Huzza another game first of the New Year !
Set up a 10mm Malburian bash using one of my favourite sets Piquet Field Of Battle 2.
I had Stephen B, Stephen P, Darrren (The Duc), Richard M and John B in attendance so used a fairly large set of forces for a fictional battle set in 1704AD.
Premise was that Prince Eugene of Savoy was marching north to Flanders to join Duke of Marlborough (not withstanding that the Prince's Allied force included some Dutch !) and were intercepted near the (fictional) towns of Blenoir and Artan.
French had 10 Brigades (3 Horse 7 Foot) totaling some 6500 mounted, almost 17000 foot and 23 Gun Batteries (half size in this period) facing and Allied (Austrian, Prussian and Dutch) force of 9 Brigades (3 Horse and 6 Foot) totaling 600 mounted almost 15000 foot and 21 Gun Batteries.
So two sizeable armies due to clash.
I had rolled up the stats and suchlike for the two sides beforehand (ie yesterday evening) with French having a Poor deck and Leader pool and Allies a Superior version.
French however besides having more units also had more Crack and Elite units (the Maison Du Roi, Grade Francais and Irish Foot in the main).
Allied Dutch Cavalry were only Shock troops in game.
Pre-battle rolls saw one French Foot Brigade delayed (4 Move cards) arriving to battlefield.
I also had several objective chits on table on terrain pieces valued 1 - 4 which if captured yielded that number of D4 dice rolls to generate extra Moral chits (stolen from Die Fighting)
As added quirk I added a Special Event card to each deck which would yield a random event from Beneath The Lilly Banners rules for wee bit of period flavour,
Sides were allocated randomly and ended up with Stephen B as Marsin with Stephen P and The Duc against Richard as Eugene with John.
After set up the game got of to good start with Random Event card for French which saw one of their Foot unit gain a +1 to their Defence Dice Rating.
The French suffered initially by the turning of several Lull cards which the Allies managed to steal a Card play with and this saw them advance steadily (gaining several Moral Chits for taking Neutral Objectives).
However the next couple of deck shuffles and plays were quite favourable to the French (even managed to steal a Lull action from Allies) and they too advanced steadily.
A massive clash soon developed in the no mans land area between the armies.
The drama and narrative style play with FOB then swiftly came to the fore with no less than 3 Brigadiers on each side falling in a single Initiative phase !! amazibg since they only die on a 1 on a D12 !!!!
This saw a period wherein both sides had 3 Brigades dawdling Out Of Command and therefore unable to take advantage of either sides misfortune.
However on French left the two C in Cs faced off and Stephen B had his usual Demon Dice Rolling session with seemingly every roll being a 10+ for him whilst Richard threw a 1 !!
This saw several Allied units Routed or Wiped Out.
With mounting casualties the Allied Morale pool began to dwindle rapidly and the Allies called the game when their supply ran out.
Great game and hopefully the chaps had good time.
French advancing
Allies counter
Forces clash
The French (L-R The Duc, Stephen P and Stephen B)
The Allies (Left Richard M with John B on right)
A hard pounding......................
For more pics check out The Ducs blog:
http://warfareintheageofcynicsandamateurs.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/sgt-steiners-post-new-year-miniature.html
