The Cousins' War - Game 4

Two games in two days - Yay! We worked out why, in the previous game, I was so soundly thrashed - it was by a slight misremembering of the rules. At the end of a battle only one army can be returned to the gaming board and the rest should go to the Reserve. We played it that all three went back to the board. Oh well, never mind, it was still fun.

With that in mind we were more careful playing the next game, and as a result it went the full five turns. I still didn't win mind, but it was a close run thing and it could have gone either way during every turn. Again, I played Lancaster and my son played York.

Turn 1 - The Battle of Ludford Bridge

As per most of our Cousins' War games, I started off really well with a victory (my only one) at the Battle of Ludford Bridge. I had control of two regions on the board and my son just the one.

Turn 2 - The Battle of St. Albans

I made some great gains on the board but lost the battle. I managed to secure my two regions and equalise in the third region. If I had won this battle it would have been over.

Turn 3 - The Battle of Mortimer's Cross

Again, my board play went well but losing the battle meant that my son was able to rescue himself at the last minute. I lost the midlands but gained the south.

Turn 4 - The Battle of Wakefield

Things turned round quite a bit in this round. With some deft board play and another win at the battle, my son managed to coax control of the north from me and both other regions went to equal influence. It was everything to play for going into the final turn.

Turn 5 - The Battle of Barnet

My son's board work and then his victory in the final battle meant that I had now lost control of two regions, which meant that he won the game by virtue of his 2:1 regional control, plus as an extra he had won four of the five battles.

This was a very close run game. It could have gone either way at many points in the game. My son just edged it with his superior battle play, plus he still has better luck with the dice than me. We both thoroughly enjoyed this one as it was a game on a knife-edge pretty much all the way through.

We will try to get maybe one more game in this week whilst he is here visiting and then start using some extra random event cards from the following game onwards to shake things up a little.

On the back of the gaming over the last couple of days, we decided to visit our local Norman Castle - Mountfitchet. We went there six years ago almost to the day (I made a blog entry for it), but today it was less crowded and the weather was glorious again for this time of year. Hopefully I will get a travel log written up for it tomorrow.