Round 5

Round 5 results
4 unplayed sets of matches, a third of the Round.
If players need to quit the tournament, please let me know.. saves disapointment from your scheduled opponent.

Quarter Finals
www.commandsandcolors.net/napoleonics/ar.../quarter-finals.html

Game 2
scioio1zama (Allies) 4 Banners
Dawnreader (French) 6 Banners

Allies started the battle with light cavaly attack in the center, the French repulsed with their cavalry and got 2 banners. Then the French charged in the center and on their right flank and captured 2 more. But then things started unfolding badly for the French side - the allies counterattack killed a guard light cavalry and a heavy cavalry. 4 -2. French cuirassiers on the right  won the 5th banner for French. The allies weren't just sitting back, they stomped over cuirassiers and heavy cavalry on the french right with Thielmann and his light cavalry. 5-4. And French with last fierce attack in the center got the last banner. Very quick an bloody 5 turns game.

Game 1
Mark McG (Allies) 4 Banners
FoxK (French) 6 Banners

Overall both matches ran for 4 hours, not including the 2 hours the day before trying to get VASSAL to sync. So the details are now somewhat fuzzy. Allies made early efforts to reduce the French hand down by hitting the cavalry and tying the Line foot into square, which was somewhat thwarted by Hasty Square.

End of the game was a 2 strength Russian HA with leader and supported being hit with 1 hit and 2 flags, the leader dying on a double swords and consequently the Russian artillery being unable to ignore both swords and being eliminated. 7 turn game.

 
Game 2
FoxK (Allies) 3 Banners
Mark McG (French) 6 Banners

2 turns of lining up the cavalry across from each other, eventually became clear the Allies were going to wait, so the French took the initiative. Guard Light cavalry took the lead, and ignored many flags. The French heavy cavalry came up and cleared the Allied left (and the unfortunate Thielmann died on a double swords), taking a 5-2 lead, and the game could have ended with a 1d leader loss, but he escaped.

Then a hard grind to pursue down the last banner, with successive near eliminations until eventually the Centre came good and chased one down. Tough game. 9 turns.
 

Happy New Year!

Week out from deadline.. if you haven't organised your matches yet, please do so. If you haven't heard back from your opponent, check the SPAM folder, and contact me if you still haven't heard.

If you have played and the match isn't reported yet, please report ASAP so I don't start chasing you.

Round 5 game 1 Altenburg

Mike Stanley (scioio1zama) French – 6 banners – won
Aleksandr Pushkarev (Dawnreader) Allies – 0 banners – lost

The French launched an immediate attack on the Allied left, and in the back & forth, the Allies lost a LC and the leader Thielmann (and a Cossack.)  Then the Allies attacked the center with Cossacks, and we went back & forth there.  A French Lancer attack on an Allied LC missed but got 1 flag.  The reroll got a hit, then 2 crossed swords got the leader Mensdorff, then the breakthrough bonus attack finally killed the LC.  (Three Cossacks also perished.)

After an Allied Grand Manoeuvre, a French Coordinated Advance knocked off 2 more Cossacks.  Finally, after a totally failed Allied Rally (3 flags, one swords, and one unusable blue infantry symbol), another French Coordinated Advance took out a LC and the Austrian Horse Cavalry for the win.

The battle was more balanced than it sounds, with seven French units taking a total of 12 hits.  But the French had good rolls at the right times and the perfect cards for what they wanted to do. 

 

Game 1
toganalper (Allies) 6 Banners
GomJabbar (French) 5 Banners

The French charged forward on both flanks. A little too boldly on the left but the dice were on the French side and the Allied right flank was decimated. The Allies had better luck in the center but the dice still favoured the French. It was looking like a decisive French victory with 5-1 banners. But then the Allies rallied in the center and took the win. A terrible retreat decision by the French in the last turn allowed the Allies to take the last 2 banners in a single cavalry bonus attack. Congratulations toganalper, an amazing comeback by the Allies.
 
Game 2
GomJabbar (Allies) 6 Banners
toganalper (French) 1 Banner

This time the Allies charged forward on their right flank to great success. The French consolidated their strength in the center. Attack and counterattack in the center surprisingly when the Allies way. The French quickly lost 3 units (and 2 cards). With only 3 command cards the French were severely hampered. The Allies continued the assault in center and right and finally eliminated a couple of 1 block stragglers for the win. At one point a Canister by the French GHA looked liked it might turn the tide of the battle but the dice failed the French.
 
Thanks for the games toganalper. That was fun and most unexpected to see 2 Allied wins. I expected the French to have the advantage in this scenario. This was my first time using the new V5 module. I loved the automatic dice calculation. Thanks Mark Benson.

Game 1:
EZPickins (Allies) 6 Banners
kfan (French) 0 Banners

My Cossacks took most of the casualties as the Lights had a run of good luck taking out the French.


Game 1:
EZPickins (French) 6 Banners
kfan (Allies) 1 Banners

I avoided getting engaged with the Cossacks and advanced across the board in the center.  

Game 1:
Gileforn (Allies) 5 Banners
RiverWanderer (French) 6 Banners

A close struggle for most of the game, with the French just edging a win.



Game 2:
RiverWanderer (Allies) 6 Banners
GileForn (French) 3 Banners

French started out in strong fashion and attacked in force in the centre, though a Lancer unit had to be rescued after a mauling from roving cossacks. Unfortunately for Andrey, his two random card losses put his attack in difficulty, made worse by his Line unit being forced into square briefly. The Allies on the other hand were able to sustain their defence. Even so, the Austrian centre was on edge of collapse by the end.

Round 5
2d match, Altenburg

Allies: gdnuke. 1 banner
French: Craterus, 6 banners

 

With regard to the connectivity issue with Russian players, I have a sort of work around. If the Russian player uses a VPN, you can synchronise the games. My experience was that is wasn't a very stable connection, and that there were multiple disconnects in the game, with the Russian player disconnecting each time, but that may have been his connection. 

Initially we could not sync at all, but using the VPN on a different machine allowed us to sync, but the connection was bad. Whether it was just that different PC, or VASSAL I can't say. Hopefully that will help.

 

and the first one

Log files attached

R5G1 Altenburg
Renaud / Allies 1 banner, 29 blocks lost
Steve T / French 6 banners, 12 blocks lost
Like most cavalry games, this was quick. After a little manoeuvering, the Allies attacked on the French right, but a 7 block combined arms was foiled by Battle Field Smoke, and the Allied LC and HA were driven off or destroyed by the French HC (0-2). The Allies then launched a Cavalry Charge (LC: 3 in centre, 1 on the French right) but were hampered by abysmal dice in 3 of 4 attacks, and the French counter blow with Forward drove the Allies back with the loss of 2 more units (1-4). Allied attacks with two more LC with Leadership again failed for useless dice and the French quickly wrapped up the game (1-6).
Some interesting points:
The Cossacks without much ranged fire to interfere with seemed to be at least as much a hindrance as a help to the Allies.
We had trouble discarding a French command card, and had to resort to pretending to square French inf
Like all cav battles, this was short and sharp and can be quickly decided by poor dice, and in this game the Allies cavalry had generally brought plastic toy sabers to the battle.
Thanks to Renaud for an enjoyable game, and for putting up with his terrible rolls!

R5G2 Altenburg
Steve T / Allies 5 banners, 23 blocks lost
Renaud / French 6 banners, 24 blocks lost
After initial manoeuvering into position, my Allies attacked the French centre with LC x2 and HA with elan (1-0), aiming to do some damage and to lure the French out of formation with their reply (1-3) - with an Allied prepared Cav Charge counterstroke that damaged the French centre but only gained one more banner (3-2). The French replied with leadership but to little effect, and I launched my next Cav Charge (!), gaining three more banners (5-3), including capturing Lefevre on a leader escape. Both cav charges resulted in a lot of dice but not enough hits, and Renaud’s reply destroyed three weakened Allied units for the game (5-6). In this battle I had great cards but not dice, and we forgot until the last turn to remove French command cards.
Again, great to play Renaud, always a tough opponent.

jfardette wrote:

I played Azzy last week and didn’t have any issues, so maybe the pairings could be reset so Gileforn plays against a US opponent?
 

I played Azzy last month without issues as well, so this idea my not help. As far as I know, the important connection is between each client and the Vassal game server, though my knowledge on this is scant.

It may be a local issue affecting but it failed with at least two different ISP connections and using a VPN at the Russia end, so I understand.

fwiw, my understanding:

Detaching a leader with a Take command card (he was not the leader who was used to play the card);
Yes - and it doesn't matter it the leader was used to play the card or not - providing that the leader order is included in the number of orders used from Take Command, as detailed in the "Take Command" FAQ response on  this page . Incidentally, completely the opposite from the equivalent card in C&C Ancients (maybe no-one asked the question of that game!).

trying to move an unattached leader off the back row as a move and not a retreat;
Definately not, unless scenario special rules allow it.

reserves onto a bridge allowed or not?
Strictly no, unless a lone leader is present. The bridge is a terrain hex, not a clear hex (despite being equivalent). Interestingly (ish), Richard Borg's group - so he told us in an FAQ response - now plays Call Forward Reserves without the terrain restriction.
 

my only suggestion is a VPN.

I've not experienced the problem, and not clear where the problem would lie.

hopefully this is just a passing glitch, but if it persists I'll look at varying the draw in the new year.

Merry Xmas everyone..

I played Azzy last week and didn’t have any issues, so maybe the pairings could be reset so Gileforn plays against a US opponent?

Having difficulty getting my match with Gileforn played due to apparent IP blocking between us (Russia and UK). This issue was reported by Vassal user microcuchon a few weeks ago, on the Vassal Discord server.

Can anyone offer any help or ideas? Anyone else experiencing the problem?

Symptom is that you can't synchronize a game from one player to the other (so one player sees the initial map they opened but the other one cannot get to see it, whether by joining the room or synchronising individually). Also, chat messages do not get through, apart from when the player joins the room. You will still see the players in the room as well. At some point the player in Russia will get disconnected from Vassal.

Round 5 Game 1     MD 21 Altenburg

Player 1 Craterus and Player 2 gdnuke

Allies (Craterus) 1 banner
French (gdnuke) 6 banners

This was the first play of this scenario for each of us, and after some early Allied success, it became apparent that this was France's day.

The dice rolling was awful most of the time for both players, with misses or just 1 hit on rolls of 5,6, and 7 dice. A review of the game logfile did show a luck advantage to the French.

The cards were also strange. In a 7-turn game, neither player played a center card despite that section being where almost all the action occured. No center cards for either player.

The Allies did start with Cavalry Charge, a First Strike on French turn 1, and Elan (with all 5 dice resulting in ordered units!) on Allied Turn 2, before settling into Flank Attack in Turn 3 and section cards for the rest of the game.
The French were fortunate to have a Hasty Square card on turn 1 to save going down a card while protecting the LN in the center and played their own Cavalry Charge in French turn 2 to weaken some Austrian LCs and a HA and cut off one Austrian LC. Still, at the end of turn 2 the Allies were up 1-0 and the French were down to 4 Command Cards.

In French Turn 3 a Forward card was played and the French LN came out of square to kill a one block HA unit and Mensdorff, while the French LT finished off an LC that was down to 1 block. The French did play a Leadership card in turn 5 and Give Them the Cold Steel in turn 6. Lots of dice were rolled, but fewer hits than expected. In the end, even colder dice rolled against the French CU unit and failure to eliminate it on the Allied Left flank enabled it to score the finishing kills to push the banner count to 6-1 in favor of the French.

The game was certainly closer than the final score, and was well-played, even if an observer might have wondered, "Why don't either of these guys make a decisive strike in the center?"  Because the CARDS, that's why! We learned how to use "hot key f2", so that was another success. Thanks to Craterus for a fun game and for being patient as I overlooked several things during our game. I have promised to have a stronger cup of coffee before our rematch.

The logfile is below.

Game 1

Jim (Allies) 4 Banners

Azzy (French) 6 Banners

French took an early lead, Allies fought back but came up a few blocks short. 2 Allied Cavalry Charge cards amazingly had little effect on the game and Azzy closed out the win but not without worry.

Add the logfile

Azzy (Allies) 0 Banners

Jim (French) 6 Banners

Unfortunately Azzy came up short on cards and dice, playing two Force March cards and revealing a Fire and Hold at the end. His dice weren't great either, but he did not roll a lot of them due to lack of ordered units.

Interestingly, I thought I knew this game but we did have several rules questions come up during play of game 2. Detaching a leader with a Take command card (he was not the leader who was used to play the card), trying to move an unattached leader off the back row as a move and not a retreat, reserves onto a bridge allowed or not? Always new things to learn.