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Back on Feburary 15th, Mark came over for some FtF gaming.

This turned out to be a bad idea as we both came down sick that day. I woke up wondering if I had more than my usual morning sore throat, and progressively figured out that yes, I had come down with something (and Mark mentioned I was looking pretty bad by the time lunch was over). Mark was feeling a headache and some other symptoms that only got worse as the day went on.

So it was a good thing that we were trying a relatively short game; namely the Smolensk scenario from GMT’s Fading Glory. This has been on Mark’s ‘to try’ list for a little bit, and presumably won’t be the last time we see it.

It’s a collection of four scenarios from Victory Point Game’s Napoleonic 20 series, which is meant to do Napoleonic battles with about 20 counters per side in a very quick playing format. So, its a simple system with no stacking other than leaders, and five turns per day (including the night turn). I had the French, which start with about two units on the board, and while a fair number of other units come on during the first day, just about as many Russian units arrive too.

But, the French are arriving much closer to Smolensk than the Russians, and as the day wore on, I was able to push him out of the near side. One of the neat bits is that both sides are rated for current morale, and you can spend morale to do certain things. There’s also cards for random events during the battle (a different, small, deck per scenario), and an early one cost the Russians some morale (after starting lower), so I could ‘push’ more effectively than Mark.

The scenario ended… I think around the end of the third day? Russian morale collapsed, and forced a general retreat. I had taken one infantry, and most of my cavalry to construct a foot bridge (via special rule), and crossed to the east, threatening Lubina, and effectively forking the Russians. Meanwhile, I got across at Smolensk, and got pushed back again (my best non-Guards unit breaking, and not coming back), before crossing a second time, and knocking around a few Russian units, teetering between keeping the Russians from having a good line to being overextended.

Its a clean system, and the GMT presentation is very nice. We would have done more, but Mark headed back early as he was getting progressively worse, and we both spent the next week to two weeks sick and recovering. -.-;