1st Game of En Garde.

 Sunday I picked up Mike for a trip to Dave's house to try out En Garde with him and his son William.  Dave has a nice board set up to be a colonial out post of the frontier new England in the in the late 1600 (though it also works for the 1700s as well.  Mike and Dave each and a war band of colonists (Mike borrowing a couple of my pirates). Dave had a force of Indians and I had my forces of French. The French mission was to rescue a woman held captive by the English (or kidnap her its really a matter of perspective).

 The officers are 18th century the men are 17th... not ideal but I haven't found 17th century officers I really like yet.

 I screwed up the command rule moving all 5 soldiers with this lieutenant when he should only have been able to move 3 of them... Because all the other war bands had a Tactician I was always last but having two commanders I was able to mitigate this some what with group moves.

 With the French moving in at a run and Will's Indians using cover to protect my flank Mike opens fire...

 and kills my second in command with a single shot!

 My melee specialist troops advance to the the wall..

 While some of my musketeers put down cover fire scoring some hits and the others advance.

 Will also scores a hit and the next turn my sword armed soldiers are over the wall.

 while my commander moves into command range of the musketeers and puts a pistol shot into one of the English.

 After two turns of fighting the other Englishman is down... our first combat is a little clucky but we manage it after a false start or two.

 and the woman is "soothed" and made ready for travel.

 Dave's troops score a hit and Will's Indians are proving masterful shots with bow and musket as the English sortieing from the village take hit after hit.

  The woman is taken over the wall to relative safety...

 and a savage fire fight erupts.  Will has great luck with his shooting, mine is average but Dave and Mike are both struggling with die rolls. The English start to drop like flies.

 Musketeer confronts and a colonist with an ax and we have our second combat.  Neither man inflicts a hit.

 The woman has a new uninjured escort

 My Commander moves to shore up the flank (also I wanted to see how a higher rank soldier fared in combat)

 Mike kills my musketeer but the officer make quick work of his opponent and then has enough combat pool left over to kill the second soldier as well.

The handful of English left fall back conceding the woman (and the win) to the French and Indians.  Dave and Will like the game enough they had a rematch the following night.  The basic movement and shooting rules are simple and easy to execute.  Combat is the main feature of these rules and is more complex but once we had the hang of it it didn't slow things down too much.  I think they could bog things down if too many combats were happening at once but ranged fire is very dangerous so closing to fight in an open space is difficult. Next time we are going to try a more urban board (possibly a Frostgrave table).  I really liked this rule set a lot its sort of like "historical Frostgrave" with a more nuanced combat system (and no magic).