What a close game this turned out to be !
The Austrians fielded a massive 6 gun batteries (nearly 25% of their force) with Artillery Academy trait which is essentially Lethal Volleys for Artillery. With a 24BW range (72cm with our 3cm bases) this meant they could target my Prussians just about anywhere.
To top it all off I was defender and had to deploy first giving Austrian guns free choice of juicy targets and Stephen massed them in a line in his centre.
The pounding commenced on turn one and I soon realised that I was on a hiding to nothing trying to Rally faster than the 'Grand Battery' could inflict hits. A unit of Musketeers was dispatched and this goaded my 'defenders' into action.
I advanced my left wing of Infantry and Horse as fast as actions would allow.
This meant however that my other wing continued to be pounded to dust as I could not Rally and Advance (due to the cunning action and card system in these rules).
My advance did 'silence' those damn guns as Austrians deployed to meet oncoming enemy. However they had destroyed 3 Foot units by this time !!
We included the optional weather card in the deck and its fortuitous appearance and subsequent worsening of conditions basically saved my army.
Rain started which stopped all long range fire ie that bloody artillery.
A bloody battle ensued on my left but sadly my Horse got worst of it against more numerous Austrian mounted types.
I did manage to bring up my two Elite Grenadier units to plug gap.
Just as I was in range to volley the damaged Austrian Horse the weather card was turned again by Stephen and now it was Heavy Rain which stops all Musketry !!.
So it was a stand off between my fresh Grenadiers and Austrian Horse as he was too weak to charge and Foot cannot charge Mounted.
However the Austrian artillery was on move and several fresh Infantry units.
They were in columns heading to the objective (on the only hill on my side) with only a single Prussians gun battery and two Dragoon units to intercede (one of which was on 4 hits from the artillery saved only by the weather).
I managed to stop 2 of his Infantry units with these Dragoons as now the weather helped me with his fresh units unable to fire with damp powder.
A fortuitous use of the 'Its Not On The Map' card allowed me to place some difficult going in front of the other two units thereby slowing their advance.
At this point the third card deck ran out and we used our remaining cards and game ended. Austrians had started with 16 morale points ending with 11 or 12 (?) the Prussians began with 15 ending with a mere 3 and that after being boosted by 2 from a card play !!
So a narrow Prussian victory but the very definition of Pyrrhic with loss of 9 units overall.
As Frederick may have said "I cannot afford any more such victories !"
Great fun although the massed batteries seemed more Napoleonic than 18th Century but it sure made for an exciting game.
Sadly my camera needed batteries so only a couple of early game shots using my phone
The accursed Austrian gun line
Prussian right being pounded (1 unit of foot already obliterated)
Planning game for next week and possibly (so much to choose from) a Napoleonic bash but what rules to use !!??
Damn it maybe I will just do WW2 but then what rule set........................... :-)
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