When the artillery rules were first written, it was for Brandywine. In the wilderness of the American frontier, the huge artillery batteries of the European continent were unknown.

Since then, the battles have gotten much bigger, and the 3.0 rules have upped the difficulty of recovering from spent, by requiring an unpacked Baggage Train within command range. This has left artillery feeling a little weak. In some scenarios, I find it to be almost more trouble than it’s worth.

To tilt the scale back a bit, I am looking at allowing artillery to bombard even if spent. After all, every other combat unit can attack just as well even if spent, they are just more brittle. This falls into my rules philosophy of only including rules that make the game less complex, and/or play smoother.

This is a short post. It is a simple, yet subtle change. Try it, and let me know what you think.

This time the French went all in and brought everybody. Unfortunately, the Austrians discovered this as soon as the fog cleared, and went on the defensive immediately. A good example of how tough this can make it for the French!

I don’t call attention to it, but I’m experimenting with allowing bombardment even if the artillery block is spent. I will post on that soon. It is under consideration, not yet an official rule.

https://youtu.be/dbLy6nxVdek

Two sweeping efforts, attack and counterattack, bring both armies to the brink of disaster! Every reserve, to the last ounce, is given in this epic contest! All in under 5 minutes.

Pub Battles Germantown fought as a double blind solo. This means I am playing as if neither side has more information on enemy dispositions or intentions. In the foggy battle of Germantown, this is a very entertaining 7min jaunt.

https://youtu.be/z6Biy_R3tUA

Germantown as a Brandywine redux? Let’s see how that works! One of Pub Battles greatest strengths is how the fast, yet authentic, play lends itself to trying out all kinds of different strategies. Returning to my tried and true video style. Still less than six and a half minutes.

A Pub Battles: Brandywine “flashfire” video. Working on an more-action, less talk, video style. I want to perfect my technique with these smaller battles. I need to add a little more narrative, methinks. What do you think?

First video featuring the Pub Battles Brandywine Campaign game. This links the three battles (Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth) into a connected campaign, where results from one affect the next. In this case, Monmouth never happened because of a stunning upset at Germantown. All in exactly 8 minutes!

Watch a very brief smackdown, and learn a valuable strategic lesson!

This time, by watching the casualties placed in the upper right map corner, you can watch the losses mount as the battle progresses. Both armies break if they lose seven infantry blocks. I keep the infantry losses on the map, and the cavalry and artillery losses off the map. They grow out from that line. The tension mounts because you want to unpack bags and begin recovering spent units, but unpacked bags become victory objectives, but spent units can be more easily eliminated, contributing to your army’s breaking point.

Hey, nobody said it was going to be easy…  

A great ripping yarn of a battle. Follow the heroics of Lannes’ V Corps artillery, what a show!