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Michael Dauer and Fred Bauer battle
for the wood. |
The newest block game units. |
Storming the Alamo
Texas Glory, just published in 2008, debuted as a tournament
this year, with one of the designers serving as GM. After a well-attended
demo game Wednesday night, eight players competed on Thursday,
a small field but including both experienced players and newbies.
Equal honors went to Texas and Mexico over the course of seven
games, with Texas and Mexico each winning three games in the
1836 scenario (Santa Anna's invasion of Texas), and the Texans
winning the one game played of the shorter 1835 scenario depicting
the initial Texan war of independence. Players had the choice
of which scenario to play, with 1836 as the default, but not
surprisingly most opted for the more famous part of the campaign
with the larger set of blocks. All of the Mexican wins were achieved
by the same player, Fred Bauer, who thereby won the championship
and after this tournament could reasonably claim to be Santa
Anna's smarter brother. His aggressive, blitzkrieg style of Mexican
play, seizing every opportunity to advance and pinning Texan
blocks and forcing them into battle even at the price of heavy
losses, consistently achieved good results though it was nearly
countered in the Final.
In the first round, game 1 matched Mike Dauer (a Texan from
the Houston area) as the Mexican against Barry Smith. The Texans
narrowly won, with the Mexican advance impeded by drawing a large
share of the event cards with low action values, giving Mike
fewer moves. Santa Anna was ambushed by the Comanche war party
but fought them off, while Houston was killed in a Mexican Surprise
attack. Notwithstanding this loss, Mike advanced to the semi-finals
as an alternate since Barry had another game commitment. Game
2 pitted Fred Bauer as the Mexican against Malcolm Smith as the
Texan. The Mexicans advanced swiftly and swept to victory by
Turn 10, two turns ahead of the time limit. The Mexicans, aided
by some good die rolls, even succeeded in a sea attack against
the island victory town of Galveston, normally the Texans' strongest
refuge. Game 3, the sole 1835 scenario played, had Larry Luongo
as the Texans facing off against David Anderson as the Mexicans.
Texas prevailed by Turn 10, aided by a Mexican misunderstanding
of the 1835 victory conditions that led him to not only defend
his green victory towns but chase after Texan blue victory towns,
which only affect victory in 1836. On the last turn, the Texans
claimed victory with the capture of the Mexican holding box cities
along the Rio Grande. Finally, in game 4, James Jordan as the
Texan faced Jim Lawler. Much as in game 2, the Mexican advance
was impeded by the bad luck of drawing every one of the low action
value event cards, and at the end the Texans were remarkably
still defending on the Colorado river, holding 10 of the 17 victory
towns, six more than needed to win. As James had another game
commitment and did not play the second round, Malcolm from game
2 advanced to the semi-finals as an alternate.
In the semi-finals round, game 1 matched the formidable Fred
with the Mexicans again against Larry. The Texans fell back,
but Fred once again prevailed, launching an amazingly successful
sea attack on Galveston on Turn 9 with a force of two blocks
against a defending Texan garrison of three blocks, and then
claiming victory on Turn 10 with the fall of the port of Matagorda.
Game 2 was much closer. Malcolm bid a town to play the Mexicans,
so that Texas needed only three victory towns to win, and this
in the end cost him the game. Houston was killed on Turn 6 at
La Grange by Comanche raiders, and on the last turn Santa Anna
in person was held off by the new Texan C-in-C Austin at Liberty.
The Final saw two able players face off, Mike as the Texans
(hoping to bring home a tournament victory for his home state)
and Fred as the Mexicans again. Both wanted Mexico but neither
would risk a bid for it so a die roll decided sides. Mike opted
for the perilous strategy of a Texan forward defense which at
first seemed to work very well. Since Fred chose to delay the
entry of Santa Anna's vanguard for a turn and bring them in at
Laredo, Bowie and Crockett even moseyed down to Presidio Rio
Grande to delay entry of Gaona's reinforcements, while Grant
escaped Urrea's forces striking first at San Patricio (Fred was
worried about the Texans trying the tactic shown in the demo
game of the Texans moving first and sending Grant into Laredo
to take a victory town and force diversion of Mexicans to root
him out). Houston with the powerful battalions of Burleson and
Millard smashed a Mexican force at Gonzales, eliminating two
blocks including the elite Zapadores, and then beating a second
Mexican force sent at them. But on Turn 6, Santa Anna had his
revenge, unleashing a surprise event and taking on Houston in
person with a force twice as strong while Mexican cavalry swept
in behind to cut off retreat. With Houston dead, the Mexicans
rolled forward against the Texan remnants conducting a delaying
action. Fannin, the new Texan C-in-C, escaped by sea from Matagorda
to Liberty, but was finally scalped there by the Comanche war
party, while Travis, who had been conducting an effective delaying
action on the Camino Real, at last died in a desperate forced
march to block the the Mexicans from reaching Nacogdoches. By
the late game, though the Texans were almost out of men, the
Mexicans were almost out of actions. On Turns 10 and 11 the Mexicans
could not move at all, playing a Storm event and the Comanches,
and were still short a victory town. But Fred had saved a last
2 action card for Turn 12, and used it to advance a single block
by sea into Galveston, which the Texans had left ungarrisoned.
Unlike Fred's two previous Mexican victories, this one came right
down to the wire.
A few observations on game play and rules interpretations
used:
1) No players in any game used the option to burn a victory
town (as confirmed by assistant GM Stan Hilinski), probably deterred
by the need to use valuable actions for movement. Burning might
be used more if it could be done without the cost of 1 CP, whenever
permitted by the card played.
2) In regrouping, blocks moving into an existing battle were
treated like defender reserves, only able to enter the fight
on Round 2. Regroups into towns were only allowed if the towns
were friendly, either of the same player's color or already occupied,
not into enemy towns.
3) Attackers were allowed to retreat through the hexside they
had used to enter a battle even if defender's reserves also subsequently
entered the battle through the same hexside. The wording of the
Texas Glory rule, 6.4, which simply says that attackers must
retreat through any hexsides used to start the battle and that
defending blocks may retreat through any other hexsides, differs
from some other Columbia games like Hammer of the Scots
which specifically do not allow attackers to retreat through
a place the defender also used to enter.
4) Artillery could not force march if they had only a single
step left since the last step of an artillery unit cannot be
eliminated (they switch sides if left alone with one step and
enemy blocks enter the same hex), but artillery could be moved
by sea though not used for sea attacks. Rule 5.82 specifically
provides that artillery and cavalry cannot sea attack but may
sea move. This makes it possible for Fannin to move his Goliad
artillery down to Copano on Turn 1, and evacuate it by sea on
Turn 2 to Galveston (kudos to Malcolm Smith for this interesting
tactic).
5) Only one hexside cost counts toward movement, so that the
1 needed to cross a ford or the 2 for a ferry is the total cost
needed to cross that hexside, not added to the 1 for the road.
The reference in the rules to cumulative limits refers to the
supply values of the hexes, not movement costs, and the reference
to roads and trails nullifying other terrain types except Fords/Ferries
simply ensures that a block crossing at a Ferry needs to pay
the 2 terrain cost and cannot claim to only pay 1 because the
crossing is also a road.
6) One interpretation that we allowed in this tournament,
but would do differently in future ones, was to permit defender
reserves that move into a battle in a fort/city hex to withdraw
into the fort/city on Turn 1, even though they would not be able
to fight until Turn 2. This is a difficult issue as storming
clearly cannot occur until all defending blocks are inside the
fort/city; unlike some other Columbia games like Crusader
Rex, the rules do not provide in Texas Glory for storming
followed by a field battle, but at the same time, the attacker
does not lose rounds for storming on account of having to fight
a field battle first as in Crusader, but still gets his
full two storming rounds even if preceded by a field battle.
The downside of letting reserves withdraw into the fort on Turn
1 is that it permits some ahistorical results and makes it more
difficult to take certain forts than was actually the case; for
example, in 1835, the Mexican could always reinforce Goliad with
the Lipantitlan cavalry on Turn 1 and withdraw it inside, making
it harder to take for the Texans, whereas if reserves cannot
withdraw on Turn 1, the Texan can get Goliad under siege first
if he plays a higher-value card than the Mexican, and potentially
drive off or destroy the reinforcing cavalry in a field battle
on Round 2 before they can get inside. Lipantitlan is a B unit,
and so would be treated as a relieving force in this situation,
attacking against the Texan besiegers because the required withdrawal
of the Texan artillery garrison into the fort on Round 1 causes
battlefield control to change, leaving the original Texan attackers
as the defenders for Round 2, and Texan B units such as Milam
or Austin would get a chance to shoot first. The portion of rule
7.25 providing that relief forces cannot withdraw into a fort/city
except cavalry still allows for cavalry to slip into a fort after
risking a field battle for a round, as Kimball did historically
in 1836 in riding into the besieged Alamo on Turn 1. If the defender
has no units with equal or better letter ratings, or rolls poorly,
the cavalry can still slip inside unharmed on Round 2 of the
field action, but this should involve an element of risk. Experience
here shows that it should not be automatic on Round 1. Future
Texas Glory tournaments such as Prezcon in 2010 will not
allow defender reserves to withdraw into a fort or city on Round
1 but require the Round 2 battle to be played outside.
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