Twilight 2000 and AWI Maurice Game

Monday night was Twilight 2000 night last week and will be again this week and next week.  Once or twice each year we dust off an ongoing Twilight game.  This game was started back before I joined the Monday night group, and I have been there for nearly 20 years now.  There are 5 players, but each has 2 or 3 characters to run and we are trying to get back to the west from Poland.  It has taken us this long to get into Czechoslovakia so I don't think we will ever finish it, but its not a terrible way to spend the evening.  We are currently holed up for (hopefully) the winter in an abandoned monastery/commune in the Czech mountains.  We need to fill our fuel tanks up again with homebrewed methanol and try not to starve through the winter.  Our group currently has 4 vehicles, two Hummers, a 5ton truck and a captured BTR-60.   It will go well until Colin or Nathan bumps into anybody (no, really, anybody....anybody at all) and then the bullets will fly, the excrement will hit the fan and we will have to evacuate the area at high speed.

Saturday saw Gus and Nathan visit my humble abode to play a game of Maurice set in the American Rebellion Revolution.  It is a playtest of the game that Gus and I are putting on at Legionary in May, so some figures are missing(hence the empty or unfinished bases) and the scenery is still a work in progress.  The buildings are all stand-ins and the trees are unfinished too.

Initial setup (Americans at the top)

 The scenario presently has a larger American force attacking a better quality British force.  The Americans had 10 regular infantry, 4 irregular infantry, 2 cavalry and 1 cannon, while the British had 8 regular infantry, 1 cavalry and 2 cannons.  The British were set up defending a plantation house that the Rebels had to capture. 

Americans advance as the British cannons fire

As the game progressed we quickly realised that the Americans were going to struggle.  The map we are using came from Battlefinder, which is an excellent source for random battlefields.  The amount of trees and the angle of the scenery in relation to the troops caused problems for the advancing regular troops, while the British held their ground and bombarded(ineffectually).

The Americans had the skirmisher ability, giving the irregulars long range fire(18cm vs 12cm).  Unfortunately they were only hitting on 6's and the effect they had was limited.

British right flank drives back the irregulars

 They did annoy the British enough for the 3 units on the right flank advanced out and chased off the irregulars.  After a few quick volleys 2 of the American units routed and the British troops fell back to their defensive positions again.

 As the game came to a conclusion due to using up all the cards, we determined that the irregulars were useless in this scenario, the British were rock hard in their defensive positions and we needed to change things.

See, that's why you playtest a game before going to the show!  So now the Americans will have no irregulars, more regular infantry and the British may end up attacking.

I love it when a plan comes together.  I am off now to spend some time with Mrs WWID before going to play Twilight later.  Have fun and keep rolling those dice.