Marjk and I got together for another fun scrap of Soldiers of Napoleon. This time I took my 10mm 1813-15 Prussians, while Mark dug out his 15mm French.
A stream crossed the battlefield. A large wood sat left, a small copse right, with a hill on the right.
My cavalry sat on the hill, menacing. Two hussars a unit of dragoons ans an uhlan.
In the centre a brigade of infantry (2 musketeers, a fusilier, and a landwher, with extra artillery and full caissons) To either side of the stream the rught hand brigade, with one artillery battery with a landwher cavalry unit.
Mark's elite Hussars cavalry swings left, his infantry masses in the centre, and two dragoons with artillery hold the right.
Mark's first card was 'Senior Commander Injured', leaving me down a command card for the whole game, and no access to rerolls. Plus this gives Mark a bunch of Victory Points. That made life somewhat difficult as Mark would always have the final say each round after playing alternate cards, and greater flexibility, plus he has an unerring ability to force me into morale failures quickly, as I would have less rallying capability to counteract him, if I wanted to use my cards for agressive actions instead.
Mark's infantry surges across the stream. I tried to hold him up. However, his massed batteries have already seen off two units by now, and I'm looking fragile. I did pick up one of his line, but not enough to even the point losses up
Both Brigadiers in the centre fail their at risk rolls, forcing then to flee to safety, and losing a card for each player in the next turn, but Mark's reserves arrived turn 1, meaning I was now two cards a turn down each turn (5 plays 7). Thankfully a command confession special event helped even the score a little, causing Mark to lose two activation cards for turn 3.
Landwher and line musketeers under assault and batteries.
Mark takes hits on his veteran light infantry the other side of the wood as my artillery can see his unit, however, I never scored enough hits to worry them.
Mark's columns try to assault, but it fails! My forces breathe a sigh of relief.
My reserves arrive, giving me a card back. Mark looses a unit in the centre, but my left hand Fusilier unit fails under sustained artillery fire.
My mixed cavalry brigade leaves the hill, aiming to pick off the dragoons and their attached artillery. This would be a major victory point boost for me if I could pull it off.
Yup, my centre collapsed! Mark blew me to pieces.
Repeated cavalry assaults did nothing to his dragoons., except gift him points for winning combats. Even hitting him with more initsvwas not good enough. The French dragoons sneer at my efforts.
And on the left, I was not coming out the woods with two hussar units patrolling the area..
Mark was way ahead of me on points by the time we called it a night, it had been a tough, but really enjoyable game. A few rolls here and there and I could have won it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. A good game nonetheless.
Thanks, a good game indeed. I have SoN, but only played twice and now the gap has been so long, I need a full re-read to get the rules to memory again ….. such is the way when jumping from system to system! I don’t like card play too much, but SoN does have a solid game engine regardless of the cards thing.
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