Another go at a SYW Black Powder game loosely based on Kolin - a small, but well-led and motivated, Prussian force takes on a larger but less well-led Austrian force.
1. Frederick elects to mass his infantry on the right flank in an attempt to take the Austrians apart piecemeal:
(http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g440/dourpuritan/10mm%20SYW/IMG_1406_zps50c4cf49.jpg)
2. Meanwhile the Austrians had rashly sent their hussars forward in the centre where they were destroyed by the Prussian guns after becoming disordered and unable to move away. The guns were unable to come into action again. Further, the Austrians also precipitately advanced their Croats from the safety of the woods. The Prussian hussars were in a position to take them in flank but failed their command test, and just gazed at the scurrying red clad figures:
(http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g440/dourpuritan/10mm%20SYW/IMG_1407_zps9b84c38a.jpg)
3. One of the Croat units fled to the shelter of the town, but the other was used to pull more cavalry away from the Prussian left flank, resulting in its destruction. Meanwhile the Prussian right flank attack pressed forward, but suffered Artillery casualties as the Austrian guns were successfully re-laid:
(http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g440/dourpuritan/10mm%20SYW/IMG_1409_zps9ff1373a.jpg)
The image above shows the damage being taken by the Prussian infantry. One musketeer unit has already been put out of action. Fresher units moved through the damaged ones to attack the Austrians, but superior numbers and artillery began to take their toll. The Austrian cavalry were able to move through to supply flank support with one unit whilst driving off the Prussian cavalry with the rest of their force, although this did take three ding-dong moves. With more severe losses to the infantry, rendering that Prussian command hors de combat, Frederick decided to cut his losses and withdraw under cover of darkness.
A handsome game, DP, and an historical result. :-bd I notice you've gone for the "stepped" terrain - probably the best compromise for playability, I've always thought. And nice, chunky units - yummy!
It's the club's stepped terrain produced for 6mm WWII games, but was the best way to reproduce the large expanse of higher ground at Kolin. In game terms all slopes were classed as gentle.
Lovely report, great figures and photos. :)
:-bd :-bd
Cheers - Phil.
Good report DP. Liked it. :-bd
Good report and game :-bd =D> :-bd
Fantastic report loved the pictures
Take care
Andy
Brilliant :).
:-bd :-bd
Cheers for the positive feedback folks. Next Thursday we'll give it another go, but swap sides; the terrain and armies remain the same, but doubtless initial dispositions will change.
Super looking game
Great looking game, nice to see loads of figs on the table.
kev
Sorry to disappoint everyone but I forgot to take my camera to the club this week. Anyway, same battlefield as last week but I took the Austrians, split into three commands: heavy cavalry on the left flank with some artillery, the bulk of the infantry in the centre with artillery, and a mixed brigade of infantry, lighter cavalry and light guns on the right flank. The Prussians elected to carry out some artillery fire on the centre to start with and then launch a mass infantry attack on the left centre and a mass cavalry attack on the right centre. The Prussian artillery weakened the Austrian centre artillery which was then overrun by their cavalry. The infantry, which included both grenadiers and guard grenadiers pushed into the Austrian right centre. At the close of the evening the infantry were still slugging it out but the Austrian mixed brigade was no longer able to advance and the main body of Austrian cavalry had been thrown back on the Prussian right flank. Although not conclusive there were a lot more Austrian troops off table than Prussian so a narrow victory was awarded to the Prussians.
Fair result, Bob, or wuz you robbed?
[No camera :o - just not the same in brail!]
The town square in Kolin is an agreeable place to nosh a pizza, btw.
Wasn't really robbed. It was the gap that opened up between the infantry and the mixed brigade that caused the trouble. Thanks for the tip FK. Bohemia is on my list of places to visit both for SYW and 1866.
Full of pretty places. Useful hint: Czech women are endlessly frustrated by the lack of romance and charisma in Czech males, are themselves often very attractive, and frequently fancy foreigners.
True in Moravia too.
Unfortunately I am not quite as dashing as my avatar. Still, you never know.
Greetings
Looking at this inspires me to go back to painting my SYW. When I was walking the dog this morning I was planning how to play the Combat at Mehr (August 1758) using Black Powder. I have to dig into Chevert's 'relation' a bit more (he summarisea his orders as well as describing the action) and track down the account in the German General Staff history.
Regards
Edward
Mehr sounds like a sheep noise.
Quote from: Leman on 24 January 2015, 03:38:36 PM
Mehr sounds like a sheep noise.
In French it is called l'affaire de Meer, in German usually 'Der Schlacht bei Mehr'.
Entertainingly the local press in 2008 referred to it as the Prussian victory over the French, despite the fact that the troops were from Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Brunswick, Saxe-Gotha and Schaumberg-Lippe.
Regards
Edward
Sheep to Teutonic shepherd, complaining that they haven't had enough food: mehr...mehr...mehr.
Chickens telling Gallic farmer's wife they've had enough: beauCOUP,beauCOUP,beauCOUP ...
;D
Nice battle, Leman 8)
Had a go again last night, but this time with slightly bigger armies and using FOB2. The preliminary work took 1 1/2 hours, so we only played about two hours. As a result battle is still in full progress so photoreport in a week's time. With the dicing up of armies however the poor Austrians have got their work cut out. They rolled for an abysmal general and then rolled for an abysmal card deck - 6 lull cards!!!
If you are looking for spare Leadership cards, I can send you some, Bob, because I have more than enough. For some reason, I got 20 of them in the pack I ordered from Brent (Oman). As he did me a nice deal on the shipping, i felt it was a bit churlish to draw his attention to it - and besides, I have enough of the other cards to do me for the level of FoB2 games I play anyway.
6 lull - lol! Think I should be ok for cards, but I'll check the deck again to make sure. Thanks for the offer Westie.
Greetings
Do you think FOB2 works well for SYW? I keep thinking about picking up a copy especially as Lancashire has a sale on until tomorrow. I've got FoB1 (sans cards as I have buried them somewhere) and they look useful.
Regards
Edward
Horses for courses, KJ. I have various SYW specific rules but (other than Maurice) generally only use FoB and Black Powder because their 'generic' nature (with period specific adjustments - which can be your own as well as those recommended in the rules) suits my old brain and enables me to use them for other periods. I have fun so I'm happy with them.
OK - you are possibly under pressure to buy FoB2 because of the Lancashire Games sale. Well, I bought FoB2 because I liked FoB1. In your case, probably best to play FoB1 to see if you like them first (unless Lancashire are offering a really good deal). I'm sure you could get a copy of the Sequence Deck cards somewhere (if I find mine, I'll contact you).
Lovely looking pics, looking forward to seeing more. Edward the Mehr battle sounds very interesting as well, must look into that one myself.
KJ - IMO FOB2 is an improvement on FOB1 as some of the new cards allow for a variety of actions to be taken, eg. it is now easier to initiate a melee and it is then fought to a conclusion over as many rounds as necessary within that turn. One of the melees I was involved in last night took three rounds to conclude. One reason last night's game took a while to set up was that we used the new scenario generation system. as the fates (dice) would have it the Austrians turned up on the battlefield first but their brigade of cuirassiers and carabiniers took a wrong turn, and so will not turn up until I turn my 4th movement card. This has left four Austrian dragoon and hussar units facing all the Prussian cavalry. Fortunately the Prussian cavalry command leader is abysmal. If you like card driven games I'd go for it. I intend to use FOB2 for FAW, APW and FPW for smaller actions.
Greetings
Quote from: jambo1 on 30 January 2015, 06:01:52 PM
Lovely looking pics, looking forward to seeing more. Edward the Mehr battle sounds very interesting as well, must look into that one myself.
Mehr is more interesting the more one reads about it. I need to spend some more time on the 8 pages of the German General Staff history that cover it - deciphering the Fraktur is a bit of a pain. However it is pretty clear from Chevert's relation, which I think was written on 13 August, that the French had 12 guns - 4 4pdr suedois 'regimental' pieces with the advance guard and 8 4pdr long Valiere guns in two detachments marching with the Brancas brigade.
Regards
Edward
Greetings
Quote from: Leman on 30 January 2015, 08:15:58 PM
KJ - IMO FOB2 is an improvement on FOB1 as some of the new cards allow for a variety of actions to be taken, eg. it is now easier to initiate a melee and it is then fought to a conclusion over as many rounds as necessary within that turn. One of the melees I was involved in last night took three rounds to conclude. One reason last night's game took a while to set up was that we used the new scenario generation system. as the fates (dice) would have it the Austrians turned up on the battlefield first but their brigade of cuirassiers and carabiniers took a wrong turn, and so will not turn up until I turn my 4th movement card. This has left four Austrian dragoon and hussar units facing all the Prussian cavalry. Fortunately the Prussian cavalry command leader is abysmal. If you like card driven games I'd go for it. I intend to use FOB2 for FAW, APW and FPW for smaller actions.
Thanks - very useful.
Edward
hi, this is very nice. just a quick question : what is the size (length) of a bataillon (I mean the 32 figures) in cm or inches? :D thanks
As Leman is not currently logged in, hopefully I can answer your question. His battalions are 4 inches wide. Each base is 1 inch or 25mm wide. Coincidentally, although I've never met Bob in person, never seen his units before I joined this forum and live hundreds of miles away, mine are the same(!)
(If I'm wrong, I'm sure he will correct)
thanks :D
Quite correct Westie. My chaps are on 1"/25mm squares, including the cavalry. Generally I base 8 foot or 3 cavalry to a square, but only 3 jagers/Croats. Using the generic standard bearers to bulk a pack up to 32 helps. I also miux packs up as well. eg front rank kneeling, back rank standing firing and maybe a standing figure on each end base as a NCO. Sometimes I base the fourth base as two infantry, a 3lb gun and two gunners as a battalion gun, but only for show. In all respects it acts like a normal infantry base.
(http://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g440/dourpuritan/10mm%20SYW/IMG_1380_zps96cd3b7e.jpg)
Some of my earlier efforts are shown in the above photo where I only used 6 per base, but they just didn't look right for C18th linear warfare. The unit front right is the one with kneelers and standers, done as a large unit for use with Black Powder. Take a base out for use with FOB2.
Very nice!! :-bd Some good ideas for me when I come to basing up my armies.