Sunday 4 September 2016

Maurice - Kolin 1757


This week at the Uni we played Gary's scenario of the Battle of Kolin 1757, using the excellent Maurice rules by Sam Mustafa.


The Prussians were composed of 10/12mm Pendraken miniatures from Gary's impressive collection, bolstered by my single battalion...


The Austrian's were from Peter's equally impressive collection, which he came in specially to drop off, since he had (a more) social engagement to attend...


Kolin is billed as Frederick's first defeat, and indeed, developed from the eponymous scenario in Maurice, our battle started with the Austrians being well aware of Frederick's rather obvious attempt at a flank march along the Kaiser Strasse from their vantage point up on the Krzeczor hill...



That left us the Prussians with no choice but to rely upon our 'deadly volleys' attribute to fight out way through superior numbers to the objective.


Daniel here in the light blue shirt had the centre sector, and together with Caesar in the grey shirt as Frederick, they would unsubtly take the direct route to the objective.


I was out on our left flank, and my orders were to bombard the town of Krzeczor and then back up the main advance, feeding in from the left.



The Austrians had obviously thought up a far more cunning plan - knowing Alan we knew it would involve cavalry flanking moves, but as events showed the entire Austrian team became cavaliers for the evening! Anyhow, we concluded that the KISS principle applied so rather unsubtly deployed everything in the centre opposite the objective...


The key aspect of Maurice is that, volleying aside, as a commander you can rarely activate more than one command per turn. So you really have to keep focussed on the objective.


The other necessary skill is knowing when to deploy from march column into line - something that Daniel, in his first game, got bang on!


I, on the other hand, completely ballsed it up! However, as Alan, my opposite number, was preoccupied with his cavalry, I got away with it - and pending action higher up on the plateau, there wasn't a great deal for the infantry to do until the Grim Reaper thinned out the throng a little...


My artillery, on the other hand, had had a busy time of it, and with 2 successive 'Well laid guns' cards my bombardment of Krzeczor had gone rather well.


Which allowed my infantry to pretty much stroll in and take possession....


By now Alan was getting tremendously excited about his flanking cavalry move, and, blessed with a timely 'Coordinated' event card, I felt it would be too rude to continue ignoring him, so I moved my cavalry up greet his horse. After all, the artillery had done its job and my infantry really weren't going anywhere soon...



Meanwhile, back in the centre the Austrians were clearly plotting some cheez - all that time fighting against the Ottomans had made them devious...



And sure enough, just as Daniel's manly Prussian infantry was going to overwhelm the Austrian massed batteries in a bluff, no nonsense fashion you'd expect from God fearing Lutherans...


Those sneaky Austrians played the 'That's not on the map' card to introduce a swamp right in our brave boy's path...




Followed up with another cavalry charge from John in the centre and Bryan on the left, this time wholly unexpected, and accompanied by much sucking of teeth - cavalry charging infantry in the Seven Years War - shurely not!


But they were, and they did, and whilst the lead regiments didn't survive, they did do a lot of damage to the boys in Prussian blue - in fact our Army Morale was beginning to look precarious! And to be fair to Alan, his cavalry adventure wasn't a complete sideshow...


Since his 4 Cavalry Regiments bested my 3, and cut down some gunners to boot, all adding to the toll! However, for once Alan didn't have a monopoly of 'Stirrups In' cards, so I still had some horse left at the end of the clash. Not that it was much use up where the action was - I could barely find space to unleash my infantry's 'deadly volleys'!


There followed several more moves characterised by the Prussian Infantry on the plateau attempting to make good use of their firepower against the superior numbers of Austrians, but with a much smaller army morale rating than the Kaiserliks, it would be a race to see if we could inch our way to the objective before our morale broke...

Photo courtesy of Kaptain Kobold's Maria Theresa press agency
Which it eventually did...Congratulations to the Austrian team for a very active defence using unconventional tactics at exactly the right time and place to keep plugging the gaps between us and the objective. The very fine run nature of the ending shows what a well balanced scenario it was - thanks Gary!


Alan, aka Kaptain Kobold, has posted a teaser to his forthcoming Kolin production here:
The Stronghold Rebuilt - Kolin-preview - I've already pinched the main photo, above, but I recommend investigating the eventual full length feature.



Talking about blogs, if you want to know more about the real Kolin, then do check out this awesome site:Obscure battles - Kolin-1757

18 comments:

  1. Great pics. Love maurice such a fun game.

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  2. Wow! Great looking game and your Pendraken 10s are splendid.

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    1. Thanks Johnathan. But unfortunately only a tiny fraction of those lovely troops were mine!

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  3. My dearest Sparkles

    The Seven Years War is a great period IMHO.

    Those 10mm Figures are very interesting. 6mm figures are just too small for my visual requirements and 10mm could make that critical difference. We tried to start a 10mm Napoleonic project a few decades ago but we were sadly ahead of our time.

    Thanks for the pictures and report ... and those Prussian commanders should immediately present themselves to Frederick for a 'debriefing'. 8O)

    Salutre
    von Peter himself

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    1. Well thank you kindly your Vonship! Yes 10mm in the hands of skille painters like Gary, Caesar and Peter do very well for this period. But when I'm at the painting table I still think 28mils are too small however!

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  4. A nice write up. I'm looking at delving into either 7YW or WSS as my 2017 project but I'm finding it hard to choose which. But the scales are slowly tipping toward 7YW at this stage.

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    1. Thanks Ian! Yes the SYW is interesting, and accurately described as the first World War...

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  5. 10mm is a wonderful scale for this period. It really captures the epic nature of the battles, especially when the figures are painted so well too!

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    1. Thanks Michael - yes they do look good and give a sense of the scale of these battles - Kolin was as big a field as Austerlitz!

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  6. Lovely looking refight. Kolin is a tough battle for the Prussians, thankfully.

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  7. Well, thank you so much for both the unexpected and generous link to my blog,Obscure Battles, and this truly mouth-watering post of your latest wargame. Yours and Gary's figures look exquisite. And you all look like you're having way too much fun. I've alerted the authorities.

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    1. Thanks so much Jeff, its a pleasure to return a small measure of the entertainment and learning your blog has given me and my mates at the club!

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  8. Wow this game looks awesome. I must be at the next one.

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    1. Well you troops were Pete! Too many of the damn Kaiserliks!

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  9. Great report and well fought on your flank. It was a very satisfying scenario to play, even if we didn't quite make the objective. Next time maybe you should play Frederick!

    Cheers,
    Caesar

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    1. Thanks Caesar, too kind. Yes a great scenario. No I think you did a great job - we knew you just wanted to follow the historical outcome! :-)

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