Command & Colors: Napoleonics - Vimiero

At the last club meeting, Don, Richard, and I got together at the Murr and played a little Command & Colors: Napoleonics. I am starting to get a bit more comfortable with the differences in this game compared to other Richard Borg games. In particular I like the Combined Arms Attack rule. I am still mulling over whether I like a unit's combat power going down with the loss of blocks. When I first played Borg's games it seemed obvious that it should be this way, not the way he had it. But over time I convinced myself that the original way was fine. Now he has switched it to the way we originally though it should be. Go figure! :)

The Vimiero scenario (see the figure for the map) is a tough one for the French. The British have one more Command card than the French and are setup in defensive terrain. Add to it the impassable terrain dividing the French right flank from the rest of the board and you have a tough scenario for the French to win.

Don and I played the first game, with me as the French. I initially drew the Short Supply card, allowing me to send one of his units all the way back to his baseline. I played that card first, sending his artillery ensconced on the center hill back behind the Rifles, opening up the center ridge to attack. This allowed me to pour everything from the French center and left against the central ridge line. I was lucky from the start. At one point I had two of Don's units in square and my cavalry deep into his left flank. Eventually I squeaked out a 6-4 victory, but it was tough.

The second game was between Don and Richard, with Don being the French this time. Again, the ridge in the center served as the focal point of the attacks, but the cavalry seemed to make less of an impression. The winning card play was when the British pulled out a Rally and Don and I discovered that it was just a little different from Memoir '44's Medics and Mechanics or Command & Colors: Ancients' Rally card. With a critical British Light Infantry unit coming back to life, along with beefing up several others, Don's units were too depleted to take on revitalized units. This time the British won, 6-4.

As I was writing this battle report up, however, I was struck with not quite knowing how to show the battle. These are board games with several turns of moves, none of which are typically recorded. Taking pictures does not help much (as you cannot see the type of unit the blocks represent), as I have tried this in the past. The picture of the map is from the VASSAL module and does not show much detail, and certainly none of the details. I suppose I could doctor up the image, like I do with my DBA battle reports, and show arrows where the action occurred, but to be honest I don't remember that much detail. :-/