Lasalle 2 - Another Omelette broken - French vs Prussians

Another game of Lasalle 2 this time with 'Le Duc' in our first post plague game as he wanted to see Lasalle in action (being a fan of Sam Mustafas rules in general).

So I set up scenario 4 again with Le Duc attacking with Prussians against my defending French.

Prussians had 2 infantry brigades each with 3 Inf, 1 field gun and a unit of Hussars, they had a cavalry brigade of 1 Dragoon and 1 Uhlan, also a brigade with 2 Grenadiers and a Howitzer battery, their force was completed by a brigade of 3 Russian allied infantry. These 18 units generated a basic 28 skirmish dice. Le Duc had the 'Valiant' trait for his General.

French had 2 infantry brigades of 3 veteran infantry with a field gun, 1 brigade of 3 veterans and a cavalry brigade of 2 Chasseurs. So only 13 units but still 27 basic skirmish dice. The General choose 'Charismatic' trait to assist with rallies.

So honours even re skirmishing and I think Prussians won 5 Initiative and French 3 out of 8 turns played with never more than 4 'Voltigeurs' ever placed.

Le Duc had not read the rules beforehand so very much a teaching game but Lasalle is very easy to teach and indeed to pick up its basic premises even when using the 'advanced' rules especially as a goodly portion is familiar from play of Blucher and Maurice.

Learning how best to use the MO is harder to assimilate but he seemed to be catching on as game progressed and once he realised the potency of cavalry in the game.

We had a ding dong cavalry battle on my right flank which was essentially an even dice fest which I managed to win taking out the Prussian Dragoons and Uhlans, getting 2 on 1 and/or a flank contact is very powerful and usually decisive.

This then forced his supporting brigade of Russians into squares which my artillery and infantry then pounded to destruction and subsequently wiped out. I was however lucky not to lose a Chasseur and infantry unit to enemy artillery fire on this flank.

In centre I had some trouble dealing with Prussian Grenadiers but once Russians collapsed they were exposed and lost 1 unit but timely support from nearby Hussars saved the other.

On my left the Prussians piled on the pressure with 2 brigades against 1 but its slow going with the woods. I had a unit destroyed early on and another forced into square by the Prussians Hussars. But this square manfully held onto until last turn with some superb dice rolls with lots of sixes in combat and decent rallying (its a game of skill I tell ya !) tying up several Prussian units and keeping them away from central objective.

I had placed a wood in front of the objective again (seems a no brainer) and this too stymied Prussian progress.

At games end the central objective was exposed but still French whilst the town was firmly secured and indeed 'Carnage' was marginally in French favour.

Le Duc seemed to enjoy the game and rules especially as he professes not to be offay enough with Napoleonic period to see major flaws or issues but just appreciated the fast and decisive nature of the game but with enough decision points to make for an interesting and fun game. His Blog post reveals his thoughts on rules https://warfareintheageofcynicsandamateurs.blogspot.com/2021/10/lasalle-2nd-ed-with-sgt-steiner.html.

Time for something other than Napoleonics next methinks................. 

Prussians advance with some annoying skirmisher deployed

French infantry advances to delay Prussians as cavalry prepare to engage on right

Initial Cavalry clash is indecisive (note Chasseurs have obtained a Huzzah marker from destruction of Russian infantry unit)

Prussians putting pressure my left and Grenadiers advance in centre

French firm on ridge as their cavalry have routed their Prussian equivalents

French delaying on left but suffering for it

With Prussian cavalry gone French are able to counterattack off the ridge against Russian squares and the Grenadiers

Heroic French square holds fast on left

It eventually succumbed to massed Prussian volleys after being weakened by charges from Hussars but it was just enough to protect the adjacent objective.

Wavre with Shako II (and believe it or not a rare WIN !!!!!)

Another game using Shako II rules today at Stephens with the published Wavre scenario.

I of course used my Prussians to defend against Stephens French.

The scenario has rather complicated terrain with bonuses for Prussians defending the river Dyle crossings in the town sectors and lots of marshland all along both banks of the river, and differing levels of possible French victory.

We both realised that our respective mounted units were essentially superfluous as just no place to operate (pretty tough to effectively deploy and use artillery as well).

That said Stephen did get one unit of French Hussars across the bridge near Limal which had to stay in column on a road, but managed to destroy a unit of Landwehr before dying itself.

French need to push across bridge at Limal (which is very weakly defended by a single unit of Infantry and a Skirmish stand) on their left flank whilst attacking the tough Prussian positions at Bierge and Wavre.

The defenders of Bierge managed to thwart 5 separate assaults by staggering back the attacking French columns but on their 6th attempt the volleys failed and French then managed to take the town sector.

By this time a massive French force was bearing down on the flank of my central force at Bierge and after a brave stand they eventually broke. 

However this had taken 10 (of the scheduled 12) turns to achieve and as French had ignored garrison at Limal until too late they had insufficient time to capture this town thereby denying themselves even a marginal victory (taking Bierge and Limal) so Prussians triumphant (yee hah !!!).

A tough task for the French this one but Prussians somewhat lucky at Bierge as had it fallen earlier things may have been very different.

Fun game with Shako today without the head-scratching we had in some recent games, we will of course not play it again for ages and forget what we decided re any issues :-)

Congestion at Wavre on Prussian left

French forming up to assault Bierge in Prussian center

The isolated defenders at Limal on Prussian right, as French prepare to seize the bridge

French Dragoons redeploying (fruitlessly as it transpired)

Prussian guns firing (to little effect) on French side of Wavre

Central Prussian command deploys to meet oncoming French

French Hussars lead the way along the road through marshy area

French piling up along road and marshes to threaten Prussians around Bierge

Prussian light cavalry try to help but realise they cannot (not allowed to enter marsh)

Overview of action at Bierge and Limal 

Wavre scenario map (note each square is 8") with marsh extending 8" either side of river along its length. Town sectors on river contain bridges and have enhanced defences.

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) 

Zorndorf with Field of Battle 3

Game with Stephen today with a refight of Zorndorf using FOB3.

We have refought this action (based of the Might & Reason scenario so with units equating to Brigade formations) several times with various rule sets and it is one of my favourite battles to recreate.

We used FOB3 mainly as it was still fresh in our minds and being such an enjoyable game system.

For a change I took the Prussians and Stephen the Russians with no real rule changes other than Prussians having first initiative and a Move card in hand (sort of standard for attackers in our games).

We stuck with the historical deployment areas for the commands of both sides which probably favours the Russians a tad.

So Freddies lot duly opened hostilities with some ineffectual long range bombardments by his guns and equally paltry Russian artillery response.

And in a change to historical action as Kanitz command first occupied the Stein Busch prior to Dohna's command attacking the Observation Corps with Schlormers Cuirassiers supporting his right.

What a disaster this proved to be as Dohna's infantry were completely pummeled by the Obs Corps in particular their 2 Grenadier Brigades !

I know one ought not to complain about dice rolls but Stephen (in full 'dice demon' mode) simply rolled stellar dice, he rolled a D12 5 times achieving 3 rolls of 12 and 2 of 10 and then 2 D10 rolling 10 twice, simply staggering degree of luck !! 

Of course I consistently rolled low in response as per normal. 

And as in last game he then had fortuitous card sequence getting a melee card just when required to charge into my battered units which had been Forced Back with hits and no chance to react.

I had by this time pushed Mantteufel's 2 Grenadier Brigades forward on my left and these too suffered this time from Russian cannister shot.

To add insult to injury the single unit of decent Russian cavalry the Horse Grenadiers charged and routed 2 units of Dragoons under Bieberstein.

With all this carnage I had 5 units Routing and 3 destroyed and was in serious trouble.

The Prussians did manage to pull 3 Leadership cards out of 5 cards (after a reshuffle) giving them lots of opportunities to Rally but they could only rally 3 units and recover a couple of hits.

On an Army Morale card things just turned to a complete shambles for Prussians as I had to roll for risk to 4 of my Commanders and managed to kill 3 of them with rolls of 1 on D12s, what are the chances !?

Thankfully they soon returned on one of the Leadership cards but damage was done.

Soon after this further losses saw the Prussian morale sink inevitably to zero and I conceded as three quarters of my foot units gone and Russians pretty undamaged (only 1 unit Routed)

Seydlitz who was historically very much the saviour of Prussians at Zorndorf did not manage to get involved today at all, in fact bar the Horse Grenadiers and my 2 Dragoon units the cavalry of both sides took no part beyond some maneuvering about the place.

But again what a fun game with FOB with so many decisive outcomes and a strong narrative (albeit of solely of Prussian calamity and disaster) that very few other game systems generate in such an exciting fashion, definitely not a rules set for 'control freaks' but damn it feels like a proper battle action.

Initial action as artillery bombards

Kanitz command occupies the Stein Busch

Russian left wing cavalry moves forward 

Up close with Kanitz and his lads

On Prussian left not much happening early on with just some disorder from artillery

Disaster is befalling Dohnas command as Russian Grenadiers batter them to pulp

A stand off (for whole game) on Prussian right 

Manteuffels Grenadiers have gone forward into trouble (one unit routed and other damaged and disordered)

Kanitz troops deploy in Stein Busch but pinned by Russians

Prussian right wing in dire straits as infantry have melted away and Kanitz now suffering and indeed nearing the end of hostilities.

Hochkirk 1758 - Field of Battle 3 game played

Played the Hochkirk scenario today with Stephen using the ever excellent FOB system.

One additional change I made was to restrict visibility to 16" on first turn to account for early morning historical assault.

Game played out as expected with sheer weight of Austrian numbers a telling factor (34 units vs 20) as they appeared from the wooded ridge lines. 

Prussian lost their Garde Grenadiers very early on after some appalling dice rolls and half of Hochkirk fell soon after.

But the decisive area of battle was on Prussian right were the attacking Austrian columns of McDonnell and Loudon crushed the Prussians in short order.

This was due to an initiative of 8 cards (by far the largest we saw all day as mostly 2-3) with Austrians getting into position on a Move card with multiple moves then getting a run of 3 Melee cards (interspersed with Leadership and re-loads) that saw them munch through the opposing Prussian Infantry before Prussians could react with anything but desultory volleys.

Also on this wing the Austrian artillery was deadly taking out an infantry and a hussar unit.

This collapse used up  over half the Prussian morale of itself and further losses saw them dwindle to zero morale (from starting 30). 

The Austrians did suffer several losses (about 20 in total from 42 at start) but gained several (5) from enemy.

When Army Morale card appeared I conceded as line contracting and defeat inevitable.

One other notable event was my losing Frederick to dreaded 1 on a D12 after he Rallied a Routing unit of Musketeers !

Scenario not very balanced I suspect (not many historical scenarios are) but was still a fun game with FOB3 whose changes we both agreed are simply making a great game just that bit slicker.

The ill-fated Prussian right wing under Anhalt-Dessau

Hochkirk defended by Keiths command

Central cavalry reserve under Zieten which saw no action

Command of Forcade support Hochkirk (the soon to be destroyed Garde Grenadiers just visible over the rooftops

Austrians of McDonnell and Loudon attack Prussian right

As those of Forgach and Sincere approach the center

Command of Weise support across river

Prussian right wing has disintegrated with cavalry under Seydlitz shoring up gap

Austrian commands of Colleredo and Arenberg have appeared on Prussian left

Hochkirk has fallen and Austrians pushing forward in numbers

Prussian perimeter contracting

At the end with Austrians pushing beyond Hochkirk and pressuring Prussian left