THE WARGAME. After a few months Andy and I returned to Terra Fere. Using our now trusty Field of Battle 2 rules. The scenarios was generated using the mashed one-hour wargame scenario generator. And I wrote the proposed setting into the start of the Bishop's War. To simulate the arrival of Hoysee on table and not wast time waiting for me to draw a move card we started with me having 1 initiative an a move card in hand. Once that was over play would continue as normal. We each had two brigades mine where the 4th and a continent from the reserve brigade. Andy had his infantry in one brigade and the cavalry in another. He also had 3 batteries of artillery under direct command. He could allocate these to his brigades if he wished. For some reason he assigned his lonely Krupps to a forward position with the infantry and held his smoothbore cannon back. I would have reversed that decision.

The battle began with the 4th Brigade rolling a 3 moves and a possibility to melee! So stormed across the stream and hit his landwehr. They fell back. I then advanced the rest of the brigade in attack columns across the stream. The reserve brigade, with a more humble die roll, simply moved on to table. At this point things began to go wrong for me. With me drawing a few lulls and Andy drawing artillery reload cards. My morale points tumbled and my columns so fine at first fell back in disarray. My Mountaineers for example reduced to their last Integrity hit!

Then Andy rolled a swing of 8 initiative points and began to move infantry and artillery across the battlefield. Thank god he had limbered those Krupps they are brutal. At this point Andy formed his to advancing battalion into attack columns. Why I am not sure, perhaps he hoped get a charge in while I was still in disarray.

The thing about FOB2 is once you have used your initiative the opponent gets an equal share. I drew a series of leadership cards and managed to roll high not only returning my scattered battalions to command but recovering integrity. I was also able to deploy into line reducing my vulnerability to cannon fire. This period of the game saw Andy and I unable to move but with a series of firefights I was losing morale points until finally I had a single point left. I drew a move and with both my brigades rolled high and even! I launched them both in a charge. The 4th smashed the two depleted columns and engaged the still unlimbered Artillery while my reserve brigade threw Andy out of the town. Where upon he announced he has reached zero morale, in fact had exceeded it by two points. This increased my morale but two. Poor Andy then immediately drew an army Morale and rolled equal to my D12 resulting in an immediate end to the game.

In hindsight I think the critical moment was Andy forming his infantry into columns and limbering his breech-loader artillery. This swung the balance of losses in my favour during the middle part of the game. I think he wanted to deliver a smashing defeat on me and with different cards would have succeeded. He also noted that during the game he had not drawn one Leadership card so had been unable to recover integrity. As usual we enjoyed the game but also as usual I suspect those who like control of their armies the FOB2 card system would be too much to stomach