Round 5

Commands & Colors Napoleonics Open Tournament
Round 4
 
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Round 5

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.

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.

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.

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?

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..

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.
 

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.

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.

Log files attached