdoor and leaves the scene unobserved: "Fool ye buggers!"



All comes down to a final and stage-ready showdown under the church door....



... which sees De la Vére knocked unconscious and his soldiers cut and shot down to the last man.



Sharpe's & Harper's mission seems already accomplished, but they still have to care for the captain's safe return to his ship. So they race off in order to catch up with him, leaving the badly wounded but still breathening De la Vére behind. Hardly arisen from unconsciousness he trails into cover and awaits moonset to get to the next French outpost in cover of darkness. Cowering under an elderbush De la Vére swears bloody revenge for this insufferable humiliation...

[Captain Blood]

  Nice. Love the chapel... Is that scratchbuilt?

[Helen]

I loved the story line and photos, Thankyou!

[Operator5]

Excellent work! The set-up, the story, and presentation all rocked!

I hope we'll get to see more exploits from these memorable characters.

[odd duck]

that's a great game report , loved the terrain how did you get the look of moonlight without loosing the details in the photos?

[Mad Doc Morris]

Thank you all for your kind comments!
Only I'm wondering why this Vallejo varnish is called 'matt' if it's glossy like hell!

Cpt. Blood, for God's sake, no! - I'm far too awkward to build decent terrain. It's a Grand Manner model. Could spend all my money for their great stuff. The roofs are removable and there were actually two encounters in the church (one only to be reached by climbing up a shaky ladder). But the interior isn't finished yet - waiting for same wall paintings and pews - so no photos there. Santa Catalina will probably make another appearance in later, not necessarily Napoleonic, games.

Operator5, thank you and Pete for a great ruleset! We'll definitely play a sequel.

odd duck, the church made a cast shadow to it's backside, thus I only had to brighten the photo a bit. Actually night fell on the third turn (encounter), therefore all pics of the later stages should be night shots. But we decided not to play in darkness out of respect for the terrain and figs.

[Operator5]

Operator5, thank you and Pete for a great ruleset! We'll definitely play a sequel.

I look forward to the sequel.

I'm guessing you used the squad rules for the French? How did they work out for you?

[Mad Doc Morris]

The squad rules were the main part I think we didn't get right (perhaps because I hadn't the time to look it up properly before the game started). The close combat was a bit confusing, simply I didn't know when to choose which column, because I never got more than 2 models in base contact with an opposing hero. The rules say:

If a squad is attacking a solo model in close combat, it can only use the 5-6 column for its BLADE and WS

But do they have to be in base contact with the solo model? Or is it enough to have only part of the squad in contact? That would IMHO contradict the sentence:

If part of a squad moves and part attacks, only those that attack add their numbers to the attack.

As said, I was confused.

Otherwise it was a nice addition with a spare of paperwork. I only wished there was a blank sheet for squads - maybe a reasonable addition to the download section? 
By the way, the downloadable character sheets don't work right seemingly. If I add a stat the program automatically amends another one - e.g. filled in a 5 for MK, it completed the BD with a 6 or something like that. It also doubled my entries over the whole document, therefore I had a roster for Grades 3, 2 and 1 with the same name and the same stats not to be changed.
Don't think this is meant to be?

[Operator5]

Good points. Only one model of the squad has to be in base contact in order to get the squad bonus (as long as none of the rest of the squad shot or did something else).

The second part refers to having half the squad move and the other half shoot or half the squad charges and the other half shoots. It basically means you can't have part of the squad perform one action and the other perform another. So, in the case where the whole squad charges but only one gets into base contact, they all count as being in combat.

[PeteMurray]

Squad comments aside, what a great game idea! Thanks for sharing that with us!

I regularly get a hankering to do some Napoleonic Gloire, and really should get around to it.

[Mad Doc Morris]

I regularly get a hankering to do some Napoleonic Gloire, and really should get around to it.

Yes, pleeeeease! 

I offer any help I could give, should you just be willing to 'get around to it'. In the last weeks I've read up so many skirmish rules, even some especially written for the Napoleonic era, but nothing got that focussing on characters like Gloire (while being simple enough for what I call 'immediate action'). And that's what people really need to play out the stories from such well known books/films like Sharpe, Bolitho or Hornblower.

Besides, you may have noticed a certain similarity of the British Navy officer with Captain Crowe... erm, Aubrey. As soon as I've found some figs usable as French marines, there should be a second storyline for our future games...

[Aaron]

I'm in the middle of rereading the Aubrey/Maturin cycle right now and going out Friday to buy some Brit marines and sailors. A Gloire supplement would be very nice as I'm far too lazy to cook up my own.

Lovely report, figures, and terrain. I have friends dieing to do something similar if I ever get around to painting their figures.

[Mad Doc Morris]

Aaron, pack them up and come over to Germany. We should have plenty of games to be played. 

[Argonor]

I don't think I recognize that chapel on the Grand Manner site.

Would you mind telling me the article number?

[Mad Doc Morris]

I don't mind, sir. It's the "village church" (LS23), quite hidden on the 5th page of their Latin/Hispanic range.