Lauffeld
Page 2: Game Turns 1 to 4
The starting guns sound- and we're off!
Game Turn 1 (GT1) starts with some of my troops moving to improve their positions, and the start of Bill’s advance to contact. On Bill's right two regiments of poncey French horse-botherers swing out to the east and north, to close on my open left flank and, it is rumoured, to look off the edge of their known world. They are followed by a rather bemused regiment of Russian horse grenadiers (Regiment Rhizskiy), whose CO firmly believed he should have turned left at Smolensk instead of following the West Road. The cavalry are accompanied by half a battalion of Fischer’s green-clad mercenaries and are followed by a battalion of Württemberg infantry, who are grumbling about no beer and too much “avec fromage” in the kitchens.
In the centre and on my right the French infantry advances towards the enemy, watched by some Prussian cavalry who don’t understand how they ended up being in this fight- and on the same side as the French! The infantry carefully keep the fire lanes open, to allow the French artillerymen to do their murder.
The French gunners have been ordered to silence my guns, and follow their orders gleefully. Opposite Bill’s right hand gun section and centre battery are two sections of the Royal Artillery (RA). These two sections are obviously “battlefield virgins”, as their clean uniforms and lack of chipped paint show, and the French set to with a will. The RA guns suffer some significant damage, but the casualties that quickly mount up in the gun detachments see both sections broken and running by GT4. One gun (the RA section on my left centre) is abandoned when a limber horse is killed, and the fleet-footed gunners manage to rout off the table before I could rally them. The Austrian gunners hold their platforms and concentrate their fire on the approaching battalions. Sometimes they even hit one! Just ask the (late) CO of Regiment Eptingen (a Swiss regiment in French service).
The Austrian Los Rios regiment (a regiment raised by a Spaniard and manned by Walloons- Dutch-speaking Belgians- in what is now southern Belgium) and the French Aquitaine exchange fire on my far right. Los Rios got caught changing into line, and took Aquitaine's first volley without being able to reply. Both regiments have done well in previous games and the Austrians shrugged off their losses, and hooked in.
A Zepplin's eye view of the situation at the start of GT3.
Dame Fortune Strikes!
In GT3 my right hand gun section fired cannister at Bill's Prince Louis of Nassau regiment . The range was long, but there were 13 potential casualties, each needing a six to be hit. Bill was reciprocating, firing long range canister at Los Rios, with 15 potential victims......
Then we each rolled our dice. 28 attempts to roll a '6' on a standard six-sided die. And we didn't get one '6' between us.
Dame Fortune must have laughed hard enough to pee in her bloomers.....