Tour De France 1903 - Part 3

The third stage of the 1903 Tour De France runs from Marseille to Toulouse. Unlike the first two stages it doesn't include any significant climbs; just a couple of little ones to be annoying.

I did include one of the new roundabout tiles near the end, just because I've got them now and wanted to try them out. I'm not entirely sure what they represent in terms of track design, but they are fun, even if there's two pages of rules and examples covering them, because of some of teh interactions they cause. Basically the roundabout splits the track into two separate routes, one longer than the other. Cyclists default to the short route, but if their final space on the roundabout  is blocked then they have to divert along the longer route. Each route slipstreams individually. It's not that complex once you get used to it. I thought the putting it near the finish might be interesting, as going the long way can throw off any  calculations a player has made on how to finish. 

Anyway, here's the stage:

Obligatory starting grid shot.

I tried something clever with my sprinteur. The card draws didn't cooperate and he got left behind on the first ascent.

He caught up again, but there were a few stragglers now.

Once again the Black bot made it look effortless. Catherine's rouleur was up with the front pack. Both of m riders were lagging behind.

I got my rouleur into the front pack as we headed into the final run to the finish. A small ascent slowed everyone down a little.

The roundabout didn't catch anyone out - everyone got to zip past on the inside lane.

The race for the finish. 

It was a fast finish. The Blue rouleur crossed the line first, with the other three rouleurs in hot pursuit. My rouleur came second and Black's rouleur came third. We got both the podium points and sprint points.

At the end of the third stage is a rest day. This allows riders (the human-played ones anyway) to ditch more exhaustion cards. with one exception. Any rider wearing one of the jerseys spends the day doing interviews and PR, so doesn't get to rest. However they do score a Tour Point for their team. Thus the Blue and Black rouleurs had a busy day, but Blue got an extra Tour Point for the yellow jersey and Black got two Tour Points for being fastest individual time and best on the mountains, leaving me equal bottom of the rankings with White.

These are the standings after three stages, and taking into account the rest-day.

Tour Points

Blue - 7
White - 4

Black - 5
Pink - 4

Individual Times (m:ss)

Black Rouleur - 0:50
White Rouleur - 1:20
Pink Rouleur - 1:20
Blue Rouleur - 2:20

Pink Sprinteur - 2:40
White Sprinteur - 9:10

Blue Sprinteur - 7:50
Black Sprinteur - 11:20

Team Times (m:ss)

Pink - 3:40
White - 10:30

Blue - 10:10
Black - 12:10

Sprint Points

Blue Rouleur - 7
Black Rouleur - 3
Pink Rouleur - 3
White Rouleur - 2

Mountain Points

Black Rouleur - 7
White Rouleur - 6
Blue Rouleur - 5
Black Sprinteur - 2
Pink Rouleur - 1

The fourth stage runs from Toulouse to Bordeaux. It's basically a flat sprint, but there are two sections of cobblestones to break up the pack, one of then preceded by a risky tight bend (a new tile from Grand Tour which offers the possibility of crashes). There are plenty of Sprint Points available for those who want to take them.

The starting grid. I realised that I'd been calculating who placed first incorrectly up until now; teams are placed in ascending order of Tour Points, not based on overall time. So as the team at the bottom of the table I got pole position, whilst Catherine was last team off the rank.

White forged ahead. It looks good but that's all their good cards gone early in the race. Once again I botched things and ended up with my rouleur leading the chasing pack. Which meant I was picking up a pile of exhaustion cards. Catherine just tailed both of my riders and didn't.

Bunching in the first cobblestone section. And I finally managed to let Catherine slip in front and take teh fatigue.

Sprinting into the middle section saw this great moment. After all movement is completed you check, starting from the back if a rider has a single space between them and the rider/pack in front. If so, they move up. Then *that* group checks, and so on, until you don't have one space gaps. It's teh slipstreaming rule. Have a look at this position. starting with the Black sprinteur at the back there's a series of one space gaps ...

... leading to this. The Black sprinteur basically got five points of movement for free. 

(On ascents and cobbles there's no slipstreaming, so you really don't want gaps there because they simply mean exhaustion)

White was burning out now, and the riders were back in a bunch. The best managed hand would sin the final sprint. But there was still the narrow village street and final cobblestone section to go.

We got through with no incident. Both of Catherine's riders were up front, with my rouleur keeping them company.

But I couldn't find the oomph for a sprint off the cobbles, and Catherine forged ahead.

The Blue rouleur was the only rider to cross on his turn, but thanks to a final burst of speed from the reserve my Pink rouleur was only twenty seconds behind in second place. Twenty seconds behind him was the Black rouleur. They picked up the Podium Points and the Sprint Points. 

The jerseys changed hands a little. My Pink rouleur is now the fastest rider overall (by a mere ten seconds), so wears the yellow jersey. Catherine's Blue rouleur has the most Sprint Points. The Black rouleur still leads the race to be King Of The Mountain, because here were no Mountain Points available in this race. In fact with only four points available to a single rider in the final two stages, only the Blue and White rouleurs could seize the crown from Black now.

These are the scores at the end of the fourth stage:

Tour Points

Blue - 10
Black - 7

Pink - 6

White - 4

Individual Times (m:ss)

Pink Rouleur - 2:20

Black Rouleur - 2:30
Blue Rouleur - 3:00

White Rouleur - 3:20
Pink Sprinteur - 4:20

Blue Sprinteur - 9:30

White Sprinteur - 11:20

Black Sprinteur - 13:00

Team Times (m:ss)

Pink - 6:40
Blue - 12:30

White - 14:40

Black - 15:30

Sprint Points

Blue Rouleur - 12
Pink Rouleur - 6

Black Rouleur - 4
White Rouleur - 4
White Sprinteur -1

Mountain Points

Black Rouleur - 7
White Rouleur - 6
Blue Rouleur - 5
Black Sprinteur - 2
Pink Rouleur - 1

With two races to go Catherine is looking hard to beat unless she really messes up. A couple of strong finishes by Black or myself could push her hard, and make it go down to the bonus points for sprints and mountain-climbing. But winning races is where the points are, and that's what she's doing.

Strangely, despite my lack of wins, my consistent finishing near the front gives my rouleur and, indeed, my team, the fastest overall times.

First Kernstown With 'Valour & Fortitude'

Last night Ralph and I had a go at a smallish refight of the ACW battle of First Kernstown using the free 'Valour & Fortitude' rules. Both of us are pretty rusty with this particular set, albeit that they are short. There's a few oddities to remember, but once you get going with them they are pretty slick. I like them, despite not having internalised them yet.

Anyway, I took the outnumbered but attacking Confederates, whilst Ralph took the numerous, but shaky, Union defenders.

I didn't really take many photos to create a narrative. There were two objectives on the board and all I had to do was capture one. I had three brigades to do it with. I advanced on both. This is my attack on the objective to my left.

And the one on the right, which was covered by a grand battery. 

My forces looked confident on the right but they didn't look that way for long. Still, it tied up two Union brigades.

I had more luck on my left, facing one Union brigade which definitely started to waver as I attacked. Mind you, I wasn't free of casualties either.

I had one reserve brigade and brought it up to bolster my left.

Things were really going badly on my right. Still, the Union were being kept busy. 

View of the left. My lead brigade was shattered but the reserve was ready to go in on a Union brigade that was really starting to look shaky. 

We called it a draw at that point, with a couple of turns still to play. Either side could have suffered a catastrophe at this stage, but it was hard to tell who.

I adopted a Fire & Fury approach to tactics, simply hurling troops into fights and hoping the odds would go my way. It probably wasn't the best approach, but it got the game moving quickly and I'm not sure that caution is the best Confederate strategy here either.

Thanks to Ralph for putting on the game. I think we both came away feeling more confident with these rules.

Tour De France 1903 - Part 2

The 1903 Tour De France for  'Flamme Rouge' continues. The second stage runs from Lyon to Marseilles and, like the first, includes a horrible great climb. This time it's near the stary of the race, and it's even bigger than the climb in the first. Fear not; this is the last big climb of the tour; the ascents for the 1903 riders were fairly modest after this one.

As per the rules the riders were arranged in ascending order of team times. This left White in pole position, followed by Blue, then Black and then my Pink team. The new expansion includes little card bases to go around the cyclists and show who is currently wearing the yellow (fastest time), green (sprinter) and polka-dot (king of the mountain) jerseys. In races this has no effect but come the rest days a team gets a Tour Point (the VPs of the game) for each riders that is wearing a jersey. The downside to this is that because they spend all day doing interviews with the press they don't get to halve their exhaustion cards like other riders. Being the best has its price.

Anyway, here's the course so you can admire that magnificent climb. I also threw in a cobbled section before the final small climb just to make life harder.

And here's the riders ready for the off. The White rouleur wears the polka-dot jersey, the Black rouleur the yellow jersey and my Pink sprinteur somehow wears the green jersey.

The riders hit the big ascent. This immediately split them into two packs. At the rear is the Black sprinteur. He somehow got totally detached from the peloton and cycled the entire race alone, finishing a long time after the other riders. We won't see him again.

The big ascent really broke up the pack. Catherine's Blue rouleur was running second and doing well. My riders struggled up the mountain.

We all got back together in the middle section, ready for the small  ascent before the final sprint. The Black and White rouleurs had run a strong race up to this point, but their decks were running out of steam. A good push by Catherine and myself could see a win for one of us here.

All four rouleurs ended up in the race to the finish.

Mine didn't quite have the puff for that final sprint and finished third. The White rouleur finished second and Catherine's Blue rouleur finished first. 

A win gives you three TPs, second-place gives you two and third-place 1. TPs are actual final victory points so are key. Riders are also awarded mountain points and/or sprinter points are two points in the race. These are accumulated and then TPs are awarded at the end of the tour for the team with the best rider in each category. There's also TP awards at the end for fastest individual rider and fastest team. 

These are the standings after two races:

Tour Points

White - 4
Blue - 3
Black - 3
Pink - 2

Individual Times (m:ss)

Black Rouleur - 0:50
White Rouleur - 1:20
Pink Rouleur - 1:20
Pink Sprinteur - 1:20
Blue Rouleur - 2:20
White Sprinteur - 4:40
Blue Sprinteur - 5:10
Black Sprinteur - 8:40

Team Times (m:ss)

Pink - 2:40
White - 6:00
Blue - 7:30
Black - 9:30

Sprint Points

Blue Rouleur - 2
Black Rouleur - 2
White Rouleur - 2

Mountain Points

Black Rouleur - 6
White Rouleur - 6
Blue Rouleur - 5
Pink Rouleur - 1

Catherine (Blue) is doing OK, with a stash of Sprint and Mountain points as well as a second-place TP total. My Pink team is doing less well, although my propensity for bringing in my rouleur and sprinteur together (rather than leaving the sprinteur behind) has given me the best total team time. I need to try and win at least one race to stay in the running though.

Tour De France 1903 - Part 1

The new Grand Tour expansion for Flamme Rouge is very much about running tours (campaigns), despite there being other new stuff in it as well. So I was keen to give one a go. I ran a solo one last week just to get a feel for the spreadsheet-like tracking sheets, but last night my wife an I started a four team tour, with each of us taking a team each and running a bot team each as well.

I wanted something fairly short - the whole Tour De France would be fun, but it's big and there'd be a lot to track. Trawling through old posts on BGG I found a file in which someone had created courses for the first ever Tour De France in 1903. This was only six stages, so I thought would make a manageable tour with a variety of courses.

To be fair the 1903 Tour was very different from the modern version, or indeed the 1930s version that appears in the game art-work. There were no teams for a start; riders competed as individuals. Riders didn't necessarily have to compete in all of the stages. And the stages were huge. The modern Tour De France has stages that average around 170km in length. In 1903 the six stages averaged 400km each! To offset this there were one to three rest days between each stage. Because of this the author of the tracks on BGG designed each one to be a long course (something that's covered in the expansion).  Here's a map of the original tour:

I wanted to keep my tour simple. So I decided to redesign each course based on the profile, but scaling it to a a regular length - there are course design guidelines in the rules and I intended to follow those. Essentially each course should generally have all twelve curved sections and nine straights (or equivalents), including the start and finish tiles. They also recommend that a course only have 2-3 sections that have ascents and/or cobbles. I tried to stick to that, which meant a few design compromises. I also designed each course for 2-4 riders and, obviously, we'd use the regular teams.

I made a few decisions. I slightly over-emphasised the ascents to keep things challenging, and where there were minor areas of undulating terrain I used cobblestone sections. The latter help break up the riders unless managed properly, which makes for a nice challenge. On two stages I added tiles from the new expansion simply because I wanted to try them out. For purists I did versions of those courses without them. 

You can download the complete set of stages HERE. You need the Peloton expansion for them, but I'd say that expansion is a must anyway. I used tile 'u' as the finish. If you're playing with Grand Tour then you should substitute it with the new 'v' tile. I included the breakaway tile on each course. I don't plan on using the breakaway rules in this tour, but it's there for anyone who does. 

Anyway, I'll freely admit that the courses are inspired by the original rather than slavish reproductions. The key thing is that there are a range of challenges over the six races.

Last night Catherine and I had a go at the first one. It runs from Montgeon near Paris to Lyon. This is the profile:

The first two-thirds is a nice flat course, but with a big cobblestone area to cover some rougher terrain about halfway. The latter third of the race sees a minor then major ascent before the rune to the finish-line.

This was the start. Catherine is Blue and had 'pole position'. I am the Pink team next to her. The Black and White teams are regular bots.

The opening was cautious as neither Catherine nor I wanted to push ourselves forward and start accumulating exhaustion too early. The Black and White rouleurs made a run for it though and had a commanding lead. In theory this would see their decks devoid of decent cards by the end of the race, so I hoped we could catch them then.

The cobblestones worked as expected, breaking the teams up. They actually ended up in colour order. Black and White raced ahead and I was a turn ahead of Catherine in anticipating this and piled on speed to leave her behind. Cobblestones prevent slipstreaming so whilst I would end up with exhaustion, so would she and she'd be detached from the main race as well.

This set the pattern for the rest of the race. Black and White's rouleurs stayed out in front, but their sprinteurs were slowed down by the large ascent at the end. I kept up the pressure, and Catherine got left behind.

The Black rouleur crossed the line a turn ahead of the other riders. This affects how the tour times are calculated, so is a good thing. Both of my riders crossed on the next turn, with my sprinteur picking up third place (which gives him a Tour Point - the VPs of the game)

I won't post the various scores at this stage, but thanks to my riders crossing together I actually have the fastest combined team time. Black is doing well in terms of the sprint and mountain competition though.

We're not running long rest periods between each race. There will be a single rest day after Stage 3. So the next race will see our heroic riders travel from Lyon to Marseilles.

Ten Years Ago - January 2016

I haven't done any giant monster gaming for a while now. I think I kind of fell out of love with all three of the rules I used for it, and haven't managed to convince myself to go back to one of them and remind myself what I liked about them. I even looked at writing my own, but never got very far with it. 

Anyway, my first nostalgia post for 2026 looks at this game of Giant Monster Rampage from 2016.  Maybe it will inspire me to get one of my set of rules out and smash up a few skyscrapers.

Giant Monster Rampage - Ghidorah vs Gambler Diamond