Dougfest 2022 - Zeitlessheim (pt1)

The main event for Dougfest was a 5 player game. Usually Doug makes us try and puzzle out the battle later but he gave us enough hints to guess on the Friday night: Blenheim. 

Historically the British under the future) Duke of Marlborough  did a fantastically long march across Europe to aid his allies vs the French and Bavarians. Logistics being what they were (weren't really) it was an amazing accomplishment and achieved with no small amount of tactical surprise. 

The Frenco-Bavarians were in camp and caught a bit flat footed by the suddenly reinforced Austro-Prussians who immediately went on the attack inspired by the British under Marlborough.. Picture above we see the Anglo-Austro-Prussians to the 'North' of the picture and the Frenco-Bavarians to the 'South'.

The Bavarians/me will be played by Italians and green clad cavalry (lower left). Seth/French are lower right. Prussians/James (upper left) . Upper Centre are the British/Doug. Upper Right Saxons/Peter. Linear stands of trees help give a clear delineation between commands.

Dougfest 2022 - General du Corp

The battle was thissssss big

After a long COVID hiatus, Doug hosted another summer game. I had missed Enfilade this year so eagerly headed over for some gaming and socialization with the regulars. General du Corp is a ruleset created by Doug and Seth (and arguably approaching it's final status) for fast play (convention slot) napoleonic large battle play (bases are brigades, and a command is a corp).

As usual, the battle that Doug set up was historically based although not a napoleonic battle it was still horse and musket (he has taken everything from 7 years war to ACW). After finishing the big battle we had time to play so we went over the backup table (set up in case people were interested in a late Friday night game....which we weren't as most of us had done a long commute that day) and played out a fun little battle. 

Taken from the ACW the forces are wildly uneven (I've forgotten the battle but I'm sure Doug will comment below to enlighten us). Peter threw the low die, so he took command of the defenders, seriously hamstrung by having a single commander so would definitely be pip starved for movement. Luckily this was a fun times game and can be gauged in terms of how the historical fight went. 

The defenders (British/Rebels) are holding a series of defensible hills vs the dug in attackers (French/union). Apparently the centre troops took local initiative to test the Rebel lines and, finding them insufficient and under fire, continued to storm forward to drive them off.

I'm unclear if  the flanks were late arrivals or part of the probe in force operation. In game terms we had 3 commands (left/right/centre) with numerical and artillery superiority. Cake walk, right?