Game: Mosby's Raiders

Thread: Re: Playing the Game.

timex — 2008-08-28T18:14:45+00:00

Thanks for the ULTRA fast replies. For a 20 year-old game. BBG is a Godsend.

Thread: Re: Playing the Game.

Simon Mueller — 2008-08-28T17:45:41+00:00

Yaboo wrote:
Now I know - i will go back and look up this rule that I missed.
It's right at the top of p. 11.

I remembered there was rule about it, but had to look it up myself to make sure.

Thread: Re: Playing the Game.

Yaboo — 2008-08-28T17:37:39+00:00

This is accurate and also very interesting in that "when you run out of union units you have to "restore union lines"...". In the last game I played I was going nuts - raiding all over the place and blowing stuff up - i was really pushing my luck. I had activated a lot of units and they had in-turn activated a bunch more units and the draw pile was getting low. I wondered what i would do when and if it ran out. Now I know - i will go back and look up this rule that I missed.

Simon Mueller wrote:
Only areas in union lines contain union units, so you can move over confederate and neutral areas without the risk of activating enemy units.

Yes, you could probe along the whole border, however, this is nonsensical, because when you run out of union units you have to "restore union lines", which means all units are removed from the map and you lose all the information you gathered on them. Also note that every probe attempt can fail and activate union units.

You usually start the game like this: Choose a target and move toward the target probing for weak or preferably non-combat units. This should usually open you a path to the target, but if you only bump into strong union units, you should consider trying a new path or target. At a certain point either on your way to the target or destroying the target you usually activate union units and you have to fight or run.

Thread: Re: Playing the Game.

Simon Mueller — 2008-08-28T17:34:06+00:00

Only areas in union lines contain union units, so you can move over confederate and neutral areas without the risk of activating enemy units.

Yes, you could probe along the whole border, however, this is nonsensical, because when you run out of union units you have to "restore union lines", which means all units are removed from the map and you lose all the information you gathered on them. Also note that every probe attempt can fail and activate union units.

You usually start the game like this: Choose a target and move toward the target probing for weak or preferably non-combat units. This should usually open you a path to the target, but if you only bump into strong union units, you should consider trying a new path or target. At a certain point either on your way to the target or destroying the target you usually activate union units and you have to fight or run.

Enjoy the game!

Thread: Playing the Game.

timex — 2008-08-28T16:45:22+00:00

I have just recently bought Mosby's Raiders. I've set the board up, but (if Im doing this right) there are no Union forces on the board yet. So my question is after I move Mosby do I only need to make a probe check when going into the Union controled area? From my understanding there are 3 areas Mosby's Confederate area, Union area and Neutral(?) areas in between? And that only when Mosby tries to enter a union controled area at start of game does he need to make a Probe check into a space or if he enters a activation check. If thats the case can he just probe the entire border in order to use up the union chits and "make" a weak spot. I dont know if there are enough chits to do that or not just speculating? Thanks for any help you might offer.

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chooche — 2008-08-23T01:32:54+00:00

Ad from 80s AH General Magazine

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Yaboo — 2008-08-14T23:02:57+00:00

Rough first turn for Mosby - Union extends lines and starts sweeps, burning as they go.

Thread: The flow of the game,

greatredwarrior — 2008-04-21T16:36:54+00:00

At the beginning of Mosby's Raiders, your strength is very low, and so your ability to fight and win battles is also low. Basically, if the Union has soldiers in a place, you avoid them. Fortunantly, there are so many blanks, couriers, and wagons, and so few combat units, that this is very easy to do. You have almost unlimited access, and so you want to start your raids in the most destroyable part of the map that is deepest in the Union lines. Don't waste your first turn fighting, but rather, destroy railroads, and maybe a bridge. If you do get into a fight, kill the dirty Federals. Once they're dead, they wont come back. Usually, that's a weak unit anyway, but it's one less unit you have to worry about. Also, killing gets you lots of Performace points.

The biggest advantage of the early turns is that you can probe a large section of the map and figure out where the holes in the Federal defenses are. This will allow you to exploit the Union even after their awareness has increased because new units don't get placed in revealed spaced. However, if you use up all the revealed tokens, or get an unlucky random event, all your hard work is over.

As the game goes on, more choices for raids get deployed through the placement of Union officers and depots. This is good, but also, the Union's ability to combat you grows as their combat units get larger and more capable the more your Notority grows (which is of course, the goal of the game). This middle part of the game is what I usually do worst at. I end up trying to achieve limited objectives and notch my Notority up one or, if I'm lucky, maybe two a turn. Probing becomes very ineffective when Union Awareness is at 4 or 5, because it often leads to a Union unit becoming activated.

In Combat, "Sckeddadle" whenever the modified die role gives you a 1 in 6 or even 2 in 6 chance of success. This is because losing a battle, or worse yet, losing a raider strength point, is a very steep loss to your performance points. However, you can often be vastly outnumbered and still get a good role through use of Action Cards, which can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. If you're being pursued by a Union Force, and you have a real target you want to get to (i.e. outside Union Lines to deliver a kidnapped leader), and one of the Union units roles a lucky 6 and jumps on top of you, then you'll want to use enough of your available action cards to make your battle succeed on at least a 3+, but even better a 2+. This is because it is not exceptionally difficult to avoid new Union forces when you're on the run. The problem is when they role one of their 6s and catch up. Of course, the Fast Horses card can often mitigate that as well.

Towards the end of the game, after you reach Notority 8 or 9, it is difficult to achieve more than two demolition or kidnapping actions in a turn. So, that is when you should use an action card to reach the targets right up close to the Union lines. It is exceptionally difficult to penetrate deeply into the Union lines (the DC area) once Union awareness is at 5, or even 4. This is because there's usually a trail of pursuing Federals by the time you get that deep, and spending one of your Round actions on demolishing a target often results in the Federals catching up to you. But, even this can be worth it because you often have enough raiders and action cards that you can make a good show if a small unit engages in combat (earning you more performance points), or you can just skeddadle to avoid a costly and difficult battle.

In Summary: go deep and cautiously at the beginning, trying to achieve a lot in a short period of time. In the middle, go for the big targets that aren't right on the Union lines and score big while avoiding traps. In the end, sweep up the targets right on the border. When I used this, even with a Redress Union Lines event right when I got to 6 Notority (which was brutal), I was able to finish with almost 12 Notority points on my first game.

Thread: Re: Multiple demolition targets in a space?

omnivore — 2008-02-14T01:08:48+00:00

I don't have the game any more so I don't know how I came to do it this way, but I always played it that I could destroy them all, but one at a time.

Thread: Multiple demolition targets in a space?

Mike_Head — 2007-12-10T22:35:13+00:00

Dusted this game off recently, and remembered a question that always nagged at me when I played many years ago. Some spaces have multiple Demolition order targets - Harpers Ferry has a depot, a bridge and a railroad. I presume you cannot demolish them all in one go, although the rule book does not make this clear to me, but can you demolish them one-at-a-time (performing all the Activation checks of course after each one) and can you choose the order in which to do it? Or can you only hit one in a game (unless it rebuilds of course)and choose what it is when you carry out the order?

Thread: Re: User Review

owktree — 2007-10-12T21:02:27+00:00

asgelb wrote:
thanks for the review...(so many years ago)

The game sounds cool..whats the complexity of this game?

I'd weight it as Medium. Not as heavy as Squad Leader, not as many sub-systems to track like Carrier, and you get an understanding of the interactions fairly quickly.

Tension is kept up by a requirement to maintain notoriety equal to the game term (and said notoriety affects how well you recruit, how easily Union troops activate to chase you, and also at what point more (and stronger) Union cavalry units go into the chit cup.

- Kurt

Thread: Re: User Review

asgelb — 2007-10-09T03:16:18+00:00

thanks for the review...(so many years ago)

The game sounds cool..whats the complexity of this game?

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Firepigeon — 2007-06-26T23:17:38+00:00

Confederacy controled zone (inside the blue areas)

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Firepigeon — 2007-06-26T23:15:05+00:00

In-map tables and help charts

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Firepigeon — 2007-06-26T23:12:02+00:00

Harpers Ferry close up

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Firepigeon — 2007-06-26T23:11:56+00:00

Harpers Ferry zone

Thread: Re: LUF

mschemen — 2007-06-03T00:06:54+00:00

After reading you post, I realized the I must have missed some the rules. I was trying to play the game as I read the rules the first time. Turns out I didn't understand all of the extra activation checks that were needed, like after combat and between rounds. My mistakes made the game fairly easy. I restarted the game and lost after 2 turns.

Thread: Re: Picket on a LUF?

JonRock — 2007-05-25T07:21:13+00:00

It's actually pointless to Probe a LUF space. Non-combat units can't ever stay unactivated on a LUF space--that picket should have been returned to the cup immediately after looking at it. If a combat unit had been revealed by the Probe action, you can't place a Revealed marker (because it's a LUF space), so then when you entered the space you would have to roll to activate BOTH the existing combat unit AND the LUF space again. Yikes!

Thread: Re: LUF

JonRock — 2007-05-25T07:00:37+00:00

LUF markers should never be in the cup. All they do is mark spaces which have become new LUF spaces due to random event cards, and never move once they're on the board. The four spaces which can become new LUFs are marked on the board with flags.

Whenever you are marking which spaces need activation checks, a LUF space is always considered to be "unrevealed" so it is always eligible to be activated if adjacent to an active unit or a combat. For a normal Union space, you would place a Revealed marker after the first time a unit was drawn for it. After that, only already-drawn inactive units could be re-activated in it and the space itself would never be rolled for a new draw again that turn. Since a LUF space never gets a Revealed marker, if an active Union unit is adjacent to the same LUF space over multiple rounds or combats, that LUF space must be checked for yet another activation each time. This is shown in the second example of play, where a 3-strength unit, a 4-strength unit, a blank, and a courier are all activated from the Fort Runyon space over the course of 3 rounds (one extra activation occurs due to an adjacent combat).

Thread: LUF

mschemen — 2007-05-24T20:56:35+00:00

I'm confused on the use of LUF. There are LUF markers. When I fail an activation check on the LUF, do I set the LUF marker there or pull something from the union force cup? Does the LUF move after me or just some union force pulled from the cup?

Thread: Re: Picket on a LUF?

Mr.Baggins — 2007-01-17T18:42:08+00:00

It just gets eliminated.

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Felisan88 — 2006-12-11T18:22:23+00:00

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Felisan88 — 2006-12-11T18:22:08+00:00

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Felisan88 — 2006-12-11T18:21:57+00:00

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Felisan88 — 2006-12-11T18:17:36+00:00

Thread: Picket on a LUF?

JasonRMax — 2006-06-03T23:49:13+00:00

I just played for the first time today and ran into a situation I wasn't sure how to handle:

I probed into a Large Union Force(LUF) space and revealed a picket, I then moved into that space. Does the picket get eliminated before anything happens or get eliminated but activate another unit from the LUF first?

Thread: Re: Anyone have a counter list?

JasonRMax — 2006-04-21T05:27:46+00:00

Thanks alot, this is exactly what I needed! I think it clear enough for my purposes but I'll go through my counters this weekend and find out for sure.

Thread: Re: Anyone have a counter list?

Rottenshot Rick — 2006-04-21T03:23:46+00:00

Hi! It was just by pure chance that I happened to get on today and glance at this Forum. And even greater chance, I suppose, that I just happen to have the game in unpunched condition! I scanned the back of the countersheet and uploaded it to Photo Bucket. Here you go. I hope it does the trick for you. If it's not good enough let me know and I can try it again. Take care!

Thread: Re: Anyone have a counter list?

JasonRMax — 2006-04-21T02:41:01+00:00

Thanks, I've got that. The problem is that the 80 American flag counters are all different on the other side, and there's no scan of that side.

Thread: Re: Anyone have a counter list?

citizen k — 2006-04-21T02:13:35+00:00

A scan of the counter sheet is available at:

http://www.isimulacrum.com/game.php?gid=2646

Enjoy

Thread: Anyone have a counter list?

JasonRMax — 2006-04-21T00:37:20+00:00

I need to make a replacement counter for one of the Union pieces. If anyone has a counter list for the 80 Union pieces I'd love to get a copy.

Thread: User Review

Texscripter — 2004-05-16T22:29:29+00:00

Mosby's Raiders is a cool little solitaire game that sucked many hours out of my days.

You play as General Mosby, commander of the Partisan Rangers, a Southern 'commando' group that ran behind Union lines and raised all sorts of havoc including burning depots, blowing bridges, committing kidnapping, and other acts that would bring misery to the North.

Starting with feeble resources, you have to act in a manner that will earn you more followers but that won't earn you more attention from the Union too quickly. Mosby and his gang are not really good in set-piece battles until later stages in the game when the Partisan Ranger's ranks are filled to overflowing.

It's a good thing, then, that initially the Union forces are slim. However, doing untoward things like blowing bridges over the Potomac and kidnapping generals from their homes in Washington, D.C. tends to earn the ire of the bluebellies. As you continue to raise Cain up north, your actions will drive the game system to deal with it. Usually this is done by adding counters to a cup, from which Union forces are drawn. At game start these forces are thin and small, but the more successful you are the more Union troops go into it (and more powerful ones, too).

The goal is to be so much of a pest that the Army of Northern Virginia can survive longer because the Union is detatching more and more men from their field armies to give chase to Mosby. If you're really successful or like to take big chances and strike far behind the lines, but manage to survive, you'll be well on your way to this goal.

The Union just doesn't sit and react to your moves, though; the Union Army can actually activate and move into Northern Virginia. In this part of the map, Mosby finds safety. However, the Union Army will sweep through, rudely enough unannounced most of the time, and destroy everything in their path. This tends to weaken Mosby's power base, and encourages you to not sit in Northern Virginia where you can't win the game anyway. May as well just join Lee and go play some other Civil War game.

There are special cards you can draw that will give you much needed advantages, such as "Fast Horses" which will allow you to move faster, or cannon which will aid you in combat (but will slow you down). There's tons of these and they make the game experience that much richer.

Overall, Mosby's Raiders is an excellent game that I highly recommend to any solitaire game aficionado.