Life of the Amazonia

A fun low stress game that has some delightful pieces.

Lots of interesting components,

My finished board

Richard's finished board.

The score sheet.

Virgin Queen

 In a miracle of organisation, Richard was able to get six players together to tackle this game.

Stefan played the Ottomans, I was the Spanish, Simon, the English, Russell the French, Jeff the Holy Roman Empire and Richard was the Protestants.

We completed three turns which saw the Holy Roman Empire in the lead thanks to some excellent matrimonial matches, very impressive scientific discoveries and the throne of Poland.

Richard has provided this AAR (and I've added a few extra details on Spain).

Turn 1

The Ottomans attack the Holy Roman Empire, besieging and then successfully assaulting the fortress of Szigetvar. The HRE leader Zrinyi was captured during the assault and spent the rest of the game a captive in an Ottoman dungeon.

Spain bolsters the defences of her valuable New World treasure fleets with fortresses and extra patrols to deter piracy, which certainly worked as there was no world map piracy for the three turns played. Drake was in the area, and who knows there might have been a strike in future turns if he'd been shamed into it.

Additional Spanish naval vessels are constructed on the European map.

Spain announced an alliance with France, directed at the common Protestant threat.

England attacks Edinburgh and captures the key. France looks on meekly as her ally goes under. An expedition is launched and a colony established in North America.

France is busy with arrangements for the nuptials of Phillip II of Spain and Elisabeth de Valois and bolsters her army with extra ground units.

The HRE starts a build up ground forces as they stare down the onrushing Ottomans.

The Protestants launch their religious conversion programme in the Netherlands and France. Several areas in the Netherlands are converted and then reclaimed by the Spanish in a tussle for control. France follows a similar pattern, but by the end of the turn, the Protestants have good number of spaces in the Netherlands and although fewer in France, they gain several VPs having jumped several rows on the control table.

The Phillip II and Elisabeth Valois nearly turns to complete disaster with both players rolling a 1. With Phillip narrowly avoiding being murdered, it was the unfortunate Elisabeth who died in childbirth. The Earl of Arran's wedding to Anna of Saxony was rather more successful and resulted in a Preach Sermon action in Scotland converting another two spaces to protestant.

Turn 2

The Ottomans sail their Corsairs with Dragut at the helm and strike at the Knights of St John base in Malta. They are very successful and gain both a piracy VP and a random card from the Spanish hand. They do however lose Dragut who is killed after Spain plays a response card.

With a reasonable base of religious conversions, the Protestants instigate a rebellion in the Netherlands, and a key is captured in Amsterdam, bringing on protestant regulars for the first time. Surrounding spaces are also brought under protestant political control, including significantly the fortress of Utrecht which provides a convenient buffer to adjacent Amsterdam. The fledgling Dutch nation emerges.

The Scottish Lords rebel and England narrowly wins the diplomatic roll to ally Scotland. France and England end their war.

France makes several very successful suppress heresy actions and the protestants are reduced to a single space in France. The rest of the French turn is concerned with launching an expedition to the New World, bolstering her army and arranging marriages, including Mary Queen of Scots to Charles IX.

Spain marches the Duke de Alva to the Netherlands and recaptures the fortress of Utrecht thus threatening the newly established Dutch capital in Amsterdam. It is a short-lived adventure however, as the protestants unleash further rebellions targeting Utrecht whose forces are wiped out. The Duke de Alva is displaced to Brussels.

The HRE, unconcerned by the Ottomans at their doorstep, add to their VP total by winning the Polish Royal Election.

Turn 3

With espionage now available as a possible action, it seemed that all the powers were keen to try it.

The Ottomans in particular were determined to assassinate Schwendl. In an almost comical pursuit through the streets of Vienna, they finally got their man on the third attempt. (They don't have much luck with assassins these Hapsburgs, do they?) With Schwendl dead and Zrinyi rotting in an Ottoman dungeon, this put a big dent in the HRE's ability to move large formations. However, with a sitzkrieg having developed outside Vienna with neither the Ottomans nor the HRE willing to risk a field battle this did not prove any impediment to the HRE who took the opportunity to sponsor the arts and sciences to amazing effect with a massive bolstering of VPs after top the table results on those tables.

Spain places a Jesuit in England and launches Catholic conversion attempts in England with some success. These are quickly reined in by the English who with their Cipher key quickly dispatched the Jesuit.

Spain (which had made peace with the Ottomans in the previous turn) launch an amphibious invasion of the independent key at Tunis and besiege it.  Their general dies (card play by the Ottomans). With a bonus card they launch an assault but are repelled (five dice needing only one hit gets nothing, the Tunisians with just two dice score two hits). In the meantime, the Ottomans also launch an amphibious assault on Tunis and successfully assault it snatching it from the Spanish. (We subsequently found this movement by the Ottomans is not allowed by the rules as it doesn't meet the criteria for entering a space). So the Ottomans would not have been able to capture the space this turn. This would have meant a 2 VP adjustment to the Ottoman total.  Regardless Tunis was a complete disaster for the Spanish, particularly after a second assault saw them lose again with not enough remaining manpower to maintain the siege forcing a retreat which, across seas, results in elimination).

With a total of three scientific research attempts, the Spanish scientist and even their hired Italian could only discover astrology.

Spain targets the Protestant player with Witchcraft (so maybe astrology did have a benefit?) and scores the best possible card in the Protestant hand as a reward. Nevertheless, the Dutch were able to capture Antwerp for their second key in the Netherlands, and they also now possessed a significant ground force and leader in the Duke of Orange.

England meanwhile launches a fresh expedition with colony to the New World which is successfully established and contents themselves by establishing a card library. A mercenary is donated to the grateful Protestants.

There was further flurry of nuptials organised by France and the HRE.

An extremely successful French roll assured 2 VPs to France and Spain with the successful remarriage of Phillip II of Spain and Marguerite de Valois.

Also successful were Henry IV and Anna of Austria who generated a +1 card bonus for both the HRE and Protestant. The HRE next marriage between Elizabeth of Austria and Henry IV was less successful and ended up costing both powers a -1 card for next turn.

But the real news of the turn was top of the table results for arts and sciences sponsored by the HRE. This catapulted them into the lead with an extra 5 VPs.

And unfortunately, that's where we had to leave the game.

The scores at the end of round 3, which included the HRE's secret bet on the number of protestant spaces, were as follows:

Ottoman: 14

Spain: 15

England: 14

France: 19

HRE: 23

Protestant: 10

Although we didn't finish, with the HRE only 2 points away from an outright victory it would have taken quite a bit of catching up with 25 needed for an outright victory. The only power which could have prevented an HRE victory would have been the Ottomans. The Ottomans would have to have ended their sitzkrieg and taken Vienna, which would have put them in striking distance. That would have been an iffy affair however with a risky 50/50 field battle.

It would have been nice to actually get a game officially finished, hopefully next game.

Later Abbasid Arabs versus Ghaznavids

Newly painted figures getting to the tabletop to fight Mark B's Ghaznavids.  Almost historical.

The Abbasids were out scouted and found themselves facing the Ghaznavids 

who were occupying two hills in-between some difficult terrain.

The Ghaznavids sent their light cavalry forward to harass the Abbasids,

but they were met with a hail of arrows.

The Ghaznavid light cavalry fared badly.

Their infantry has started down the hill.

The main cavalry of the two armies comes to blow and disaster strikes!

Amongst minimal hits, the Abbasids roll a series of sixes in the resulting Cohesion Tests.

With the cavalry battle going badly for the Abbasids,

(very badly in the case of the unit lead by their general)

their infantry presses forward.

It is now all down to the Abbasid infantry,

some of whom have only just had their coat of paint dry

in the last day or so.

Are they up to it?

It was a tough fight,

but the Abbasids prevailed.

Marengo Part Two

Mark B (French) and I (Austrian) finished the game, picking up at 1400 Austrian turn.

By 1430 the Austrians were back in business, 

throwing in cavalry to remove a pesky French battery.

They followed up with more cavalry that cleared the way forward.

Ott had failed three command rolls in succession 

and the fighting was left up to Zack and his Grenadiers.

But it was a sideshow...

At 1500 the climax of the battle had arrived.

First the Austrian cavalry beat the newly arrived French cavalry,

despite Murat's best endeavours and the use of a free roll.

To top it off, Murat was taken prisoner.

The Austrian cavalry kept under control and went after their next target.

The French Consular Guard failed to form square,

despite use of a Free Roll.

Still retaining control, the Austrian cavalry had one last target...

The last thing Napoleon saw...

His aide was heard saying "That one's got his name on it."

More Abbasid Arab Infantry

This completes the heavy infantry.

Next stop, table top!

Marengo 2025 - Part One

Having recently refought this battle using Shako I was keen to give it a go using Napoleon's Battles, particularly as I had been working on a revised Order of Battle using Nafziger and Osprey sources.

Previous posts on this battle:

With Richard January 2015 (Austrian win)

With Stephen and Mark B March 2015 (Draw)

With Shako October 2024 (French win)

This game featured Mark B from the March 2015 and Shako game, plus Mark W and Julian from the Shako game.  I was the umpire, Mark W the Austrian commander and Mark B and Julian the French (Julian taking Lannes command and overall command in Mark B's absence).

This game featured all my figures and also my new little houses that I had purchased during my holiday in Croatia in 2023.  Annoyingly I had lost them, but thankfully found them a few days before after having given up on ever finding them.

1000 and the Austrians are concentrated for their assault on Marengo.

Top-down view of the deployment.

It has been hard to fit all the Austrians in.

Note separate stands to mark casualties and hold unit label.

They also served to denote formation as some units had only two stands.

Ott is moving up on the left and Austrian cavalry has stormed across the Fontanone stream.

The French have formed squares,

but now find themselves under assault by Austrian infantry.

It's 1030 and Napoleon has arrived,

top right-hand corner on the road from San Giuliano. 

Ott's cavalry attack.

Lannes has secured Castel Ceriolo. 

Napoleon again visible top right-hand corner.

The French in squares are taking serious casualties from Austrian artillery.

Murat is everywhere with his cavalry.

The French cavalry try to hold back the white tide.

Austrian Grenadiers have now engaged Lannes' infantry.

The French defenders of Marengo are suffering under heavy bombardment,

as the rest on the Austrians do their best to push forward 

and keep up the pressure on the French.

Ott's infantry make a brave assault against Castel Ceriolo,

while the Grenadiers overwhelm what is left of Lanne's division.

Marengo has fallen and the Austrian surge forward 

hoping to wipe out the remaining French,

before their reinforcements arrive.

The situation on the Austrian left.

The little that is left of Lannes' command holds Castel Ceriolo.

The Austrians hold Marengo and have driven off the French.

All that can be seen is one French horse battery and their heavy cavalry.

But here come the reinforcements!

And this is where we had to end the session at the end of the 1330 turn.  Still another four turns to go until more French reinforcements arrive.  French have lost eight units.  Until reinforcements arrive, they will break if they lose another two units.  The Austrians are down three, plus one unit waiting to be rallied.  The Advance Guard and Hadik's formations are fatigued.  They still have plenty of fight.

Weimar Take Six

Another chance to play this excellent political game ended in anarchy.

Richard was Zentrum (blue), Jeff the SPD (orange), Simon the KPD (pink) and I was the DNVP (black).

Anarchy occurs when there are over six issues (Threat Markers) facing the country (see top left-hand corner).

The DNVP had party bases in every city and was the party with the most seats in the Reichstag.  My strategy was to win by having the majority of seats in the Reichstag and I was hoping the Brown Shirt presence would increase that possibility.

Richard has provided this wonderfully detailed AAR that truly does this great game justice.

Chasing votes in the Reichstag?- be careful what you wish for....

It was yet another exciting roller coaster ride in the Weimar era. This game had the government teetering on the edge of anarchy for most of the game until it was finally toppled by the Black Friday stock market collapse and "successful" resolution of the Young Plan as the final, cynical, act of the game.

The KPD brought the spirit of revolution in every turn. Why wouldn't you? An extra card is always handy and they came very close to a Councils victory. It was only thwarted by the concerted government effort to force a couple of cancelled KPD Coup d'etat events and the play of Reichsexecution which knocked them back from being in a game winning position, but they were still in the fight right until the end.

The DNVP were, by contrast, keeping a low profile and despite managing to establish a single regime in Essen, were content to amass VPs by other means. They played an annoyingly skillful hand at winning or preventing others from winning issues in the Reichstag whilst letting the KPD take the brunt of government counter coup activity. The DNVP played an under the radar game of true evil genius.

The two government parties co-operated pretty well it must be said, despite the, not to be unexpected, frictions within the coalition, resulting in the odd difference of opinion and ways were parted for selfish reasons by both parties on more than one occasion.

Nevertheless, by turn 3, between the KPD and DNVP there were enough Councils/Regimes on  the board and threat markers in the Deutsche Reich (DR) box such that a single further successful coup attempt would have collapsed the government into anarchy, with most probably a DNVP win resulting. It was a big surprise to see the Reich survive this turn.

Turn 4 saw the death of Reichspresident Ebert, which precipitated elections and the final run off vote was for either the DNVP candidate Paul von Hindenburg or the SPD's Otto Braun. The Zentrum were the king makers and backed their government colleague and the SPD had control of the Presidency.

Weimar forces you to make a lot of tough decisions. Do you play the percentages and hope that an outlier event doesn't happen, or do you plan for the statistically unlikely, but theoretically possible worst case to occur? It can be a tough choice.

In turn 2, mindful of the ever diminishing number of seats in the Reichstag as a result of failed crisis rolls and threat markers in cities causing losses of seats in the Reichstag, the Zentrum player urged their SPD partner to focus on different issues in play in the Reichstag as the Rentenmark issue looked safely in the bag at the 5 voting mark on the SPD's track. This proved to be a critical moment in the game as the DNVP ensured that the Rentenmark issue ended up on the zero space by playing a rare 5 Action point card to debate. (5 action point cards normally have very powerful favourable events on them for the party playing them, so to use one for debate is quite an important decision). With the issue on the zero space at the end of the round, this meant that it couldn't be resolved and as a result 2 inflation markers (there can be a maximum of three) were left permanently in the Deutsche Reich threat boxes. This was a very shrewd move by the DNVP who, having concentrated on amassing VPs, were no doubt looking to an anarchy win, the negative consequences of which they were shielded from by virtue of not being in the government.

This really made the situation extremely difficult and probably impossible for the government to extricate themselves from, with anarchy looking inevitable assuming there wasn't a successful coup d'etat before then.

Ironically there was another opportunity to introduce the Rentenmark available, but the Zentrum player didn't realise his one card left in the draw pile was this very card which allowed an attempt to introduce the Rentenmark via a different method. Instead he chose to add the Economy focused cards into his deck instead and thus buried this potentially game saving card in the draw deck with a slim chance of it being drawn. A fortuitous mistake as it turned out. Perhaps more ironically, whilst Zentrum was most annoyed at this spoiler by the DNVP, it turned out to be a critical, but not sole, component for forging an unlikely victory.

Everything you do in Weimar can have consequences in the game. Some are immediate or set you up for another action in the next round, whilst others can have unforeseeable consequences.

The turn 4 Flag Dispute issue was hotly contested between the DNVP and Zentrum. With 5 VPs up for grabs, but at the cost of some (easily handled 😉) NSDAP consequences. With an eye on the state of the DR threat markers and the likelihood of anarchy, those 5 VPs were an important potential buffer to the -8 VP penalty to the government parties if/when anarchy occurred. A quick scan of the VPs determined that a rare Zentrum victory was possible if they won the Flag Dispute and then toppled the Reich into anarchy at the very beginning of turn 5 before any attempt by the KPD to win via Coup d'etat. Zentrum went for it and with the final card play of the round in turn 4, the Flag Dispute was won by Zentrum and the 5 VPs were gobbled up without remorse for the NSDAP consequences. Zentrum was still in with a slim path to victory. Something else would need to happen to get them over the line however....

The composition of the Reichstag also changed at the end of turn 4 and some of the seats were now occupied by gentlemen in brown shirts. Following the tussle for seats, Zentrum ended up with the most seats as compared to their coalition partners in the SPD and the Chancellorship passed to them for the next turn. However, it seemed that Chancellor von Richard had been passed the poison chalice with 4 threat markers already in the DR box and one guaranteed to appear at the start of turn 5 thus finding himself at the helm in the unenviable position of seeing the government and Reich fall.

With Black Friday triggering the depression at the start of Turn 5, and thus placing the 5th threat marker in the Deutsche Reich box and with 35 VPs to the DNVP's 26, Zentrum could afford to absorb the anarchy penalty and still come out in front. The challenge was to tip into anarchy before a successful coup d'etat from the KPD which was still a possibility. If only there was a way to "generate" another DR box threat marker....

At this point, in an historical twist, Comrade Simon of the KPD received a call from the "Boss" at party HQ with instructions to have the Revolution over within 30 minutes or the only thing being "overthrown" would be his dinner....

Having drawn an extra party card as a result of his particular Agenda card the KPD player was required to play an extra card prior to the regular impulse. Perhaps with the thought of an angry "Boss" clouding his judgement or the urgency of getting the job done, but not realising all of the consequences, the KPD played an extremely powerful card, "BVG Strike" at the beginning of the Impulse phase as he is required to do. This card is a timeline card and offers the player the choice of placing a token on the NSDAP track and resolving the effect, but then allowing them to use the value of every other player's action card that round for debating OR do nothing at all. An extremely powerful opportunity.  The NSDAP effect that was required to be resolved was to place an "Instable State" threat marker in the DR box.

The KPD chose to accept the choice and the NSDAP effect was to place a 6th threat marker into the DR Box. The window to an unlikely Zentrum victory had been opened...

With the Young Plan diplomatic event available for resolution, any attempt to resolve this diplomatic action would automatically place a Violent Peace marker in the DR box and regardless of the result of the attempt would tip the Reich into anarchy. Playing first in this round as the Chancellor, Zentrum successfully resolved the issue earning 3 VP to further increase the buffer, anarchy resulted and the two government parties suffered a -8 VP each. Game over.

The final scores, adjusted for the anarchy penalty (-8VPs) for the two government parties (Zentrum and SPD) were:

• Zentrum: 30
• DNVP: 26
• SPD: 16
• KPD: 13

It was a close run thing. A lot of people find the unexpected outcomes in this game to be a turn off. The twists and turns in this game are simply amazing. Personally, I think this is what makes this the game stand out as the best political game ever. So much can happen, and it is all thematically possible. The game is not so much about the outcome, but the journey and it is an exciting and absorbing one at that.

Thank you to my fellow Weimaraners for sharing the journey.

Looking forward to the next outing in Weimar!

Maximillian Imperials versus Tudor

I found a different army to use my Burgundians with and took them to fight Mark B's Tudors in a tough fight.

The Imperials were out scouted and started on the defensive.

There is some difficult ground on the right and a small wood in the centre.

The Imperials advanced while their knights shuffled sideways.

The shooting starts, mostly ineffective.

Except for the Tudor artillery.

The Tudor's Irish tried their hand against Imperialist harquebusiers,

but were bloodily repulsed.

The Tudor artillery continues to inflict damage,

as the Imperialist infantry wait for the knights to catch up.

Some telling fire from yet more harquebuses decimates one of the Tudor units of longbow.

The Imperial mounted harquebusiers look a tad exposed.

The mounted harquebusiers were traded for a unit of longbow.

The Imperial knights from Burgundy obliterate the Tudor artillery

and inflict a heavy defeat on the Tudor knights stationed behind it.

The Imperial's harquebusiers have started to punish the Tudor longbowmen

that are hiding in the wood.

A unit of Tudor infantry has been bested by Imperial pike.

A slight pause before the final push.

The Tudor mounted knights fared badly,

but their dismounted knights made a mess of their opponents.

However, it was all too late for the Tudors.

The Lamps Are Going Out again and again

It had been a while since Richard and I had last played this game.  The first game saw the war over by Christmas, but the second ragged on with a Russian Revolution and a very late US entry. Richard was the Central Powers in both games.

Germans spend Christmas in Paris.

US isolationists caused a critical delay.

Richard has provided the following (with a few edits from me)

The final scores for the second game were as follows:

Central Powers Points earned:

• Russia defeated:  4
• Serbia: 1
• Romania: 1

Entente Points earned:

• East Africa: 1

For a net of 5. The Central Powers need 7 to win.

The game was lost for the Central Powers when the Entente got back the Somme early in the game (1915). There was no real coming back from this as the Russians had built up so much that the Germans couldn't even spare a single army for the Western Front if they were going to make any progress against the Russians. The Russians had also made that extremely difficult by leaving armies behind to threaten the German flanks and Baltic supply line tying up two of their armies needed at the front.

The Russian fast build up was also made easier by super early Italian entry (fewer Austrian-Hungarian units used against Russia) and particularly no Gallipoli campaign (this might have been the first game where there was no Gallipoli). That was a critical factor which freed up a British army at a critical

time. The British seemed to always have more than enough production points throughout the game as the maximum U Boat attrition was only two which still leaves the British five.

The High Seas Fleet put in a good account after technology improvements, causing the British to expend production to repair their fleet, but it was too late by then.  The Germans pushed their luck with an extremely skimpy defence in the Rhine, but it failed at a critical moment and cost them a permanent army lost, which really hurts the Germans as everything is needed in the final turns. One more army

would have meant saving Belgium and another VP. With the late US entry, although a long shot, it was all still up for grabs, which is great as you never feel it's over until it is.

We did have a few mistakes over production points and fleet usage as well as forgetting to use poison gas, although the latter is understandable.