Game Night Light 19

Last night was the weekly beer exchange and game night. I was pleasantly surprised that post-Thanksgiving torpor didn't scuttle this week's event.

We returned to an old game from the early days of the monthly game night. Napoleon:

We did indeed manage to finish the game in one evening. Back in the day this was a good 2 or 3 player game that we played a lot before moving on to Viktory II and then Catan. I bought several more of these block war games in case we needed new ones for variety. But new players and a preference for strategy games pushed those games aside.

But that's one reason why weekly game night was born!

The game came back to me as the evening progressed. 

The difficulty of moving masses of troops with limited movement from command and road network limits was a challenge. 

Getting the British and Prussians within supporting distance was hard and not always fully successful. Defending allied supply bases was a constraint. 

And pushing the masses of French troops into position to exploit the allied centrifugal forces was hard. 

Preserving your armies in battle was also a challenge and the occasional night turns were both problems and opportunities. 

And the hidden nature of the enemy always added tension as the assumption of a strong enemy force near you was always made.

The tactical battle map is interesting and we only screwed up once in the first smaller battle--neglecting that artillery can't advance to engage. But the error didn't change the results of the first fight.

One thing neither of us did was form square in battle. I always preferred to keep shooting rather than losing a battle move going into square and then another returning to regular formation.

We only had three major battles in the game. The first was on the knife's edge and could have gone either way. The second was at Waterloo. And the third was the result of a massive surge south as both sides marched to fight for the Prussian supply base. The outcome was on the knife's edge as both raced into position for a final battle near the end of the game's time limit.

It really is a nice game, balancing the tensions of maneuvering on the map and the terror of committing to battle against an unknown foe on the battle map, with your artillery, cavalry, and infantry mix.

Anyway, it was fun to trade and drink beers, and play a war game. Weekly game night forces me to resist the winter urge to just hybernate and wait to emerge in spring to socialize. Or even to use my brain for doing more than browsing my streaming services. 

So thanks for attending!