A nice & silly skirmish game set during Napoleon's Egyptian adventure.
Flatpack (aka Bob) played the French, while Donkeymilkman (aka Sam) took the British.
The background.
During Napoleon's adventure in Egypt the following little known incident occurred.
A french unit under the command of Capt. I Feltour is pursuing an old map that
promises Ancient Treasures. Some locals, encouraged by rifle butts & kicks are doing the hard digging.
Word has gotten to Lt. Harry Honupp who is determined that the Frenchies are noit going to get any benefits from this.
The French start with two digs (trenches) with Capt. Feltouur & half a section at one & Lt. Rusty Rhenoux at the other with the other half a section.
As they have been there a while they already have some items loaded onto their carts.
(NB as this is a rushed event & there are no experts on hand stuff is hastilly thrown on the carts to be assessed post game.
Each load is represented by a playing card [dealt face down] each cart got a D6 worth of cards at the start oif the game]
A list of what each card was worth was prepared in advance of the game.)
The French have to balance pushing the diggers with fending off the British & making sure they get off the table.
The British have more troops & don't have to control any diggers, but they must get to the diggings quickly.
We used Embuscada (home brew rules). In which players throw two D6 & have to spend them for ANY hostile actions. eg close with enemy/shoot/ melee etc.
Each such action costs Veterans half a point, Averages one point & Novices two points.
So a Veteran could shoot, close with the enemy AND melee for one & a half points. It would cost a Novice SIX points to do the same.
BUT, anything that reduces the danger for the figure is FREE !! e.g. Run away/ duck behind cover etc.
I expected Bob to spend his points:- keeping the locals digging (otherwise they would run away), shooting at the British & once
the carts were heavily laden, making a run for it while making a fighting withdrawal to cover the carts.
As has been said, 'No plan survives contact with the enemy' may I alter that to 'No scenario survives contact with a player'
Bob fired off one ragged volley and just ran for it.
Sam pursued him all the way, but was hampered by having to pay for his actions (moving & firing)
Most British lead was aimed at the French Officers (Feltour & Rhenoux)
Under the rules there are three possible results of 'hits'
1) Pinned = must duck down OR seek cover within half a move
2) Retire = must move away from danger
3) Down = figure has 'fallen' (the opponent does NOT know if they are dead/wounded or just slipped )
Unfortunately for Sam, most of his shooting just encouraged Bob's troops to run faster!
If a figure is 'Down' the player may, after one move, ATTEMPT (i.e. pay to) get them back up (Vets recover on a 3,4,5,or 6. Ave on 4,5,6 & Nov. on 5,6)
The combination of Sam picking on French Officers and Bob choosing lots of FREE moves, thus having points to spare,
resulted in Feltour & Rhenoux resembling demented Yo-Yos
However eventually Sam caught up with the two officers. Rhenoux died in a melee with a beefy British Sergeant while Feltour was captured.
He will no doubt end up rotting in a prison hulk in Portsmouth harbour.
Meanwhile the French soldiers made their get-a-way & during the post game wind-down
The cards were revealed. AS said earlier I had written down a list of what each card was worth.
This went from face cards (1-10) = x10 gold crowns
up to Ace of clubs which was a jewelled encrusted golden death mask worth 10,000 gold crowns.
Due to Bob deciding to cut & run very quickly there were not many cards to check & all were just face cards
Still with no officers to grab most of it there were over 400 gold crowns to share between the ten survivors.
A great time was going to be had in the salubrious parts of the old town tonight.
At the moment I am (again) having problems with loading photos, I therefore rely on Bob & Sam to add not
only their comments, bit pictures too.
08 February 2008, 12:50:14 PM