The Tabletop Tour de France 2024 - Part 1

The Flamme Rouge community loves to design courses, and quite often someone will put together something for the big cycling events. Naturally the Tour de France always gets done, and this year was no exception. The other day I downloaded the tracks for the 2024 Tour from Boardgame Geek, and suggested to Catherine that maybe we work our way through the 20 or so stages. She was up for it.

I'm not sure what timescale we'll have for this; we'll just play when we feel like and give up when we get bored.

We will play one team each, but add in four other teams as bot players, using the full 5-6 player boards for each stage. We normally play with one peloton bot and three muscle bots, but I thought that this we'd replace one of the muscle bots with one of the fan-variants from BGG, the Gruppetto. This 'player' represents the main group of cyclists. It's not likely to win races, but will hang about at the rear of the pack giving slipstream opportunities for those lagging behind and sometimes blocking the way.

The rules for the Gruppetto as as follows:

They are represented by two cyclists side by side. They fill two lanes in the square. They cannot end their move in a square with only one free lane (so are blocked by a single cyclist). Obviously they block the square they are in as well. Exception: If the square only has a single lane (cobblestone sections) then they can be positioned.

They always start on the backmost space on the starting grid. 

They use a single deck (either type) with two obvious cards added in. For our Tour we are using the sprinteur deck with two spare muscle cards added in (the extra '5' cards). On its turn the Gruppetto draws one card.

If one of the special cards is drawn then roll a D6+1; this is the value of the card for movement purposes. All movement rules apply (ascents, descents, supply zones and so forth)

If any other card is drawn then regardless of its value it counts as the following:

If the Gruppetto is on a flat square or Supply Zone square: 5

If the Gruppetto is on an ascent: 3

If the Gruppetto is on a descent: 6

The Gruppetto can give and receive slipstreaming (subject to normal rules for this).

In addition to the Gruppetto we decided to use the Meteo rules for weather. These don't address the effect on bots, so again I searched BGG and came up with the following:

If the bot rider is starting on a Headwind space then the value of their card is reduced by 1 (minimum 2)
If the bot rider is starting on a Tailwind space then the value of their card is increased by 1 (maximum 9)

In both cases you then apply the effect of ascents, descents and Supply Zones.

Last night we did the first two stages. I won't do detailed write-ups because I suspect that no-one reads them. Here's Stage 1 - Florence to Rimini:

There's lots of topography in this one, although each ascent does have either a descent or supply zone after it to help burn off any exhaustion.

Here's everyone on the starting grid before we determined the breakaway pair (another advanced rule we're trying for this tour, since it helps break up the pack a little from the start).

The standees next to some of the straights show the weather. The one that end on was a headwind, the next some rain and the final one a tailwind which, being on the final straight, would give a fast finish.

Catherine is running the green team and I am running the pink. Red and blue are the regular bot teams (we run one each), white is the peloton and black the gruppetto.

You can see how the breakaway has split up the pack here. Red and blue had originally pushed ahead, but red's rider was now in the second group. Blue maintained their lead. I had a terrible start with my sprinteur, and was bringing up the rear with the gruppetto.

The leader a third of the way into the race. Blue's rouleur was still in front, and the peloton was running strongly as well. You can see my rouleur leading the second group.

Not photographed was the disaster on the rainy stretch, where my sprinteur had crashed, followed by the gruppetto (which crashed twice). They got back into the race but lost a lot of ground.

One of the peloton riders actually won the race, pipping the blue rouleur at the post. The peloton picked up third place as well. Catherine's rouleur finished fifth and her sprinter seventh. I picked up sixth place for my rouleur but my sprinteur came in tenth, just ahead of the gruppetto. This left us both towards the bottom of the team rankings.

Stage 2 is from Cesenatico to Bologne. It had fewer hills than the previous race and mostly small ones that, with planning, you can 'bounce' over in one turn.

Red and blue won the breakaway again (we'll be looking at adjusting the rules here I think). You can see them out in front at the start. We had a crosswind on the first straight, which would prevent slipstreaming, but a tailwind further on would give everyone a boost.

(You'll note that Catherine's assistant has abandoned her and is scowling just outside the room)

Once again we split up nicely. In this race it was the red sprinteur that actually pushed out in front, and maintained a good lead. Not something you see very often. Once again my sprinteur found himself at the back of the pack.

Some action from the middle of the race. I had got my sprinteur back into the running, and my rouleur was actually in the lead group and running strongly. But you can see Catherine's rouleur in the lead!

I actually failed a positional move towards the end that cost me a possible win (couldn't draw the right cards when I needed them), and made a poor decision with my sprinteur on the finish that cost him a decent place. As it was my riders finished fourth and  tenth. Catherine's finished first and eleventh; a good run by one racer was offset by a disaster for the other. Red's sprinteur took an unexpected second place, whilst third place went to blue's rouleur.

So after two races red and white have commanding leads in the team scores Catherine is in joint third place with blue and I am in fifth place. Catherine's rouleur is in joint second place in the individual rider scores.