Dominion Night

Last night I ran some games of 'Dominion of Marlborough and Peter The Great' at the Wollongong Wargamers. Caesar and Daniel played most of them, whilst I sorted out troops and explained the rules.

Since I knew we'd fit in multiple games, I decided to use the evening as an excuse to try out my simple WSS campaign mechanism. Rather than use random armies, though, I simply picked eight scenarios from the book, mostly covering the battles on  the Low Countries, but with a couple of Italian ones thrown in for fans of Eugene of Savoy.

Caesar bravely took the French and their allies, whilst Daniel commanded the Grand Alliance.

I don't have detailed reports of each battle, but I at least photographed the setup of each. We used my Great Northern War armies, with Swedes playing the French and the Russians playing the Alliance.

The first battle we played was a learning game - Chiari (September 1701). The French were assaulting Eugene, who was in a prepared position.

The French right turned into a cavalry battle

The French lost it, and Eugene rolled up the French line for a win.

With the basic game mechanisms under their belts, Daniel and Caesar were ready for the first campaign battle. We opened with the Storming Of The Schellenberg (July 1704). In all of the French and allies are on the left and the Grand Alliance on the right. Terrain is mostly garnish, but does sometimes indicate troops with defensive bonuses.

The fortress of Donauworth held off the initial Alliance assault.

But it all went horribly wrong for Caesar in the centre, Donauworth fell and the Bavarians were defeated.

The second battle of the campaign was Blenheim (August 1704). The playing cards are the campaign. Basically each player has a hand of cards, one of which is randomly placed in front of them as a stake. There are also four pool cards available. The winner of the battle gets to take one card. If they win decisively then they get to take two. At the end of the campaign - which will be after 3-8 battles, randomly determined - the player who can make the best five-card poker hand from their cards wins campaign. I'll write it all up properly soon, though.

The fighting around Blenheim descended into a slog so teh battle really became about cavalry smashing into each other in the centre.

Both sides saw units lost and then rallied, and the fighting continued.

But, once again, Marlborough was victorious, this time decisively.

Two games in and the French had yet to win a battle. How would they do at Elixheim (July 1705)?

This starts with a big cavalry fight along the line, with the French infantry at the rear defending a sunken road. Naturally the French lost the cavalry action and Marlborough's horseman rode down the infantry as well. Another decisive win.

On to Ramillies  (May 1706) and things were not looking good for the French. Daniel had a nice fat hand of cards, and Caesar ... didn't. Would the French dice finally come good?

The battle was hard-fought ...

... and the French cavalry was victorious on their right.

... and then it all went horribly wrong, and Marlborough won again.

On to battle number five and a return to Italy and the exploits of Eugene of Savoy. The battles was Turin (September 1706). The French were defending earthworks against an Allied assault. Their morale was not high.

And what ensued was another French rout!

The dice spoke at that point, ending the campaign and putting Caesar out of his misery. Comparing hands, Caesar could only manage a pair of threes, whilst Daniel had a nice six/ace full house. So the Grand Alliance very much dominated the negotiations of the Treaty of Utrecht.

To be fair Caesar's die-rolling was abysmal all evening; he barely rolled above a 3 in any combat. A couple f times he actually had a decent position and could have turned the battle in his favour, but a run of rubbish rolls threw it all away.

With plenty of evening left I thought we'd switch to the Great Northern War, and try out that old classic, Poltava (August 1709). In this picture the attacking Swedes (Caesar) are on the  left and the Russians (Daniel) on the right).

Initial Swedish successes were stymied by some stubborn resistance from the redoubts and a solid Russian infantry performance beyond them. History repeated itself and the Swedes lost.

Daniel and Caesar swapped sides. 

The Russians won again - Caesar's only victory of the evening.

Caesar decided to rest on his laurels and we decided to fit in just one more wafer-tin game. I'd scribbled some notes for a new scenario, and we tried it out - the Battle of Pruth River (1711). This was really an excuse to get my Nottomans out, as this battle saw Peter the Great's Russians attacked by an Ottoman army in modern-day Romania.

The Russians are in a fortified camp, and the Ottomans had a lot of guns.

Ottoman cavalry in action with the janissaries being rallied in the foreground.

Janissaries assault the camp and are repulsed.

But the Ottoman guns win the day, forcing the Russians to sue for terms.

So we managed nine games in about three hours, including a complete campaign, which I thought was pretty good. I think that the campaign was probably a little biased towards Marlborough, Caesar's die-rolling aside, because I don't think that the scenarios are intended to be entirely balanced; they are slightly weighted in favour of the historical victors. So whilst it was a chance to test out the card-driven mechanisms of the campaign it was kind of a skewed result owing to the complete whitewash of the French. I need to try it out with some random armies.