Well, I finally took the plunge and set up a small game at my house for the first time since February. I got together with a few friends who I know have been playing it safe with their health the last few months. A few social distancing rules, some UV lights, sunlight and plenty of hand soap!
The Game
I set up a medium sized table for a M&T game. I have been wanting to take the new version 2 rules out for a spin to see how things worked out with the changes. The table included a stream and a village in the center, with the surrounding terrain including woods,hills, fields and rock outcrops.
I have each side about 200 points of troops, with each force divided into two forces. The gave a total of four forces, one for each player. On the French side we had a force of Indians and a force of Cote de Bois. For the British, we had a force of elite rangers and armed Militia. The British were the defenders (I really need to finish painting my Indian long houses!).
The French mission was to occupy all the houses in the village (keeping British soldiers away). The British mission was to evacuate the town and get the civilians to safety. Each for rolled for secondary missions.
The French set up their deployment points first, followed by the British. teh French then deployed. They chose not to use hidden movement, as they were already on top of the village. The British then deployed and we were off!
The game started with some limited fire, as the French slowly approached the town. The Indians were continually hampered by bad luck during the game, as they could not seem to roll better than a two on Reaction Tests, resulting in almost all tests being failed. This did give us a good chance to test out the new Withdraw rule (which worked out well)!
The Brits seemed to hold the upper hand for most of the game, inflicting more casualties than they had lost. Then things changed fast, the Indians finally overcame their morale issues and were able to attack the Militia. before you could load a musket, the Militia had been wiped out by fanatical attacks, leaving their leader alone and running for his life (he managed to run all the way across the table and leave the field!).
This left the Rangers and the only hope, as the civilians crossed the bridge to head off the table. Then things took another turn, a brave attack by a small group of rangers took out a few more Indians and a timely morale card ensured the remainder headed for the hills.
Now it was a fight between the Cote de Bois and the Rangers. Position seemed to favor the French, as they had units at the edge of the village and in position to cut off the civilians.
As one group of the Rangers tried to cover the civilians the other battered group in the village (with their stout commander), launched a counter attack. This cost the rangers dearly, but their sacrifice was not in vain. The wiped out one group of French and pushed another back. With the timely arrival of another morale card, the remaining French started to run, as the civilians turned to another exit point to escape. Another turn and the French called it quits, with the civilians moving to safety. The colonies had prevailed, but only just.
Thoughts
The game played very similar to the old rules, so not too much was unexpected. Some of the new rules played a role of moving the game along a little faster. The new D10 system definitely improves shooting effectiveness, which is a plus. We had very little shooting on fixed rolls, as showing the difference in shooting capability of the different troops. I still think the Indian shooting is a little too good (with the exception of morale, they are the supermen in the rules).
I was a little worried about the new reaction table, but it proved straight forward and the new withdraw rule added a level of excitement. We had a number of units run and take time to recover, adding a little more variability also.
The new scenario set up rules work out very well, giving players a lot of deployment choices. This is added with clarity in set up.
The new spotting table is much easier to use. Still requires using a QRG, but it does go faster. The way modifiers work is also much clearer and we had no problem figuring out spotting distances.
You do need to be a little careful on table size when playing scenarios. In out case, it took the civilians forever to get anywhere and the exit points were far away! I think if you play on an over sized table like we did, you probably need to adjust the objective or accept the game will take much longer to play (our game was four hours, with a few breaks for rule look ups).
In full disclosure, we did not use all the new rules. As it was the first game, we did not use any formed up troops (I’ll try that the next time). I did not bother with the duels, as it seems a bit foolish to me. We also did not use the new command system. We just pulled card one at a time. As it was a multi player game and seemed to add a lot of complexity that we were not ready for. I also prefer the more random pulp feel. I feel this worked out well and I will probably keep doing this.
In the end, we had a good time, had a very close run game with many changes of fortune and brought it to a final outcome. It was a good test and I feet that M&T will continue to be a staple of my gaming.
- Manteuffel