501 Sahagun - Cavalry Action (21 December 1808)

501 Sahagun - Cavalry Action (21 December 1808)

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- Banners: 16
- Years: Peninsular War
- Army: French / British
- Game Box: Marshals&Tactician
- Special Rule:
Blocks Victory Banner; Exit Victory Banner

First 2 games and first 2 french victories.

So it shows again, not the number of units is important, the number of blocks makes
the difference.

WOW: This scenario may be the worth for me over all the CCN production until now ...

Quirky scenario - proper use of towns and woods is the key to this one. Not my favorite scenario by any means but I liked how the banner per block changes the dynamics.

A one-sided slaughter with the French winning easily. The French cavalry is over rated and annihilated the British cavalry easily. To rub it in one French unit rode across the bridge simply because their was no opposition.

So if the French cavalry were dropped down to 3 blocks per unit, would this make it a better scenario?
I'm always a bit concerned about all cavalry scenarios in C&C, because the Command Cards aren't really designed for it. Maybe the Command Deck should be weeded?

Got the chance to test this scenario using 3 block French cavalry yesterday, and the French still won 16-10. However, the English were quite unlucky with their rolls, with several air swings.

Moreover, the dynamic of the game certainly changes, the French can no longer rely upon harder hitting power and stronger units to use brute force to win. My previous experience was this is a 3-5 card play game, with the French cavalry smashing straight up the centre for the win. This time round the French lost 2 units, and managed to exit 3 blocks over a 50 minute game (on VASSAL) in a pretty tense match. The main problem we had was the card decks, with both the Command deck and Tactician deck turning up a lot of infantry cards that weren't much use. I'm considering a smaller deck for these scenarios, just to weed out the over powerful or narrow focus cards that sometimes can upset these scenarios.

Overall, I found the French 3 block version was certainly no worse than the original, it changed the dynamic considerably and made for a tense match which followed the historical narrative somewhat more closely.

I'm experimenting with the following mix of variations; Make French Light Cav a militia type unit - retreat two blocks (haven't tried 3 yet), also -1 die on attack and -2 if battling back against a charge. These make the light cav very weak, and the battle much closer to history in general. I will try something like the Russian Militia lancer spec next (3 hex retreat but ignore sabres totally). Card wise, I tried treating infantry and artillery Tactician cards as "Make strategic move with one unit (ie 4 hexes, no battle)" and otherwise ineffective Command cards as "move one unit" ... made for a better scenario I think, but I will try it a few times more.

RiverWanderer or Mark-McG: Have you tried this scenario again with RiverWanderer's card changes? I am wondering which is best: the card changes alone or Mark's 3 block cavalry for the French?