Another go?

[Mark Wightman]

Terry and I will be trying again this evening. This time with the absolutely tiny battle of Reichenberg. 15 units all in.

God help the Austrians. They'll need it. 78pts of Prussians with a Good commander vs 57pts of Austrians with a Poor one.

[Matt]

Whose playing the Austrians as I'd guess they'll be home early

[Mark Wightman]

Oct 20, 2008 16:38:38 GMT Matt said:

Whose playing the Austrians as I'd guess they'll be home early

Barry and I played the Austrians. The game was surprisingly tight. The scenario gives the Austrian infantry some light fieldworks which provide a 4+ save, but they lose them if they move. This effectively countered the Prussian 5+ to hit. That coupled with Barry's amazing ability to roll 4+ saves, made the game closer than I'd expected it to be.

The Austrians also had another advantage which became apparent as the game developed. They had 3 commands to the Prussian 2. So although this made the Austrians even harder to control it did prevent the Prussians simply launching a massive flanking attack.

The Austrians had to survive 7 turns to win, or break the Prussians (as if). They survived 5, failing their army morale (they need to roll 7 or less to play on, but rolled and 8).

I think they could have had an outside chance, but there were a couple of key points which went against them.

A: Their CD rolls were (1,1,3,4,5)
B: The number of pulses per turn were (4,4,3,1,1)
C: They never rolled a double for the initiative

During turn 3 there was a critical initiative roll. Both sides cavalry had been fighting since pulse 2 of turn 1, all of it was down to having 2 SP or less. The Austrians had managed to wangle a position where they were outside of 3BW, so they could recover, but the Prussians couldn't because there was an Austrian Grenzer unit near them. They needed to go first though otherwise the Prussians could charge home again, or at least move forwards to prevent SP recovery. Somehow we managed to lose the initiative, despite having +2 (from earlier failures) and using a CD to reroll a dice . And to make matters worse - the Prussians rolled a double, although they too used a CD to reroll a dice.

There were some great moments in the game. The Austrians who moved to cover the important town, twice rolled an 11+ and lurched out to maul the Prussians. One of them almost killed a fresh Prussian Grenadier unit which it caught in MF. If it wasn't for the Volley rule - they have been finished. As it was they won the next initiative, turned round, moved the full 5BW to the rear, and a fresh unit obliqued into the gap.

[Matt]

Rousing stuff!