NROW Play Test #5 at Ralph's

Last Friday we all got together for the final play test of Napoleon's Rules of War before our club's February Game day. With a lot on the line, representation from both the French and Austrian teams was high enough to require some turn coats for the play test. Below, pictured on the left, the Austrians, Ed, Bob, Ralph and George, on the right the French Mark D., Earl, Rob and Byron.

Charlie is down to the finer tuning points for the scenario and rules. The new combat mechanism seems to be working nicely. There were some discussions about how to attack with poorer quality troops, and if larger battalions needed some adjusting to better represent the advantages of their size. Other than that things seem to be working nicely. 

For the game, the tabletop was dominated by a walled farm. I put my command, a larger Austrian regiment, into the village, while supporting the open center with my artillery battery behind a wall I shared with Ralph's infantry. On the left both sides attempted to advance, but both sides retreated after heavy losses from enemy short range artillery fire. On the far left George repulsed one charge attempt made by Mark.

In the center, Earl did a good job of putting hits on my troops in the town, eventually causing me to have to back out of some of the buildings. My one attempt at charging his troops to chase them away ended up a miserable failure with my troops routing back to their rear.

On the Austrian right, Bob and Ed used their combined arms of Bob's artillery and Ed's cavalry to square up the French, bombard their squares and eventually out flank the French cavalry routing it. After that our cavalry was mostly trapped behind French lines.

We called the game when the time got late and the snow started to fall. No decision on this battle, but plenty of great feedback about the rules that Charlie can use to tune things for game day.