Prussic acid dissolves l'attaque

An evening of Franco-Prussian battling on 6th November at the South East Scotland Wargames Club (http://seswc.co.uk/) which meets in the rather excellent and appropriate facilities provided by the Royal Navy and Royal Marine Association - a great environment, good beer and some quaint Naval rules - like the wearing of hats/caps indoors is forbidden.

I ran a Piquet Field of Battle 2 game, the scenario based on http://lasthussar.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/fpeveninggame3.pdf

with the objective being to control points A, B and C.


Prior to the game, I rolled for ratings and provided my usual labels for leaders and units.

Paul O'Sullivan took the part of the "superior" Prussian commander (D12) with an Exceptional" deck

while I had the dubious privilege of being the "abysmal" French commander (D8) with a "Poor" Sequence deck. 

FoB2 sidenote: For the phase CiC v CiC dice roll only, I use 2 D10s, one in French and one in German (so the game is even more educational), with, in this case, the Prussians adding 2 to their roll (to make the probability distributions closer to D12 v D8). For definiteness, turns ended when the unmodified dice rolls were equal.

 

The Prussian Advance Guard started on the road - 2 regulars, 1 Jaegar and 1 artillery unit. The French were just on the table in centre (2 regulars, 2 Zouaves) and on the right (3 regulars and a Chasseur unit) .. with many of the regulars being "raw".

The French advanced through the muddy fields to suddenly find the Prussians appear on their exposed left flank (courtesy of a triple-move-with-fancy-stuff [ie 3 move segments, with the option to replace any Move segment with a Maneuver (==change facing/deploy)]). Severe damage was done to the most exposed French unit.

However, the French in the centre see the opportunity to attack the flank of the Prussian command .. 

while those on the French right take control of an objective. 

Prussian reinforcements enter the fray - infantry in the centre seeing off the French threat with some panache, (multiple Move cards and Infantry Reload cards just when needed) ...  

Now it's the turn of the French to arrive in force - on their left ... with the possibility of doing some similar damage to the advancing Prussians .. but will they get the cards? 

er .. no .. The French need something to happen as their Army Unit Integrity count is getting very low .. their right flank charges through the woods to hit the flank of the new command.

but the lone supporting Prussian unit fires .. and routs the one attacking French unit that is moving to melee! 

.. then comes the inevitable Major Morale check for the French, whose abysmal leader die left little hope for anything other than an inglorious retreat .. 
The game finished in under 2 hours .. it was over before the arrival of either the Prussian reserve or the dithering French cavalry (perhaps led by Gen. Zeb Stuarte?)