The Seven Years War, Die Kriegskunst, 28mm

I blame Charles S. Grant. He seems like a nice chap, a mild-mannered retired brigadier, but he’s really a sadistic individual, hell-bent on making a wargamer’s life an unpleasant one. Anyone who thinks this a bit harsh obviously hasn’t seen his Scenarios for Wargames (1981). You see, we decided to play out a Seven Years War game using one of his published scenarios, called “The Advanced Column”. It seemed well-balanced, so we gave it a go, with the Prussians (the Blue Force) defending, and the Russians (the Red force) on the offensive. That’s when it all went horribly wrong.I led the Russian force, assisted by a motley collection of brigadiers. The game started when our column came into contact with a small enemy blocking force, ahead of a defended river crossing. Well, we spent a few turns trying to issue new orders, and meanwhile the Prussian reserves were moving forward towards the river. We had a few units of cossacks, which had probed forward as far as the river, but there they stopped (Cossacks not being known for their initiative). Our one success came when a Cossack unit on our left charged and routed a Prussian infantry battalion on the bridge. However, we had to pull back after, and we couldn’t exploit the advantage.Meanwhile the rest of our Cossacks lined a secondary river crossing, but were charged and routed by a unit of Prussian dragoons, which actually charged in column across the bridge and into our Cossack mob. Well, the Cossacks ran. However, this bought time for our Horse Grenadiers to move into postion, and they charged the first half of the dragoon regiment, catching them at the halt and routing them.We pursued, only to be charged in the rear by the Prussian reserves, who galloped over the bridge into the fray. Not to be outdone the rest of our Horse Grenadiers promptly charged them in the flank, The result was a great big cavalry stramash, where everything turned on the die roll. We rolled very low, and the Prussians rolled high, and our Horse Grenadiers broke and ran.Meanwhile our infantry was trying to assault the Prussian blocking force, but because of the woods we could only attack one battalion at a time. Inevitably the result was less than successful, and we took heavy casualties but failed to budge the enemy. The game ended as the Russians threw in their reserves – the Cossacks. While they actually defeated the Prussian dragoons, the rest of them near the bridge failed to achieve anything.The Russian objectives were to capture the river crossings, and it was painfully obvious that this wasn’t going to happen any time soon. We conceded defeat, leaving the Prussians to point out all our mistakes. Inevitably we took up the challenge, and as a result the game will be replayed next week, only with the sides switched around, so I’ll have the Prussians. I still swear it can’t be done, and I still blame that sadistic brigadier for coming up with such a seemingly innocuous but secretly devilish scenario!

Tags: Die Kriegskunst