Maurice - Seven Years War action - Prussia vs Austria

Game with Stephen today and we had a go with Maurice (a set we last used in 2015 !!) using my Prussians against his Austrians with a standard 100pt matchup.

I used Oblique Order and Cavaliers and Stephen used the two Artillery enhancements.

We both had 16 units and decided to deal one Notable card each, Stephen drew a notable that allowed units to interpenetrate without disorder and mine was the Spy event giving me a boost to Scouting.

I won the initiative and decided to attack and we fought in forest area with 9 pieces of terrain (although these are fairly small with our 30mm base widths).

Stephen placed two woods on his left which I knew would house Grenzers and duly did, he also placed a village on his right which became the designated Objective.

A couple more woods, a hill and a piece of rocky ground completed the terrain.

A very interesting game we had with the excellent card and 'momentum' system coming to the fore (I can see a lot of Maurice in the new Lasalle) meaning you have to concentrate your effort as never enough to do everything you want and great flavour with the various card effects and events. Always a key decision to use the cards effects or use their span value to activate forces.

We soon realised that our deployments were less than optimal with too many separated forces.

I attacked on my left towards the objective with Cavalry and Infantry and this saw the bulk of the action throughout game.

My Cavalry traded blows with Austrian counterparts eventually overwhelming them but my Infantry suffered from the Austrian artillery and it cost a lot of cards to try to redeploy and try to mass them. 

Once at volley range my Infantry got decimated pretty quickly and I was lucky to lose mostly minimum morale for each destroyed unit. 

Austrian foot advanced in center as my losses mounted threatening my three gun batteries which had fired only occasionally and mostly ineffectually, and with a card play the Austrians got to shoot first in volley phase and killed a gun for which loss my morale evaporated.

Considering we had not played the rules for so long it all went pretty smoothly our only stumble was with the Engagement rules for combat which we were too generous with initially for attackers as regards outnumbering. 

And a well written and complete rule set as we found answers easily to our few queries.

A more broadly abstract set for SYW than we have been using of late but overall a great game (Sam Mustafa's rules all generate fun encounters) with plenty of decisions to make and action from the get go with some nice period flavour. 

Only a few pics from early stages as got engrossed in events 

Prussian cavalry wing begins its assault

Prussian guns bombard in center (essentially a waste of a phase and cards) and Grenadiers realise they should be with main Infantry force on left

Grenzers in woods facing my right wing which as already lost a unit of Fusileers to artillery

These Grenadiers eventually obliqued across to their left but too late  costly in momentum

Too much separation of units and note Prussian Cavalry in column left behind (as are two Austrian foot units) 

Maurice and a Nine Years War bash at Duc De Gobin's

First time visit to Duc De Gobins (Darrens) to play a game of Maurice using his very nice 25mm (mainly Dixon figures I think ?) Nine Years War Armies on his nice big table.

He has an awesome book collection that I spent some time drooling over and I think he put me on that side of his table to distract me ! :-)

I selected the French in defence against the Anglo-Dutch with 6 Regular Infantry 3 Conscript Infantry (an insult to the Irish Wild Geese figures) 2 Guns,and 3 Regular Horse and one Elite unit of Grade Francais foot, with Great Captain and A La Boinette traits.

Duc had similar amount of foot although he had two Elite Dutch Guards and an extra Mercenary foot unit, he had but one gun but with some 4 Regular horse.
He had traits of Maison Du Roi and the extremely lethal Lethal Volleys (those re-rolls are key attribute).

I had one Conscript unit in Garrison of a town.

I decided to go at the oncoming Anglo-Dutch to keep them as far from my lines as possible but my right wing Cavalry assault faltered on some previously unseen rough ground due to that damnable 'flying terrain' card !!
This put my Horse in all sorts of trouble.

Duc advanced his Elite Guard units in forefront on my left and it looked for awhile like they might carry the day alone with their Lethal Shooting.

I did however manage to beat them in melee by ganging up on them but two units of Horse from his reserve stopped me taking advantage.

He then lethally volleyed (are up picking up how important this trait is ?) two of my central units to bits tipping my Army morale into the dustbin and carrying the day for the Anglo-Dutch.

Great game using Maurice and some deep discussion about its merits and abstractions afterwards.

We plan to try Black Powder at next encounter.

Very glad to have made Duc's acquaintance through our Blogs, as I was oblivious to his presence so near at hand (a 30 minute drive which is pretty much same as Stephens only in opposite direction).
I liked his cunning plan of placing me on the collapsing chair !! :-)

Phone pics




Irish Conscript (!) Garrison

 French Horse poised

Initial moves

Anglo-Dutch surge forwards

 Their Horse looking on

 Battle is joined

French lines under pressure

Dutch Horse making nuisance of themselves (although one unit dealt with already)

More foot assault the French with lethal volleys

Maurice face to face game

Played Maurice again this time with at Stephen with my Prussians against his Austrians.
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 left wing spoiling attack

 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........................... :-)

Maurice Solo game concluded

Managed to finish my solo game with Maurice rules over last few days.

Prussians came out winners as their right wing oblique attack proved too strong for Russians and rest of Army too slow at trying to reinforce that wing.

Nice slick and fast game play and I love the decisions the cards engender each phase.














Prussian attack goes in

Objective well defended but ultimately doomed

Stalwart defence by Russian Horse Grenadiers on Russian left with a reserve Regiment of Foot Grenadiers arriving belatedly

The full weight of Prussian attack bears down

Valiant Horse Grenadiers defend their hilltop as Prussian foot sweeps past

Refused Prussian left wing small but enough to keep opposing Russians worried

Horse Grenadiers put to Rout eventually and Russians about to be outflanked and crumble

Frederick victorious Infantry

Russian second line tries to redeploy

Prussian Cuirassier and Dragoons who made hard work of defeating Russian horse

The flank is turned and Russian Artillery overrun and their Army Morale collapses