Rindis.com

Jason came by back on the 23rd for a game of Pursuit of Glory. I’m guessing that he’s in a mood to get back in practice with it, which I certainly can’t blame him for. Sadly, neither of us are used to actual weekday traffic patterns, and he got stuck for an hour, giving us a late start as well as getting refamiliarized with the rules again.

I took the Allies and took the standard opening at Fao, and my standard attempt to knock out a couple of Turkish cavalry divisions. However, Only one attack worked, with the Turks successfully Withdrawing from the other two. We missed the fact that even if it isn’t ‘win’ by final loss numbers, the Allies can always advance after a Turkish Withdrawl. That left me stalled in Mesopotamia for a while, as all my attacks would meet a delaying action, and then he’d move back before I consolidated the gain (too used to Evades in CC:A I suppose). Other than that, the first turn was fairly standard, though I got a fair amount of events played, and in fact, during the first two turns, got all six War Status available from the Mobilization deck.

Churchill Prevailed during turn 2, destroying everything except the Bosporus Forts, and I managed to get some spare OPS to advance though Sinai before the Turks got there, assembling two good stacks from at-start and reinforcements. Jason managed to reinforce the area, and it was static for the rest of the game, though I did get the Sinai Railroad started, so I would have been able to form a LCU there as of Turn 7. The Russian front got less attention from me, with a definite crisis on low simmer there, not helped by Save Tiflis disordering everything.

End of Turn 2.

Turn 3 had bad news: Parvus went to Berlin. However, I got a couple more divisions ashore at Abadan, and at the end of the turn eliminated the tribe that was holding the flank at Ahwaz. At the beginning of turn 4, the two move-6 units at Abadan raced forward to cut off the Turks in Basra, and got just short of Baghdad. Jason SRed divisions in to block further progress, and I pulled back before he could cut off my leading units, and consolidated, eliminating two divisions at the end of the turn from OoS. Jason used Marsh Arabs to tie me up a bit, but I cleared them out over the next couple of turns. Both Indian corps got formed in there, and the next turn would have seen me trying to get him out of Nasiriya and get on the road to Baghdad again, hopefully threatening to cut off more divisions in the process.

My main problem was the Russian Front. A Winter Offensive helped on Turn 3, but while I’d been able to chew up a decent number of Turkish units and tribes, I hadn’t gained much ground, and Jason was able to take and eliminate the fort in Kars. I had managed to move the east flank up to take Van and threaten Mosul, which had caused more reshuffling of units, but I had to keep being cautious of getting my supplies cut off, since a neutral Persia really limits routes into the area. At the end of next turn the Revolution would hit, and there was no possibility of delaying it.

Also, I was going to lose the VPs for Romania. I tried to play it on Turn 6, and got through all of setup before realizing that I needed a LCU in the Balkans, which I had no way of doing. So it wasn’t going to get played before the Revolution. And slightly later, Jason did play Bulgaria. No action actually happened in the Balkans, but the theater was finally open.

End of Turn 6, and the day.

So we left the day with Jihad stalled at 4, and none of the revolt events played, and the VPs slightly on the AP side. But the Revolution was going to give me a really hard time, and start freeing up TU troops for other crises.

And there were some. I was going to be pressing forward in Mesopotamia. Also, a big problem had been dealing with the invasion cards (I had two during the winter turn 5), and getting decent British troops for an invasion together. I had originally planned on trying a Gallipoli invasion, but Jason had denuded eastern Anatolia of troops (except for one elite division in Adana), so I was planning on invading at Adana next turn. And of course, I’d make what use I could of the Russians in the time left me.