Your best battle?

[Sardonic]

I played an 1792 Game w me as France. No one else was willing.

The ENTIRE WORLD allied against me. The combined allied army under Suvorov was Marching against France
with over 100+ factors.

I had what you start with.

I took England aside and I agreed to allow him to sink my fleets, if he would avoid landing or giving money to Spain.
He kept his word.

Spain advanced and immedietly bogged down trying to take my cities and fortresses.
He also lost 30 factors thru supply attrition.

Still it didnt look good. I was foraging because I had no money.
I did an immediate Levy on mass


Suvorov crossed the Rhine at Cologne. I double marched and met them at Cologne.
He decided to meet me outside the city with everything he had.
I dont recall the exact numbers but I was easily outnumbered 3-1.

I did the logical choice. Suvorov is the only Allied leader that is good at flanking.
I knew the Russian player would be tempted to use him that way.
He sent the entire Prussian army to flank me, and left the Russians and the Austrians to hold me.
I picked Cordon.

And I had him. I rolled a six and he rolled a one. Even better.
The Prussians never showed.
I reamed that Russian army, and their Austrian lackeys.

The vision of the broken allied force trying to make it to the bridges, warmed my heart.
I took Cologne by default.

Dumuriez was my leader.

I had 5 Cav so it was not a complete victory. The Prussians got away.

French militia ruled the day.

Natually later in the game Dumuriez was exectuted in the terror.

[Joisey]

Well played! I don't think I could ever give up my fleet like that, unless the Spanish are going to be hopeless British Lackeys.

[Will_L_OLD]

ORIGINAL: ktotwf

I don't think so. His Tactical Max rating is a 6. So, at 12 he would be a 4, past 12 he would be a 3...

Exactly.
And if we had been using the optional rule to continue reducing the tactical ratings than Napoleon would have been one of either a 5-5-6, 5-4-12, 5-3-18 or 5-2-24(That would be one scary stack) and Pechlivan Khan would have been either a 3-4-3, 3-3-6, 3-2-9, or 3-1-12.

Limiting the reduction helps the other powers to form large coalition armies under decent leadership. Wellington will never be less than a 3 tactical rating regardless of the number of Corps he commands, so he won't ever get hit with a -1 on the tactical ratings chart. I've never played EiH so I don't know if there were any changes in that version to the tactical ratings or if there will be in the Matrix version.

I do have a question about Napoleon's chit in Avalon Hill's version of EiA. On the upper right side there is a small dot, some of our group argued that this meant he was a cavalry commander and some of us (including me) disagreed because all the other cavalry commanders had a star (Kushanz Ali, Murat in the original, later on Suvarov from the General 1792 scenario). We wrote Avalon Hill waaaaaaaaaaay back in 1989 and they confirmed that it was just a dot meant to jazz up Napoleon's chit... Has anyone else's group had this argument?

[Sardonic]

ORIGINAL: Joisey

Well played! I don't think I could ever give up my fleet like that, unless the Spanish are going to be hopeless British Lackeys.

Ahh yes the fleets.... But in practical terms, how will you get any use out of them?
You have only Militia and a prospect of bad harvest.
It will take years to build the Grande Armee.

In the meantime, you must defend France.
I have found that most English are quite resonable if they believe you do not intend to invade England.
In fact, if Napoleon is gone, the English are often willing to make peace.

But again, France is NOT, my forte.

I always bid very low, in fact, as low as possible.

[Murat]

ORIGINAL: Murat

ORIGINAL: Will_L

"How was Napoleon's Tactical Rating a three? His army was like over 12 corps?"

Yep, Napoleon had 14 Corps in that battle including both Piedmont Corps, Lombardy, Holland, Baden and Wurttemburg. All low in numbers (except Lombardy but it was nowhere close to full) and a drain on French morale. He probably counted on the Russo-Turks not having cavalry superiority and his picking Assault (or even Escalated Assault) was a major error because of the morale boost it gave the enemy.

Those minor forces come in handy sometimes, but when I've played France I have usually tried to limit them to seiges, attacking depot garrisons or small armies with approximately equal morale where the secondary French leaders can make a world of difference.

That would have made him a 4.

I was trying to do math at 3 am and realized oh yeah it is a 3 so I hit cancel on this but it posted anyhow. [&:] I did not even know it stayed until just now.

[bOrIuM]

Hm, I was playing France in the 1740 scnario. Britain, spain and prussia allied with me and defeated me making me loose the two third of my army including boats that were all destroyed (but keep the boat but had to repair as in the advanced rules). At least i had good relations with austria that was in war with spain too. You must know that a the begining iof the game, Britain an spain did a "transaction"... Britain had the control of the Portugal and Holland. and that Spain had the Piedmont-Sardaigne and two siciles minors (that is considered as a medium in this scenario caus of its power).

Later, spain decided to attack me before i become too strong. I had an arrangement with britain, he buy me 20 of my boats so I had enough money to rebuild fast. When Spain attacked me, He did with Frederick-Emmanuel of Piemont-Sardaigne (3.3.3.A) and with 90 factors in 9 corps (in 1740 is like 150 in 1805). I had Broglie (2.4.3.B) with 6 corps including Mousketaires (cavalry guards). I had 64 factors at 3.2 of moral he had like 2.6.

I refugee myself into the French alpes near Piemont and he attacked me. We had both good strategy so it didnt influenced the combat. PBut he att into a mountain, that makes a swith into the colum for him. He had 9 corps so he had -2 to his general. It makes a combat in 3 rounds were I loose .8 moral and 4 factors. while He lost for 64 factors with the cavalry charge.

So choose not only the strategy for combat (that is hazard) but choose the combat place and other strategy to win its really important !!

[phimseto]

Many years ago we started a game that unfortuantely did not get too far (that whole "seven people in one place consistently" problem). However, in the time that we did play, Napoleon and his Imperial Guard were bested by the forces of Luxembourg who were defending their country from invasion. Basically, it was a case of me choosing the best defense each time and then rolling extremely well (matched by France's rolling poorly). As you can imagine, that particular victory was short-lived.

[Joisey]

Luxembourg?

[delatbabel]

I've only played one game, but I had one good battle in it, playing Prussia. France and Turkey DoW'ed Austria, I had an enforced peace with France so couldn't join in to help, but I did have corps to spare so marched them down to face off the Turks. The turks withdrew and I followed them with Blucher, 4 of my corps (including the guards), 4 Austrian corps including cavalry, II Grenadier, and 2 infantry corps. We fought one battle outside Adrianople that didn't go too badly (we won, and caused about 9-10 cav casualties on the pursuit), but the next battle was "all in" outside of Constantinople.

I had about 27 Cavalry. Like a madman I picked escalated assault, assuming he would assume I wasn't going to pick that -- he picked cordon and it was all on. My morale was about 3.6 with the guards and cavalry, his was about 2.2, I rolled 6 and 6 and he broke on the 2nd round after handing me almost no damage in either die roll. Then I rolled 6 again for the pursuit, +1 = 7, and we were into serious pursuit losses. The entire Feudal army, gone. All of his Ottoman corps, gone. The turkish grand army reduced to a few Jannisaries, half a cavalry corps and a handful of garrison.

Needless to say my run of 6s continued and I rolled 2 of them to put Blucher in hospital (fortunately only for 3 months).

France hit us hard after that but it was worth it for that one battle.