Our Christmas Game in Progress. . .

 

By the start of Turn Six, The Young Master, aka General Phillipe de Latte, is moving his squadron of dragoons toward his left flank, presumably to engage General von Drosselmeyer's Bosniaken in the distance.

 

We began our Boxing Day +1 game just before half past one this afternoon.  This time, Young Master Paul wanted the to play the role of the invading Zichenauers, commanded by that most notorious cad and bounder, General Phillipe de Latte.  His small army (mostly A and B class units) has entered the unwitting Grand Duchy of Stollen and is moving swiftly northward to engage a larger, but generally poor quality enemy army (mostly C and D class units) commanded by the timid General von Drosselmeyer.  

The Young Master asked for a break after five turns and a bit of six, so we'll return tomorrow afternoon to see how things shape up.  He suggested we play through ten turns altogether, assuming one side or the other does not dissolve in the mean time due to poor morale rolls, and then we'll see how things stand.  A sound idea if you ask me.

I won't go into a blow by blow description of everything so far, but the game became interesting during turns four and five when we started to inflict casualties on each other via skirmish, artillery, and volley fire.  Nothing heavy enough to trigger morale tests yet with possible related compulsive movement in the form of units halting their activities for a turn, retiring, retreating in less than good order, or a full on rout.  I suspect that will come pretty quickly once we resume the game tomorrow.

Paul and I talked during our game this afternoon about the importance of numerous playtests before we attempt larger games or substantial rule changes.  One change I plan to write in already is for the possibility of higher casualties for short range artillery and musket volley fire.  Thus far, it doesn't really seem like we are knocking the stuffing out of each other despite that fact that our front lines of infantry are very close to each other by Turn Five.  From my reading, it seems like the types of fire I describe could mow down rows of men at very close range.

Another thing we keep forgetting in our games is to give dice +1 for initial volleys, so I've got to do something about that.  Still really good fun though, and the table has never looked so good.  Light woods and rolling terrain plus the requisite North German town buildings.  

At the moment, Young Paul is upstairs perusing a book I gave him for Christmas on Austrian and Prussian military uniforms of the 1740s-1780s.  I can't fault him too much for requesting a break in play to go and do that now, can I?

An extremely pleasant Christmas Sunday all the way around.

-- Stokes

 

Another shot of the front lines at the start of Turn Six.

Here's one of The Young Master in action, moving his troops along early during Turn Four. 

 

 

Here's an aerial view of the 6'x10' table just before we began the game in earnest.  Based on Guilford Courthouse in 1781, Paul suggested we call our game The Battle of Hasenpfeffer Courthouse.  Sounds good to me although our 'courthouse' resembles a tavern with Prinz Heinrich's likeness hanging on a sign over the door.  As usual, the buildings are all scratch-built by yours truly, the trees are cake decoration birch trees fixed to Litko terrain bases, the mats, fields, and road sections are all from Hotz Artworks.  If you look closely, you'll notice various two layer hill shapes beneath the mats, which provide some very nice, gradual, rolling hills that are fairly easy for figures to stand on.

 

 

 

 

A view of Young Paul's. . .  um, General de Latte's starting positions on the southern end of the battlefield.  He is responsible for laying out most of the scenery yesterday based on the Wikipedia map of Guilford Courthouse.  I'd say getting 'em involved plays a major role in enlisting new (younger) blood into the hobby.  He sure seems to be enjoying himself so far.