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I got into my first competitive game of Manoeuvre at Orycon on Friday. This was a bit of a surprise as there isn't much fantasy (and certainly no sci-fi) in the game. I never did get the name of my opponent, so I will simply refer to him as X.
X won first player and, even more unfamiliar with the game than I was, got to set up the board. He chose a configuration dominated by hills, especially on his side of the map on his right flank. I chose the French and British came up in theiras the armies, and he took the Brits.
The first thing I noticed was that neither of us had shuffled their decks very well. I immediately noticed the clumps of cards I was getting. We went ahead and played rather than reshuffling and restarting. This would eventually come back to bite me in the tail.
In my first had there were no unit cards and three Withdrawal cards. I discarded two of them and Imperial Guard cards came up in their place. Needless to say I pushed the Guard to the front as rapidly as I could. Eventually I ended up drawing first blood, but the Guard's offensive potential was soon exhausted.
On the left I was able to penetrate X's wing with my Guard Cavalry. It was almost to his home rwo when it started coming under persistent attack. I burned a lot of cards to keep it at full strength. I also advanced the Swiss onto his side of the map and ended up putting them in a Redoubt on the hill. That too came under attack, but the Swiss held. Most of my force was on the left, but he began to attack and kill units on my right.
The decisive blow struck the Guard. X moved his King's Dragoons into an attack position and threw in everything he had., He ended up playing three Unit cards and rolling six dice. He didn't eliminate the Guard outright, but it both lost a step and had to retreat. But the Dragoons pursued and cut them to pieces and the Guard was eliminated before Napoleon would have had a chance to rally them.
X had a panel to go to so we broke off there. But it was clear that I was beaten. I was down to five units and had nothing on my right. X could have easily sent enough units to my side of the board to secure a position win assuming he didn't get the two more units he needed to win by attrition.
As far as entertainment value to game was a huge success. The turns with no combat took about thirty seconds per side. I did learn that I need to get all my decks shuffled thoroughly -- by someone who knows what they're doing -- before my next game!
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