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Jason came over Saturday, and we played Pursuit of Glory. He was only available for a short day, so we knew that we wouldn’t get anywhere near to finishing, but it had been a while since either of us had played it, and Jason didn’t want to get too stale with it. Neither of us had any real preference, so I took the Allied Powers on a random roll.

I stuck to a conventional opening, playing Russo-British Assault, and destroying Fars, while the Russians picked off a cav division, and reduced the Turkish IX Corps. Jason lead off with Pan-Turkism, and started arranging the defenses.

Jason admitted to taking a somewhat reactionary approach to several things in the game. He certainly wanted to not worry about the Russians too much, but I managed to force the issue. I also moved the two Indian divisions in Baluchistan up to Southern Persia, and then played Secret Treaty to advance them into Isfahan. Right afterwards I moved them up to take Tehran, Hamadan and Qum. Combined with a spectacularly successful bombardment from Churchill Prevails, VPs got down to about three on the fourth turn.

Jason decided he really needed to do something about that about the time I was looking at Armenian Uprising, and wondering where I could get another VP from (since the card is worth one, and the Armenian unit would be able to take another).

My cards were being somewhat ‘lumpy’ during the game, with all the Mobilization combat cards showing up on turn one, and most of the ‘must play’ events showing up on turn two. I had been forced to a somewhat limited invasion policy, since I had to discard Egyptian Coup for Ops twice. However, I did end up using Kitchener’s Invasion to come ashore at Suvla Bay, and then got ashore before he reacted. Frustratingly, the next turn’s MO was “No BR”. I did spread out and cover the bulk of the European side of the Dardanelles, which caused some confusion and head scratching, as I don’t think I’ve looked at the straights rules since the first time I read through the rulebook. We got it mostly sorted out, but there was the question of if taking Maidos put Seddul Bahr out of supply. (Since it’s a lower numbered straight, it can’t be used for movement by the CP anymore, which would imply OOS, but the rules are a little vague on that point, since it just mentions ‘tracing a line of supply’, and is less than clear on the full mechanics, especially as there is still a technical route there.)

I never managed to get much put into Mesopotamia, so that front was stymied for the bulk of the game. However, we both assembled decent lines on the Suez Canal, and at the end of the day, I attacked across the southern flank, and on the second try cracked the line, and crossed into Sinai with a couple ANZAC divisions.

At the end of the day, it was turn 5, I had just played Lawrence, and so could see that both Bulgaria and Parvus to Berlin were about to come up. While sorting the cards back out, I noted that it looked like I’d be drawing Romania next turn. I was planning on holding Russian Winter Offensive to hit Erzerum at the beginning of the next turn, and try to bleed the Turks some more.

At the end of the day.