Seven Years War Encounter

[Westbury]

Our 2nd group game of the new year and this time Prussians v Austrians.
The table was pre set, both sides had 3 brigades each of infantry, 1 each of cavalry and 1 each of light troops. The Prussians were better quality overall infantry wise but the Austrians had the better cavalry brigade, the number of light troops in the Austrian brigade was superior to the Prussians but theirs's were the better quality. The Austrians had one pre deployed artillery battery. Both sides were allowed to redeploy their cavalry brigade prior to the start provided it was behind their existing deployment lines, the Prussians declined but the Austrians re-aligned theirs.
As both sides were pre deployed it was deemed to be a battle for terrain domination; key points were assigned a numerical value (hills, village units and bridges over the river) so both sides had a reason to be aggressive beyond the terrain items they already held.

[Westbury]

On the Austrian left wing the infantry brigade positioned here advanced on the next village unit and secured it - an easy win, then settled down to defend against the Prussians. Said Prussians remained on their side of the river and did nothing the whole game - in the post game discussions the Prussian commander admitted that once it became obvious what the Austrian orders were he should have sent new orders to cross the river, regain order and then attack with what were better quality and better firing ability troops, as it was he sent the change of orders to late and the game was deemed over when they arrived.

[Westbury]

On the Prussian centre right the brigade facing across the river toward one of the hills rather audaciously faced about formed battalion columns and marched to its right to cross the bridge (thus securing it) and start deploying in line to begin an attack on the hill from a different angle. This rather threw the Austrians who had one brigade heading toward the hill from the reverse side and had one brigade on hold at the village.
This became the most hotly contested part of the battle and as a gamble paid off for the Prussians as its single brigade had secured the bridge, saw off an attack by part of the Austrian left brigade which hadn't reached the village yet and fought the other Austrian brigade to a standstill on and around the hill thus making it contested and unclaimable by either side. The risk of course was that the Austrian commander would order the left holding brigade to attack the Prussians in the rear but he was too distracted elsewhere and so an opportunity was lost.

[Westbury]

In the centre the one remaining brigade from both side surged to the river bank and the other river and once deployed at the bank held their position and sot each other up while at either end of the bridge each deployed a single battalion to prevent an attack across it.
Both sides used their cavalry brigade to back up the infantry brigade at first, after all what else were they going to do on a cavalry unfriendly battlefield, however this did lead to a bit of an Austrian comedy roadshow. The Austrians had redeployed their cavalry at the beginning of the game and ordered it to march from its right wing position behind the light troops across to where the bridge was and deploy there, this meant that as they advanced across they got in the way of the infantry marching forward causing delay and confusion and once they were at the bridge they could nothing but get shot at and if ordered to advance flounder about in the river and get shot at. A new set of orders were sent but they were not understood (bad dice  ) so the commander had to come over and explain personally  . This wasn't the end though because the new orders positioned them behind the infantry (more pushing and shoving) but when it became obvious, later in the game, that the Prussian plan was to use the infantry as a screen and slip around the wooded area where the lights were fighting and cross the river at the ford thus turning the Austrian right another set of orders had to scribbled out  Oh how the Prussians laughed 

[Westbury]

On the Austrian right the fight for the large wood occupied the entire day. The Austrians were superior in numbers and were supported by a combined grenadiers battalion, the Prussians however were a couple of detachments of jaegers and some dismounted hussars. The Prussians cleverly opted to advance only a little way into the wood and then pop off at long range with their hunting rifles as the Austrians struggled through the wood. Once the Austrians got into range then weight of numbers told but by then several of their Frei Corps elements had given up the fight. As darkness fell the jaegers were gone and the Austrians were in control of the wood.

[Westbury]

The final aspect of the battle, as previously mentioned, was the Prussian cavalry sneaking around the wood and then into its edges to head for the ford and the Austrian cavalry scrambling to get there. This race should have favoured the Austrians, who weren't hampered by the terrain, but the confusion of their 3rd set of orders plus trying to get round infantry battalions falling back from the river bank shoot out meant that as darkness fell the Prussians were at the ford.

[Pattus Magnus]

Beautiful job on the terrain, miniatures and write up! It is inspiring to see something like that!

[Westbury]

With night falling, both in game terms and in reality, we called it and counted up the points which gave a narrow Prussian victory.
Then we had an overall assessment; on the one wing two brigades faced off and did virtually nothing other than a couple of Austrian battalions getting in the way of the audacious Prussian bridge attack, in the centre two brigades each were shot to pieces for no discernible gain, in the woods the Prussians were done but the Austrians orders meant they didn't push on further, both cavalry were in tact but the Prussians were in the better tactical position.
The Prussian player gambled and won, he gambled on the bridge attack where a counter attack would have lost him the brigade and the bridge, he gambled on bringing his cavalry off their hill and in the latter half of the game going for the ford - this was helped by the commander embedding himself with the cavalry brigadier and the Austrian lights not having orders to emerge from the wood - that hill was theirs for the taking 

[Westbury]

Thanks 
We stretched our tactical skills and had fun. Perfect.

[has.been]

Yet another good show of a game Ian, & Dave?
Poor order writing, ah that takes me back.
Glad to see you still don't allow orders such as
the famous/infamous one by a certain gamer,
'Hold the ridge until it is appropriate to attack' 

[juergen c. olk]

Lovely looking game.

[Westbury]

It was the four of us Pete.
Got to love that classic order 

[duc de limbourg]

Thanks for sharing. Great terrain and figures!

[Zingara]

Great looking game Ian. How long did it take? I presume you were using your own rules.

[MaleGriffin]

Great looking game!