This was my first Solo game for sometime so I thought I would comment on it. I have written a set of programs which run under a WAMP (Window/Apache/MySql/Php sever) on my laptop. This allows me to manage the campaign and to generate FOB army lists along with all the dicing automatically (something of a chore in FOB2). This is not complete, in fact it may never be considering I keep tinkering with the rules, so I still need to control campaign movement manually. Writing the software has forced me to formalize how such things as the officers characteristics and casualties effect the game.

So the game was in some ways a test carrying the casualties from the last game into this one. I generated the battlefield using my campaign notes. I also trialed a rules change Andy and I had discussed. The needle gun is now a classed as a carbine. Carbines do not exist in FOB2, as the author feels their effect on combat is not as important as other factors. Andy and I disagree as we ended up in a long range fire fight between Hoysee and Keller in our last game,(which is meant to model the 1866 war), so the house rule is a carbine cannot fire at long range. (As breechloaders they do get two extra reload cards).

In hindsight I made a mistake. As I prepared the game I thought about how Hoysee would fight the battle, advancing to capture the two villages and then attack around them, but I neglected to think of a Keller battle plan so they ended up just rushing forward. This was probably fitting with Raparger's personality but not Seidl's. The morale level for the Kellerite Army was also very low (a low dice roll on the morale table). The end result was a defeat for Keller. In the aftermath the Keller army looked very like when Andy plays. The game ending with all of the Keller artillery limbered!

The sudden end of FOB2 games also highlighted a problem of how heavy a defeat this was. My solution is to look at the victors Morale score. If the final morale score is greater than 50% of the initial rating its a major victory, if less than 25% its a marginal victory.