The Seven Years War, Honours of War, 28mm

This was another week when due to work our usual foursome was reduced t just two. Again, as we both lived near each other, 15 miles from the town, we decided to game in my kitchen rather than go into the club. So, as Sean 2 is painting up his first ever SYW unit (the Prussian 1st Rgt.), we opted for a small game in the same period, played out on a 6×4 foot table. To save working out anything more sophisticated we both had matched forces – four battalions of infantry, two regiments of cavalry, a light infantry detachment, a hussar regiment and a gun battery. Nine units in all. In this game, Sean opted for the French so I took charge of the Western Allies. I laid the toys out before Sean arrived – in the picture above the French are at the top.We’d rolled for commanders, and it turned one of my brigadiers was “Dithering”, as was one of Sean’s, while his cavalry commander was “dashing”. Everyone else was “dependable”. As usual, the battle began with an almighty cavalry melee. All our regular horse were concentrated on one flank – the Allied left or the French right. Sean advanced, I charged and he countercharged. Wallop! It lasted for two rounds, by which time just about everyone was running away. Well, not quite. Both of the French regiments – Orleans and Bourbon-Busset were routing, as was one of mine, the Hanovarian Hodenerg regiment. However, the Hanovarian Briedenbach dragoons were badly battered and forced to retreat, but after a bit of rallying they were still in the fight. That’s the situation up above – everyone running away!  This though, also meant that the French had lost two units – another two and the army would be forced to retire from the field. So far I’d lost one, so I was still relatively okay. By now though, the infantry lines had advanced on each other, and had come within musket range. That’s fairly short in this game – just 8″, or 4″ for effective range. On the French right it was the French Lyonais regiments which advanced into musket range first. That meant their two battalions fired with a -1 penalty for movement. Still, they fired first and did well, causing two hits on both of my Hanovarian battalions facing them. The 1st French battalion on their left got hit badly though, taking three hits, with one hit going to the 2nd battalion. So far so good. The next round though, saw both sides staying put, and this time it was the Allies who fired first, with the gun battery joining in. This time the 1st battalion of the Lyonnaise regiment broke and ran, taking fire from the Hanovarian Junge Zastrow regiment, and from the Hanovarian guns. The 2nd battalion though, held its ground, after pulling back out of musket range. On that flank it was all about recovering from disorder – slowly – with the Allied commander Karl of Brunswick helping to rally his dragoons, while the Compte de Saint-Germaine did the same with the remains of the Lyonnaise regiment. by then though, it was all starting to kick off on the other flank  – the Allied right or French left. The two battalions of the La Marck regiment – blue-coated Germans in French service – held off the Hessian Leibregiment and von Toll regiment when they advanced within musket range.On the far flank there was some skirmishing between the light detachments-  the Bercheny hussars and the Chasseurs de Fischer on one side and the Freytag jaegers and Prussian black hussars on the other. After a brief fight both sides fought and were forced to pull back and lick their wounds. All in all it seems liek the impetus had gone from my Allied side. They only had one unit to wipe out to win the game, but there wasn’t any sign that would happen. The La Mark regiment were standing solidly, as were the Lyonnais. My own right flank was too busy rallying off hits to do much. So, it was all about overwhelming the single French battalion on their right flank. In the end it didn’t happen. We ran out of time, as the Lyonnais regiment pulled back to buy more of it. The French guns covered them splendidly, and even though my dragoons had curt off the French battalion, we didn’t have time to finish them off. So, the game was declared a well-fought draw – a first for Sean in this period, thanks to a well-handled defence. We both found the rules straightforward and very playable. We would have got more played too, if we hadn’t yarned so much! Let’s hope this game will encourage Sean to paint up more Prussians! These last two pictures incidentally, were taken on his phone, as I forgot to snap enough of them.

Tags: Honours of War