First World War Campaigns: FRANCE 1914

[Mr Grumpy]

The action on 26 August 1914 between the BEF and the German First Army at Le Cateau would be interesting to highlight the FWW 14 game differences.
The BEF had been retreating from Mons. This action was a delaying action as the BEF turned to face the pursuit. The fight begins at dawn. The Germans first pinned the British with heavy fire while trying to envelope the BEF's right wing. It ends at 17:00 that day with the British continuing their retreat to prevent encirclement.

I wonder how the game system will handle the fatigue the BEF units would have from the Mons fight. Would the BEF have the capacity to turn and face the oncoming German army?

Well the BEF is B quality, but has accumulated 150 points of fatigue in this scenario and hence is C quality, the German forces it faces are still fresh and are at their regular C quality, so they are evenly matched in this regard.

If I understand your posting of this rule elsewhere in this forum, a unit ends up on the enemy side of the river, in "T" (travel mode) and isolated unless another friendly unit is in the hex on the other side of the river.

Sounds like dinner for the wolves.....

Dog Soldier

Indeed if you simply push a unit over the bridge against an organised defence you will get a bloody nose, but if you pick your bridge with clear LOS for your Field Gun/MG units you can significantly weaken the defending units until it is less of a risk to cross, this strategy works as Rick did this successfully against me a couple of times in testing.

The rule also prevents defenders leaving very small (50 men) units to block bridges with their ZOC while the main force can retreat away.

The rule is not a perfect solution i agree, but at least there is now the threat of units being able to cross which otherwise would not be possible.

I hope to see the rule in PzC where linked to the ability of engineers to ferry troops would make "straddling" a far less effective tactic. ;)

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I must of mist somthing but when does this game come out?

It officially comes out on the 4th June, but if you go to the UK supplier Duchet.com you can pre-order it.

I have a copy as i was a tester. ;)