Blood and Borscht Campaign has begun.

[Hertsblue]

Er... whose girlfriend, FK? Or do I have to draw your attention to the old navy toast - wives and girlfriends, may they never meet!

[FierceKitty]

This is the 21st century. My toast is "Wife and girlfriend - may they never decide they don't need me on the team!"

[FierceKitty]

Winter 1600. The Muscovites have remained in Lwow, drawing just enough tax to pay the army, raising three elements of streltsi musketeers to begin recovering their losses, and hiring another regiment of Scottish pike-and-shot infantry. The Turks have paid their army and been sent some auxiliary light cavalry and tribal swordsmen by the Shah of Afghanistan; they have marched to intercept the invading Cossack army at the ruins of Izmir, and the next campaign event will be the battle between the two armies. Watch this space.

[paulr]

 

[Hertsblue]

We are agog (i.e half a goggle). 

[Westmarcher]

Wait. Wayyyyyt. 

Two of the players are rabbits?

[Ithoriel]

Rabbits are seriously in to gaming

[FierceKitty]

The Turkish counter-attack is under way; an intimidatingly large army, too. Field constricted by a river in spate down the middle, but I think we can handle it. Pix should follow later today. Both sides are advancing a bit impetuously already.

[FierceKitty]

The battle is over and Izmir is back in Turkish hands, and the Cossacks won't be bothering anyone for a while. Biggest headache for the Sultan was treachery by his Bedouin auxilliaries; may not bother to replace them, having wiped them out during the battle. Qapukulu cavalry distinguished themselves in a charge which broke three Zaporozhian units. Mmmmm.

[toxicpixie]

Whoops - so, was it numbers, tactical skill, bad deployment or plain old dice tht decided it?!

[FierceKitty]

A picture, from behind the devoted Cossack right wing.

[toxicpixie]

Ooo. Ouch. That looks like it's about to be very painful!

[FierceKitty]

'twas. He's lost his paychests and 65% of his army. Next time, perhaps he'll deploy in time.

[toxicpixie]

Whoops If you're tardy to the party got to expect repercussions! Exactly the sort of thing happens in real life but is very hard to replicate "fairly" on table. Unless it's te players own fault

[Hertsblue]

Do you allow people to deploy that close to the table's edge? We always have a 30cm "demilitarised zone" down each side to allow for extravagant turning movements.

[toxicpixie]

I'm gathering that the Cossack player failed to get set up in any reasonable time, and paid the price by arriving at least partially in march column. With Turks already on his flank....

[FierceKitty]

If your troops have a recoil move in the flank zone, they rout. So it's permitted, but very inadvisable.

[FierceKitty]

A year's campaigning today. The Polish army was destroyed to the last man by the Turks (a photograph or two should follow soon), and Belgrade is back in Turkish hands, though so badly damaged that it's not going to be contributing any taxes for a while. Pskov has fallen to the Swedes, who are now ready to march on Moscow, but their conquest of Riga lasted them six months before the Ruskies took it in turn.
Campaigns are quite fun! Especially if the Polish player won't learn to cover his flanks.

[toxicpixie]

Whoops... Is your Turk player really good at finding an open flank or are his opponents just giving it away?!

Ouch

[FierceKitty]

It was an open field, a big army, and a dim Polish player. I was the Turk myself.