Sunday, April 24, 2022

General d'Armee: Bautzen, 1813

Played the standard Battle of Bautzen, 1813 - MacDonald's Attack scenario from the General d'Armee rulebook today.  I must say I'm very happy with the rules.  We all managed to get through the game with all questions being answered.  The QRS is great and the rulebook is structured in a way that makes it easy to find answers.

I'll say this was a large game for my feeble 6 foot by 8 foot table.  You really need some space for each brigade - you don't really want brigades stacked up behind others.  That being said, we all had a great time playing through the scenario.

The French attack just kept stalling and really struggled to get some momentum - except for a glorious Dragoon charge near the center that ran down a unit and caused two others to flee in terror.  A great result for the French - but the Russian Mariupol Hussars plugged the gap and then saw off the Dragoons, saving the day for the Russian army.

Result, Russian victory.  Also the debut of my Russian Napoleonic army.

Pictures below using the nice camera.















Phone pictures below ... I didn't get a lot of pictures of the in progress game as I was very focused on playing through the rules and testing as much of the written rules as possible.  The good news is I think we exercised just about every part of the rules.

That's it for now.  Next up I need to take some proper pictures of all these new Russian units.

19 comments:

  1. "...my feeble 6 foot by 8 foot table."

    Says nobody else Jay. Your table is large and beautiful and a showstopper at any convention.

    Best of all its the table you game on all the time in your garage. You save your 20 footers for the conventions!

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    1. Lol, I wish I set it up as a 6x12 footer ... oh well, will make do :-)

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  2. What a wonderful looking game Jay. Love GdB and have also been playing a stack of General D’Armee from David Brown as well.

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    1. Good lord, just realized I put General d'Brigade in the title ... I meant General d'Armee!

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    2. I thought as much however finding want to blurt anything in case I was mistaken. It is a tremendous looking battle. We just finished a large GdA ourselves of you want to pop over for a look Jay.

      http://withpyjamasthroughawhiffofgrapeshot.blogspot.com/

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    3. Excellent stuff Carlo - I follow your blog and was checking out the game earlier today :-)

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  3. Great stuff! Picked up GdA recently after planning on using Black Powder for years. One question (for now ;-) ). Had the other players played GdA before?? One reason I was going to to go with BP was that I figured it would be easier for my friends to learn and get into. One of my few worries with GdA is that it might have a steeper learning curve initially. Glad everything went well for you guys!

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    1. Hey there Jason! None of the other players in my group had played GdA before - by the end of the second turn they had picked up just about everything. Very positive feedback all around about the rules. We played BP a long time ago ... I want to say I played about 20 games of BP back then. We found that every game turned into a similar state - shaken, or easily shaken units unable to advance firing ineffective volleys at each other until the game was called. That is a generalization, but we found the rules just didn't allow for a Napoleonic battle to "unfold" in a natural way.

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  4. Lovely looking game = genuinely surprised about your BP comments. We find BP is perfect for large multiplayer, fast play battles and delivers the story. Saying that I have yet to play GdA

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    1. We played it for a while - but it just didn't last for us. 20 games is a lot. It certainly is easy to learn and plays quick enough. It just wasn't right for our group. I very much enjoy GdA at this point. I think it all boils down to what you want out of your wargame - which is true to any period/game. And I think wargamers change and/or evolve what they are looking for from their games over time. A little like starting out with a skirmish game - that over time ends up being mass battle when you realize you collected so many miniatures you might as well go big :-)

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  5. Man you take such awesome pictures, some of the shots of the toys come alive the way you take them. Well done sir!

    Cheers
    Kevin

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    1. Thanks Kevin! I do love the SLR camera ... makes my phone pictures just look lame in comparison. I do need to stage some proper pictures using my backdrops ... just been heads down getting stuff done :-)

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  6. Great looking game and glad you enjoyed the rules! DCRB

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    1. Thanks David! Yes, love the rules, thanks for creating them!!

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  7. Mate, I think you and the gang have knocked out more games in the first four months of this year than I've seen in the last two or three - a hopeful sign we've finally cleared the Covid tunnel 🙂
    I've heard nothing but good things about GdA and your game definitely shows that - brilliant looking table!

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    1. Lol, we are working on it. Nice to be back to normal. Largest and best local convention is coming up on Memorial day weekend ... looking forward to jamming a whole lot of mini gaming into that weekend. Yup, I can't say enough good thinhs about GdA ... also will be playing Picketts Charge fof ACW.

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  8. Splendid looking game Jay and impressive collections on both sides 👍

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  9. What an amazing game! The extra bits/vehicles etc in your Russian army really make the table. Thanks for sharing something so inspirational.

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