Man oeuvreboard!

photo by James Smith on BGG

Having managed to get Maria, Mammut and Manila to the table this year, it only remained for me to tempt a single player to join me in a game of Manoeuvre, and my 'M's would be complete. And although the plan was to play Railways of the World last night, in the end Andrew alone was able to brave the treacherous weather, so we seized the opportunity to do some WAR.

Technically speaking, Manoeuvre is game of battle rather than war. Played on a chessboard like grid of 8 x 8 squares, each player has 8 units from one of 8 napoleonic armies, with a strength ranging from 5 to, you guessed it, 8.

Six infantry units, and two cavalry. The mechanics are simple enough, move a unit, attack a unit by playing cards from your deck. Each unit has two states, full strength and half strength when flipped; and after that it's bye bye.
Within the simple rules there is enough room for lots of variety, from the units as well as the cards - some armies have more cavalry units but weaker; the Russians are hardy, in that their half-strength side is only marginally less than full strength, etc.

In practice the 'manoeuvring' of the title is two-fold; getting your units in to the right positions, and also trying to get your hand of 5 cards in good enough shape to launch an attack. There's some nice cautious postioning at the start, with perhaps a tentative artillery volley to free up a card slot, but it's not long before the air is filled with the smell of gunpowder and garlic.

I played the French, and Andrew the English. Of the eight armies, these two are probably the most powerful and evenly balanced, good starting armies. That said I've played the French a fair bit, and it might have been a more even fight if I'd chosen a less familiar army.

Andrew assimilated the rules valiantly, but I had lots of lucky dice rolls, and my prior knowledge of the tactics involved saw an attrition victory for the French just as the day was ending (after which the winner would have been decided on control of the board).

I'm not sure Napoleon would have been proud, though. We both laughed at the pathetic sight of my weakened infantry hobbling after Andrew's injured Dutch Belgians,  somehow managing on a roll of snake-eyes to topple them in to a ditch. I basically threw a clod of earth at them and they fell over.

I love this game - it's very playable, a lot of fun and once you know what you're doing you can get a couple of games in in an evening. Andrew will have to share his thoughts in the comments . . .

Adieu!