Seven Years War action with 18th Century Principles Of War

Game at Stephens with him picking 18th Century Principles Of War as rules to use.

So he fielded Austrians against my Prussians.

We have used these rules once before but managed to somehow cock them up big style.

This time we realised that the concept of Command Markers is new from original POW and once we saw how they worked in conjunction with Orders and PiPs we were impressed as the system seems to generate a game that certainly 'feels' very SYW-ish.

Frederick's lot have some decent but not overwhelming advantages such as double moves when on Blinds and more chance of setting up as attackers which combined with better overall Command and Troop quality (Freddie is only Professional Officer available to any Army) makes them potent.

This is offset of course but being outnumbered by the Austrians for whom initial Deployment and Orders can be crucial.
Austrian cannons (out number Prussians 3:1) also are good balancing assets.

We did not finish the game but played enough to really enjoy the game system.
I see us playing this one again.

Catching up

Been a busy few days so behind on postings

Did manage to finish the Die Fighting II game with Prussians coming out on top mainly due to their Left Wing mounted Command annihilating Russians horse and then turning on the flank of adjacent Russian Infantry Brigade.
Quite a satisfying game as initial try with DFII, lots of decision points in the game especially with Command Dice Allocation and in particular that of the CinC.
Once things go against an army its status can degenerate very quickly in DF.

I then used exactly same forces and table (no time to re-arrange) for try out of 18th Century Principles Of War rules.
Really like sequence of play (reminiscent of old WRG 1645-1815 set) and the fact that hard for mounted to charge home against steady Infantry.
Rather more bookkeeping involved, as units use Strength Points, but use of small dice alleviated this.
Tactical movement system rather generous maybe for 18th Century troops but otherwise a fine and very playable set of rules.

Also played a game of Field Of Glory Renaissance at Stephens (he is big fan of these) with my Early Imperialists against a Later Swedish force.
This proved to be a very interesting game with a lot of bloodshed on both sides.