France 40 - Take Two - Part One

Richard and I started a repeat of the GMT France 40 game.  I went French.  The Scenario is The Sickle Cut - Guderian's Drive to the Sea.

 May 13, tanks are heard rumbling in the woods.

May 14, the German attack is confirmed.

The river line has been breached in two places

 May 15, the Allies pull back, attempting to form a new line.

 May 16, Rommel looks like he has broken through.

British troops are being rushed to plug the gap.

 May 17, and the Hitler Halt is invoked.

Namur is abandoned.

 May 18, and the delay has allowed the Allies to close the gap.

 May 19, but the Germans keep pushing.

All their armoured divisions are now committed to creating a breakthrough.

 May 20, if only the Allies could mount a counterattack...

 At this stage it looks like we will be going into extended time.

The big picture.  This is a game of punch and block.

Musee de l'Armee

I have seen Marshall Davouts uniform and many of Napoleon's hats.  How cool is that.

I probably should have called this post the Tomb of the Emperor (in suitable French of course), as these photos were all taken by my partner and she photographed, mostly, what she found interesting.

Under the gaze of Napoleon.

With good fortune, an exhibit on Napoleonic Strategy was underway during our visit.  There were some fun interactive battle displays and by the time we finished Karen was becoming quite an expert, under my tutelage of course.

Almoravids versus Andalusians

Simon organised this game based on his 28mm figure collection to provide two armies for Basic Impetus.  I took the Almoravids (List 18.5) to fight his Andalusians (List 18.2).  Rather topical as I'm currently reading an old book about the Arabs which mentioned the Almoravids.

I apologise in advance for the poor quality of some of the photos.  I am trying out my new phone's camera.

 Andalusians on the left, Almoravids on the right.

 End of Turn 1 and I had advanced, hoping to bring the enemy in range of my bow fire.

 Turn 2 and the Andalusians are trying to get round my flanks.

 My skirmishers evade on my right, 

but one of my light cavalry units on the left was routed by missile fire.

 However next turn the remaining light cavalry get revenge,

but it didn't last...

 The enemy cavalry were dented, but not seriously weakened (as it turned out).

On the other flank the combat had resulted in mutual destruction.

 By Turn 5 I had again advanced and was feeling confident.

 The Black Berbers were destroyed by the Mercenary Christian knights fighting for the Andalusians.

The other Andalusian cavalry was ignoring my light cavalry and threatening my centre's flank.

 Ouch!

 Things are looking bad at this stage.

End of game.

I was left with one light cavalry unit that was not guarding my left flank, an infantry unit in the centre that was retreating and a lone unit of archers way out on my right flank.  Disaster!

Carcassonne

I never thought I would get to see this fabled place, but it was remarkably accessible, despite the strikes currently prevalent in France.  The strikes meant we weren't able to walk the castle walls.  But what we could access was fabulous.

The French do tourism well, by which I mean there is a level of taste and subtlety such that the attraction is not overwhelmed by the desire to make a dollar.  The French seem to respect their history, which is good as the certainly have a lot of it.

Medieval tax avoidance.

Tax was paid on a building's footprint.

The yellow paint is recent and supposedly temporary.

Something that has been missing from every other castle I have visited,

the wooden fighting tops.

The interior passage of one of the wooden fighting tops along the wall.

One interesting comment was that the castle was built or rather an early objective was to keep the Spanish out, but now they are welcomed to Carcassonne as tourists.

An added advantage of this visit is the hope I now have that I can get Karen to play the Carcassonne boardgame (at least once).

How the French Won Waterloo

I bought this book at the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  Enough said.

I found it entertaining, but serious at the same time, as it is a statement of the way things are.  Of course hindsight generates a lot of excuses.  Napoleon was also a master propagandist and that has spilled over on to his followers (legendary, if potentially mythical,  Nicolas Chauvin for example).

My favourite bit was this prayer:

Notre Empereur qui êtes à Sainte-Hélène

Que votre nom soit respecte

Que votre règne revienne

Que votre volonté soit faite

Contre tous les ultras qui nous ôtent nos pensions

Débarrassez-nous des maudits Bourbons

Ainsi soit-il.

Regardless of the outcome of the battle, Napoleon certainly dominates the world stage.

Battle of Sadras 1787

So it is not Napoleonic, not even revolutionary, well French revolution that is, but I am stuck with my Napoleonic Naval label.  In hindsight I should have gone with Age of Sail or something.  Never mind, on with the game.

 The British ships in line ahead have snuck between the French Ships of the Line and the transports they are meant to be guarding (off table, top edge).

The French are hurrying to rescue their transports.

The arrows denote the wind direction.

Details of the scenario for It's Warm Work designed by Darren.

The game used his models and he umpired.

Simon and Stephen B took the British 

while Dave and I went the French.

 My squadron, on the left, took early fire from the British due to accurate dice throwing by Stephen.

One page summary sheet is all you need.

 Dave's squadron worked around behind while I engaged the enemy in what was a rather one sided affair.  They shot first and threw multiple sixes.  The French captains, so far from home, were understandably nervous.

Six sided dice plus fire template visible in top right hand corner.

 One of my ships is wrecked and another boarded.

The white squares indicate French ships whose captains who have decided that 

discretion is the better part of valour.

Turning templates and China graph pencil are other tools in use.

 A close up of the excellent little models we were using.  

Old Glory 1/2000th IIRC.

Vengeance.  My ship rakes a British ship and wrecks it.

Also, we have passed round the British and can see our way to saving our transports.

 There is now a bit of distance between the two fleets 

as the British have had trouble turning into the wind.

Note disc for determining ship speed based on wind direction.

It's getting late so this was the final move.

The British had inflicted more damage.  

The French had lost two ships, the British one.

The game played really well.  Lots of laughs.