Procrastination is such fun...so I'd thought I'd share the most humorous board game campaigns I've seen in my own games (some of course are my own blunders)!
1) Virgin Queen: The French Invasion
Two new players glared at each other across the English Channel. The French looked at Spain, and decided he was too great a target. Who better to invade than England itself? For two game turns he prepared, building up an army of mercenaries and regulars. His fleets were grouped into one location in Calais. Yet the Englishwoman was not idle either. She too built up her fleets and filled her army with mercenaries. The Spanish and Protestants did little to provoke either, instead watching with enjoyment the cold war buildup.
On Turn 3, the French Armada sailed forth, emptying the entire French countryside to fill their boats and managed to land French troops on the coast of England. Yet that was merely what England wanted. The English fleet sailed out, sinking the French, and the deserted troops were hit with an army mutiny. The remaining French troops were then bottled up by the hordes of English mercenaries defending London. The results were catastrophic, with the rest of the turn devoted to Spain and the Protestants racing against each other to conqure the prostrate France. Spain won a military auto-victory, and with no French keys remaining, we actually had to find out what would happen if the game had gone on to France!
LESSON LEARNED: Never bring everyone along to a sea-bound invasion.
2) Napoleonic Wars: Britain v. France
This was incidentally my first wargame ever (not counting Diplomacy of course), and the only two who had played before was the Frenchman and the Brit. The Brit had proved to be a dubious player, despite being the owner of the game. While myself (as Russia) and Austria contented ourselves with forming a massive doom-stack and smashing it repeatedly against Napoleon (with surprising success), Britain focused on spreading his ships across as many sea spaces as possible (apparently his home card gave some sort of advantage when doing this).
The issue was, he did this before destroying any of the French or Spanish ships. His earstwhile allies, new players, instinctively grew worried and politely suggested he might not want to spread his ships piecemeal across the Atlantic. He of course, refused to listen to our advice. France then gleefully pre-emptive, and one turn later, 3/4ths of Britain's fleet was sunk, from Gibraltar to the North Sea. All was not lost yet, as France's main army was still tied up with our doom-stack, but Britain then decided he needed to send a rescue mission with his remaining ships to his (very few) troops in Spain to bring them back home. And then those ended up in the bottom of the ocean as well.
LESSON LEARNED: Sea superiority means nothing to an individual ship.
3) Diplomacy: Proxy War
This particular Diplomacy game involved two bitter enemies in Italy and Russia, whom were prevented from direct conflict by two buffer states, Austria and Turkey. Each believing the other would win unless destroyed, Russia and Italy then engaged in a furious 8 year proxy war, with Italy attempting to coerce two bumbling new players (Austria and Turkey) into destroying Russia. Russia, though outnumbered, had the advantage in tactics (and basic intelligence). From the start the allies bounced each other, made no attempt to coordinate (or supported the wrong armies), and memorably both bounced each other out of the Russian Supply Center Sevastopol.
Compounding the incompetence, every few turns the Austrian would switch sides and outright attack Turkey in the Balkans. The Italian would then spend fifteen minutes cobbling back together the grand alliance, and the two would then resume the bumbling advance. To top it off, a lone German army from the West, escaping from Germany's destruction, manage to play the two sides off each other, reaching as far as Bulgaria in safety over the course of three years. All five involved in the great Italy-Russian War were put out of their misery when Britain casually invaded both Italy and Russia from behind.
LESSON LEARNED: Keep your friends close, and your incompetent friends at arms distance.
4) Empires in Arms: The Spanish Expeditionary Force
The game was an email version of Empires and Arms, and Russia, Turkey, and Spain were all new players. Immediately, France, Austria, and Britain began explaining how to play the game best (which incidentally seemed to favor them as well). From the start, Britain proved an annoyance to the rest of the board (seems a trait most Britains share in Napoleonic themes games) and managed to infuriate the Russians by creating an unusually stout defense in Sweden, playing off the Russian's lack of skill.
The Spanish and Turks meanwhile were being goaded by both sides into fighting each other. Instead, they came up with a bold plan. They would unite their forces to increase their admittedly pathetic presence in Europe. The plan was two fold. With both allied to Britain and France each, they would hopefully have enough time to achieve both goals. First, the Turkish fleet would travel across the Med to group up with the Spanish Fleet, for power in numbers. Second, the Spanish would send an expeditionary force across the other way to group up with a Turkish army. The allied force would then invade the presumably weak Russians.
The Spanish Expeditionary Force departed from Barcelona. Fearful of moving their fleet out of the Cadiz harbor (Britain was a jerk, remember), the Spanish sent a force of one (somehow) full corps aboard a mere 7 ships. The move was a multistage affair, first stopping in Italy, then continuing onto Greece. To be sporting, before departing Italy, the Spanish and the Turks declared war on Russia. Once they arrived in Greece, the fun really began.
First, the Russian, in perhaps the greatest success of the mighty Spanish-Turkish alliance, announced he was dropping out of the game because he was being ganged up on unfairly. Things took a turn for the worse when the replacement Czar was an experienced player whom licked his chops at the Spanish-Turkish army. Things took a further turn for the worse when Turkey 'forgot' to feed the Spanish troops landing in Greece. Waiting for the Spanish, instead of a great feudal horde, was a few paltry Balkan corps. With no supply depots set up on the way to the Russian frontier, it was going to be a rough journey. Starving along the way, the small army somehow managed to set up a siege along the border. Their purpose achieved, the army then achieved immortality by being annihilated by a far bigger and higher morale Russian army. The Spanish Expeditionary Force had indeed done great things.
LESSON LEARNED: If its named "Expeditionary", the chance of annihilation rises 100%.
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