New Years Day Seven Years War Battle

Here's some more reporting on the gaming day I hosted this New Years, which is already well in the rear view mirror!   The players were Conrad, visiting from Ireland (THE Conrad Kinch), and David.   CK is a total grognard, whereas David was playing his second war-game ever.   We used figures (mostly Foundry and Front Rank) from my collection, and the rules were the very dependable Honours of War by Keith Flint, published by Osprey.

CK set up his Russian army, giving his commanders ridiculous names like General Timoshenko Hortonivitch.   To stretch my limited collection, we used three base units, which worked well enough:  regiments had a decently sized footprint on the table and gave both players enough units to manage while having a decent range of tactical choices.

The Russians had an advantage in infantry: two brigades of three regiments each, while the Prussians had one brigade of four.   Both sides had a grenadier regiment, and the rest of the troops were line.   The Prussian advantage lay with their better generals.  The Honours of War rules are unforgiving with the Russian subcommands, who statistically tend to be worse than their Prussian counterparts.   Thus Conrad had three dim and doddering brigade commanders, whereas the Prussians had two competent ones and one dashing general.   This would give the Prussians a huge advantage in initiative and twice allowed a Prussian brigade to get an extra move.   To offset, I should have given the Russians another battery.

Prussian lines arrayed for battle:

Given some coaching, David, the novice player, decided that the best thing to do with his Prussians was to be aggressive.   He ordered his cavalry forward, the hussars on his left and the heavy brigade of horse on his right, see here thundering forward.

While the fifes and drums called his infantry forward in the centre.  Frederick is seen on the far right, plotting the course of the battle.

The Prussian and Russian heavy cavalry collide on the one flank, and engage in a massive scrum in which the Prussian horse gradually and slowly get the upper hand.

The battle was actually decided on the Prussian left flank, where sadly I don't have any photos, but after defeating the Russian light horse, the Prussian hussars were able to exploit an extra move thanks to their superior commander, and start rolling up one of the two Russian infantry brigades.   Conrad was an excellent sport, coaching David on how to use his cavalry to best advantage in the situation,  even though he was working to defeat himself in the process.  Well done, CK.

The decisive moment was the impact of the Prussian infantry brigade on the Russian centre, where the bloodiest moments of the battle occurred, but when the smoke cleared, two Russian regiments had been mauled for the cost of one Prussian, and the Russians were at their break point.

Here, Frederick is being congratulated by happy Silesian peasants, who are trying to sell him snacks and souvenirs.

A decisive Prussian victory achieved through good sportsmanship by both players.  My friend David is keen to play another game, if I can get him away from working on his model railroad layout, and I continue to be impressed by the HOW rules, simple, easy to teach, and highly playable.   Also a thrill to get the bulk of my slowly growing Seven Years War collection on the table.

Cheers and blessings to your die rolls,

MP+