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Last Sunday, Jason came over and we continued our series of games of Pursuit of Glory that got interrupted last year. Neither of us had strong inclination either way, so random draw gave Jason the Central Powers. We got through the end of turn 6 before needing to call it a day (not bad, considering the rust), and declared me the winner, as things were sliding decidedly downhill for Jason by that point.

I started out with standard Russo-British Assault opening, taking Fao and Basra, and picking on Turkish cavalry units (one escaped). I had a first turn hand that was a little too good, as it was choked with events that needed playing. This included the Royal Blockade and Kitchner, and Russian Reinforcements helped shore up the line in the Caucasus. That was helped by a particularly devastating Enver Goes East at the start of turn 2, which not only weakened the Turkish troops, but then they rolled poorly versus good Russian rolls, Jason largely recovered using Reserves to the Front. He also got the Jihad ball rolling with Pan-Turkism and Jihad, taking Marsh Arabs and Kurds, the latter of which helped take and hold Urmia for the rest of the game.

Churchill Prevailed, but only about three forts fell to RN guns. Egyptian Coup laid what turned out to be important groundwork. Jason had decided to make sure of Mesopotamia, and sent, or built, a good number of troops in the region, built a TU-A corps there, and even spread out into Ahwaz, cutting off Shushter, and threatening Abadan. I brought in ANZAC Reinforcements there, which halted that, though Jason attacked Abadan three separate times over the next few turns, and always rolled poorly, with two ANZAC divisions handily beating a Turkish corps with divisional support. Jason was also taking a fair number of troops out of Anatolia to do all this, but he did use German Military Mission to build trenches in a few important places, including Adana.

During turn 3, Indian Reinforcements went to their usual place (for me), shoring up Basra, and getting a corps of my own in the area. I got two Invasion cards, and used Kitchner’s to put a beachhead off Adana. The next round I came ashore, and holed up in there and Eregli. Jason used Persian Push and Turkish Reinforcements for the extra divisions, but neither of us entered Persia for another turn or so, when I sent a division down to Qum. (During turn 4/5, he used German Intrigues in Persia for the Jihad and put the irregular in Isfahan.)

During turn 4, Gallipoli Invasion gave me more troops in Cyprus, and the two corps allowed me to move up to Konya and Aleppo. Jason used the big corps assets Turkish Reinforcements to organize another TU-A corps in Mesopotamia. Bull’s Eye Directive didn’t go so well for Jason (more bad rolls), but I felt too short on troops when he played Gorlice-Tarnow shortly afterwords and had to take the 2 VP penalty. On the other hand, I had driven him out of Erzurum and besieged it (I failed the first roll, but got it on the siege phase of turn 5).

Asquith/Lloyd George gave me the only RPs of turn 5, while more Russian Reinforcements poured more troops into that front. Drama was high in Anatolia as the British were beaten in Konya, and the perimeter fell back to Adana. But the ANZAC Corps and cavalry took Alexandretta, and the Corps moved south. There was an round where I thought Jason would cut it off, and was prepared to land the French in Beirut to try and re-establish supply. But he didn’t, and the ANZACs moved south along the coast, ending in Jaffa. I had previously moved a reinforced line of Commonwealth troops up to the Sinai/Palestine border, and during turn 6 hit Gaza from both sides, eliminating the defenders and the fort, but not taking the space.

Turn 6 lead off with Russian Winter Offensive, which again did very well. The Turkish line was in dire straights, though it took me half the turn to really see how many gaps there were, and I moved a Cossack unit through Diyarbekir and Mardin, where he became cut off and died in attrition, but the Turkish efforts to do this were well worth a division, and the Armenian Uprising started locking down the entire area. Meanwhile, the Mesopotamian front collapsed with an AP victory from Shelba to Nasirya, as as turn 6 ended, Jason was trying to find good anchors for a new line.

End of the day/turn 6.

Afterword

By the end of the day, I was moving forward on every front. Jason had skipped play of Bulgaria for the RPs. I know we had both gone through our decks once (I shuffled to get my last three cards for turn 6), but I don’t know what happened to Parvus to Berlin.

Overall, luck certainly favored me. The dice went against Jason more than they went for him. However, there’s a couple other things too. I think he over-committed in Mesopotamia. Now, we both think that putting more in there than usual was an interesting idea, and overall it certainly kept me nicely bottled up for several turns, which was bad when I had a Mesopotamian MO once (rolling that earlier would have probably cost me a VP).

Also, over the last couple turns, he devolved into too many OPS and SR plays. Now, I was giving him good reasons for much of this, but the RPs suffered, and as usual, the Ottoman dead pile grew too large, leading to the turn 5-6 collapse. They turned into too many OPS for me too, as I barely scraped by on the RPs, but I was mostly keeping things going. On the other hand, the Max RP marker was moving down as well.

I had early on been contemplating trying a Gallipoli invasion, but seeing Jason progressively move nearly everyone out of Anatolia diverted my attention back to my favorite landing of Adana. It is a problem location for both sides, since there’s three routes out to cover, and I never quite got to sending a unit or two to Antyla to open that one up. With the breaking of Gaza, I expect the next turn would have seen some real fighting in Palestine as I tried to secure Damascus and Jerusalem and force the defenders south, though that was still going to be tricky. I’d had a couple good combats in/near Azerbaijan as well, so I had hopes of a push at that end of the Russian line as well.

Jason came over on June 24th for another round of Pursuit of Glory. Everything went better this time, with Jason getting through traffic somewhat better, and both of us in good practice with the rules and early game events. We reprised our roles from the previous game, and I stuck with the standard opening at Fao, though I went for a bigger Russian attack, rather than trying to pick off cavalry divisions.

Mobilization went about as normal through most of Turn 2. Jason, fearing a repeat of last time, got troops up to the Suez canal during Turn 1, and that’s where things started going wrong for him. Churchill Prevailed, and the British fleet made it all the way through the Bosporus and shelled Constantinople, though it failed to reduce the final fort to open a real supply line to Russia. However, the two elite BR divisions were sent to Pt. Said, and from there I was able to break the Ottoman line and threaten the rest of the area. The Indians also made a little progress in Mesopotamia, knocking out a Marsh Arab tribe on the way, and Secret Treaty allowed me to get parts of Persia, while Jason was too busy to interfere.

End of Turn 2.

I pushed further in Turn 3, taking Jifjaffa in Suez, and Isfahan in Persia. The Russians were doing most of this activity, and also attacked out of Azerbaijan and took Van. I was also having to spend some effort trying to sort out my supply lines as pressure started mounting in the main Russian/Ottoman border. During Turn 4 The Turks hit the Russians hard, defeating Yudenich, and a panicked call to Save Tiflis drove the main line back to Kars. The Indians finally organized two corps in Mesopotamia, and after a lot of back and forth in Sinai, the British landed in Jaffa to support the advance (I really hadn’t wanted to do that, but there was a corps waiting in Adana, and the advance really needed the help in the face of two other corps in the region. In other news Parvus went to Berlin, and Bulgaria entered the war.

End of Turn 4.

Turn 5 saw more pressure from me on all fronts, as the Russians took Hamadan and threatened Mosul. Indian troops in Mesopotamia started advancing, taking Kut, and Commonwealth troops stormed Gaza. VPs fell to 6 during this turn, Jihad was down to 4, and RU VPs were also at 4. CP war status was slightly ahead (8-7), and Gorlice-Tarnow had removed a RU corps.

Turn 6 saw a real setback for me as Jason threw the Brits back out of Jaffa, defeating Maude, and threatening my hold on southern Palastine with his corps. However, Armenian Uprising, while it couldn’t really break any supply, did make things uncomfortable for the Turks around Mus, and took temporary control of Diyarbekir.

But things turned back around as I pushed back onshore with a combined attack (to avoid the water crossing), and then took Jerusalem, and headed north. Meanwhile, the Indians occupied Ctesiphon and Museyib, preparing for a simultaneous push on Damascus and Baghdad at the end of the turn. Jason wasn’t able to re-take anything important enough, and lost at the end of the turn with 0VP.

End of Turn 7, and game.

It was reasonably sure, but I did gamble hard on that last turn, since I burned through a number of units and CC card, leaving me four OPS plays and two 1-OP rounds. If I’d had to go to Turn 8, I might have had some real problems. Jason was having the usual CP problem of recycling units, as the eliminated pile kept growing even with moderate RP use, while I mostly managed to empty my eliminated units box again.

As mentioned, the real trouble started with shelling Constantinople, and getting a good combat on Romani. That turned Palestine into the center of gravity for the rest of the game, followed by my invasion in Jaffa, which gave me the ability to supply regular BR corps in the area, which completely outclass the TU-A ones that are easy to raise there. The advance in Mesopotamia started slower than I wanted, as I took a while to get Indian Reinforcements so I could organize their two corps there.

Jason really needed to find time for at least some action in the Balkans. Any sort of distraction would have been good, and taking Belgrade would have made my end-game push a lot chancier. He also needs to get more used to using SR instead of transferring a bunch of units a little distance, to completely re-organize threatened theaters (I admit to having the same problem as the CP…).

Finally had some FtF gaming recently as Jason made it over for Pursuit of Glory. It was a bit tempting to try out Illusions of Glory, but we decided to stick with the game we knew better, since it had been quite a while since either of us had even played it, and we’d need a fair amount of refreshing.

I ended up with the Central Powers, and Jason went with the standard Russo-British Assault opening. I started with Pan-Turkism, and managed to move troops up to the Suez Canal before getting across with Liberate Suez. Both of us got to Limited War on schedule, though Jason didn’t do much in the way of RPs at first, allowing the Russians to get a bit exhausted while I rebuilt the Ottoman army, and more tellingly, he never played Churchill Prevails or Blockade (and Enver Goes East wasn’t as bad as it could be since I’d been largely maneuvering out of contact while he pressed in); neither of us violated Persian neutrality (despite temptations).

The next few turns saw things go very poorly for me. Jason continued being very OPS-aggressive, and eventually pushed aside the few troops I’d let sit in Mesopotamia (at start divisions and two Marsh Arabs). The ANZAC reinforcements made things too dense for me to get anywhere in Egypt, and then he pushed me back out, and the front didn’t shift down there again (Jason admitted after that he probably should have just taken the lumps and gone for it, as not doing it gave him lots of trouble), though I really should have spent the OPS to move back to the two-space chokepoint.

My main problem was Project Alexandria, which came ashore Adana, and with some help from Maude, knocked out my defense. This then turned into an extended hide-and-seek game with Adana and Alexandretta, as I tried to contain him, and he tried to break out into more valuable territory. With the collapse in Mesopotamia, he linked up from there, but it was still too easy for me to potentially cut off his forces from that and the ports. I did retake Adana early on and eliminate the beachhead, which helped.

I had largely felt helpless during this, with no real spare troops, no desire to denude the Russian front, and no reinforcements. I did distract us both with a Persian Push, that took Hamadan, and later Tehran and Qum, but only held Isfahan with the Bakhtiari. I spent too much time trying to keep supply semi-secure before realizing near the end of the day that Afghanistan had a partial supply that could at least keep everyone alive from that end.

I got Bulgaria on turn 3 and held on to it to play on 4. It ended up being a sadly neglected front for too long, but by the end of the day, I had Serbia on the verge of collapse (there were still two reduced armies in Serbia, which I would have probably soon eliminated), and Jason passed on playing Romania on 5. On turn 5, I finally got Parvus to Berlin, so I could start planning for a Russian shutdown (especially since they were far from getting 5+ VPs), and I finally started reacting better to the disasters elsewhere, if a bit too late to really do anything about it.

We went late, but were still in the middle of turn 8 when we broke up. VPs were at 16, and Jihad at 7. I’d just gotten into Afghanistan, and that was probably going to revolt to help take Central Asia with it (I forgot—again—about the immediate roll for entering the region). I had hit Total War at the end of 7, but Jason had barely made any progress, thanks to spending big cards as OPS, and being unwilling to downgrade Invasions to Reinforcements. I still had major military problems, but Jihad was about to go up again, it was likely that Romania would be forced to stay neutral (giving me two more VPs), and I had finally started seeing Reinforcement cards.

Neither of our performances were very good, showing how long its been. I have, yet again, failed to defend against an invasion as the CP. I thought I had him reasonably bottled up, but then he formed the 2nd Indian corps there, and used Maude before I could do anything. If I’d thought about the limited supply for Afghanistan, I could have been in there a turn or two sooner, which could have been interesting.

Had Jason over for a game on Monday. Yes, Monday—he teaches, and right now he’s got a free month, but weekdays are easier for him than weekends. So I took Monday off and we played Pursuit of Glory.

Jason decided to take the Central Powers, as most of his experience with the game is mostly with the Allied Powers. While my play is not going to go down in the annals of ‘how to win at PuG‘, my greater experience did show. I stuck with the normal Russo-British Assault opening, and knocked out a couple Turkish cavalry divisions on the Russian border, though I failed to do any damage to the troops defending in Mesopotamia.

As luck would have it, I got no CCs for the first turn, leaving me with a leftover Mobilization card in the turn 2 draw. Naturally, that was Secret Treaty. Jason played Persian Push late in turn 2, but did not take advantage of it, while I was set up to. I had moved the initial Azerbajani forces up to the Ottoman frontier, and put the troops from Sphere of Influence in their place, which then promptly moved into Persia. There wasn’t any cavalry to really gobble up distance, but I still got into position well.

In addition, I was able to start moving into Caucasia, and grabbed Van. This, along with the situation in Persia, was to rivet Jason’s attention for the rest of the game. Things went back and forth a little, though the situation steadily eroded for the Russians. MOs also tended to be “RU” for both of us, which fed the fires. Jason did a four Ops broad-front offensive on the final round of turn 6 (Winter 1916), and rolled ‘6’ on the two biggest stacks, which was a welcome relief to the Russians.

Meanwhile, Churchill Prevailed, and the RN successfully ran the Dardanelles and shelled Constantinople (but failed to destroy the Bosphorous Forts). With that in mind, I played Kitchener’s Invasion to put a force into the Gallipoli region fast (I came ashore at Suda Bay), and then played Salonika Invasion as a BR Reinforcements card to beef up the invasion. I was hoping to get some of the heat off of the Russian front, but instead, I had a free, if slow, run of things, and took over the entire inset map over the course of about a turn and a half to two turns.

Both Bulgaria and Parvus to Berlin came late (turns 4 and 5 respectively), though the Revolution was on track to go off at the end of Turn 9, since the Russians were quickly becoming a spent force. I was a turn late getting to Total War, and had drawn Romania early (turn 3), so racing my way though the deck again to get it out in time was going to become a problem.

At the time we had to call it, we were at the end of turn 7, VPs were at 2, Max TU RPs were at 19, and Jihad was stuck around 4-5. I had killed several tribes, and both Turks and Russians were tending to pile up in the dead pool. The direct route to Constantinople was still blockaded, but I was hoping to send troops (possibly the four French divisions still waiting on Lemnos) out to seize the ports along the southern Anatolian coast, and threaten all of the interior. I was about ready to break the line at Suez (I had tried once, and tied the combat 1-1), and I was finally starting to move in Mesopotamia (I had reached Kut, but was still a ways from being able to do anything about Baghdad). The Russians still controlled almost all of Persia, but TU troops were starting to push them back, had pushed them back into Azerbaijan, and the north part of the line was too weak to afford to do much about it. Bulgaria was in the war, but nothing had really happened there yet. (Thankfully, Bulgarian troops can’t enter Turkey to help stave off the British hordes….)

I figure I was either going to win in the next turn or two (likely), or Russia would collapse before the revolution, and I would have a long hard slog to make up the rest of the VPs, possibly going the full distance with VPs in the 2-8 region the whole time.

Well, the annual trip south to visit my parents has been going well. Case in point: I finished a game of Pursuit of Glory with my Dad yesterday.

I’ve had it for a year, and have been playing a game (by Vassal/email) for most of that time, but this is the first one I’ve finished. I consider the Central Powers to be slightly tougher to begin with (more things to juggle at once), so I took them.

Play was a little odd. I’ve found some rules I’d missed or forgotten, darn it. More importantly (for how play went), my Dad’s table is meant to hold miniatures games, so it’s too big to be comfortable with a normal-sized game (there is a plan for next time). Anyway, were were playing at a corner, and the Balkans were the far side away from my Dad, so they got less attention than they otherwise would have.

Even without that, that theater was strange. Bulgaria was practically the last card in my Limited War deck, so it didn’t join the war until very late. In fact, the Russian Revolution happened the same turn, so Romania stayed neutral the entire game, and I eventually got Greece in on my side. The game ended with the Allies in Salonika and both sides staring at each other.

The Allied transition to Total War was a bit slow, but not too bad overall. About two turns after that we both had a turn or so of high-powered events that drove the Combined War Status to end-of-game event heights.

Over in the major theaters, I got a pretty potent early force on the Suez Canal, while holding off the Russians and containing the beachhead in Mesopotamia. However, I didn’t react fast enough to a two-beachhead invasion (BR and FR) in Syria. It got off the beaches in force, and I lost eight divisions OoS at Suez. That put me into a panic, and I was only able to stabilize the line north of Damascus. (I did hold Damascus for a while, but couldn’t keep him out.)

The second half of the game had me grimly holding on, bringing in all the reinforcements I could to stabilize things, and then slowly denuding the reserves as the army ground down. I managed a couple counter-thrusts in Mesopotamia, including one that cut off a corps, and an attack that nearly destroyed the French army (and D’Espery’s reputation). I also maintained pressure on the Russian front, partly for MOs, and partly to ensure that the Allies couldn’t put all their actions where they had the advantages.

The war ground down along with my available RPs (had a about a year and a half of Turkish War Weariness). I think the big problem with my Dad’s strategy during the final parts of the war is that he should have done more ‘even’ attacks, that would have ground down both sides, and take a few more RPs. Sooner or later the Turkish Army has to break—which it did anyway, but too late.

I had put a decent cordon into place in Persia, with the Persian Uprising to help slow things down. However, he eventually put more in there than I could afford, and broke through very late in the game, eventually getting all the way to Baku, which I had recently captured. In the main part of the fighting he got to, but could not quite take Mosul, but would soon. Deir es Zor, Aleppo and Mamure Station would probably hold for a while (well, that last was not as secure). I’d been holding the advance-halting cards 2-3 at a time to make sure I could keep defending….

At the end, VPs were at 10, and we split the oil fields. A very close-run CP Victory of Endurance. I totally muffed the LCU limitation at one point (5 LCU in Mesopotamia; I hastily moved them out rather than blow the game with their elimination); I always forget it when in the heat of reorganizing the defenses… Other rules muffs were smaller and probably more evenly split. So an AP victory may be deserved (especially with that score!), though I may have done about as well without that problem.