PBEM Campaign Battles

The PEBM was created to provide good battles for Jan and I to wargame, and it continues to do so.

We have had a backlog of battles to wargame over the past few weeks.   Each campaign day normally produces one, or perhaps two, battles to wargame.   Each wargame then usually takes about one week to complete.  

But over the past two campaign days there have been three battles each day.   This has caused a slight delay in the campaign, because I have to keep all six campaign areas on more or less the same campaign day.   And when there is a lot of battles to be wargamed those players not involved have to wait for the rest to catch up.

Despite this the quality of the wargames continues to be very high.   We do not wargame battles where the odds are two to one or more, so any battle we do game tends to be reasonably balanced.    The interest is in the arrival of reinforcements, or often the terrain chosen.

Our latest wargame was interesting for a different reason.   It was decided by a single cavalry charge.

For the first nine moves of the game both armies suffered setbacks, but either could still win.   Then an Austrian dragoon brigade charged a French lancer brigade.   The lancers lost and routed.   A nearby French infantry brigade failed their morale check and were shaken.

The Austrian dragoons had to test morale to see what they would do having routed the lancers.   They failed the test, which means they have to pursue.   They then test to see who they will charge.   The dice decided nearest infantry, which was the shaken.   They also routed and ran.

The nearby French infantry square, which was sheltering gunners, had to test for a nearby rout.   They also failed, and joined the rout.

The result five routed French brigades, one cavalry three infantry and the gunners.   And the Austrian dragoons disordered, but without a single casualty.

With most of one corps broken and running away the French commander ordered a general retreat.

Had this been a “one off” game we would probably not have allowed such a series of poor dice to decide the outcome of a wargame.  But for PBEM campaigns we feel we should abide by the luck of the dice.