The Grand Duchy of Stollen

  Looking past Hasenpfeffer village to the northwestern corner of the eventual battlefield. Y ou have to strike while the iron is hot as the saying goes, so I got busy following the Young Master's bedtime this evening, brought my mug of coffee back down here to Zum Stollenkeller Mk II, and set up for the next battle in my campaign.   This time, it will be Charles Grant's "Holding Action (1)" from Scenarios for Wargames (pp. 14-1 5) , eventually laid out and fought on a 12' x 6' table.  Delusions of grandeur and all that you know.  I'll reduce the suggested forces ever so slightly to fit what I have .  There might even be a couple of units making an appearance that have not appeared on the table in a few years.  I'll also use a slightly m o dified version of D o nald Featherstone's rules as presented in Battles with Model Soldiers .  It should be good fun. Here's the situation.  On the run after his shattering loss at The Battle of D...

De Latte made the tough call to order his remaining infantry to face about and make an orderly withdrawal. B y 3pm that afternoon, and after a long lull in the battle, General de Latte could see how things were headed across the field.  His Ermland Garde had been reduced to only a few men remaining with the colors thanks to Stollenian musketry and numerous prisoners taken during a short, but sharp period of hand to hand combat.  His cavalry had been rendered largely ineffective, and his flank attack on the Stollenian left never quite managed to get off the ground.  That's not even mentioning the heavy casualties sustained by the leading platoons of the Flickenhoffer F usiliers.  It was time to sue for peace. An aide de camp, whose name has been lost to history, was sent toward the Stollenian line with white flag in hand. General von Bacushschmerzen and staff received him in the most gentlemanly of ways and agreed to permit the remaining Zichenauer a...

General de Latte (blue coat), Major di Biscotti (white coat to his left), and their aides consider their options. J ust before 2 pm that afternoon, General de Latte, his second in command Major di Biscotti, and their aides took stock of the situation that had developed.   The former snappe d his spy glass shut, cleared his t hroat, and said to di Biscotti,        " As I see it, we don't have many options at this point.  We may yet win the cavalry engagement and roll up von Bauchschmerzen's cabbage eaters from the far side.  On the other hand, I see little prospect of winning the firefight now!"  Di Biscotti nodded and mumbled a reply through a mouthful of stale pastry,       "Mmmpf!  Ba baba schtopf aaarrruumpf?"  Puzzled by di Biscotti's enigmatic answer . . . and d isplease d by his crass manners , d e Latte snacked his forehead in frustration and turned his gaze skyward. ************ ...

Will they, or won't they?  General de Latte's guns fired yet again. . . B y 1:45pm that afternoon, fighting had broken out all along the line between the Army of Stollen, commanded by the defending General von Bauchschmerzen along the nothern ridge, and the Amy of Zichenau under General de Latte whose task was to secure a pa thway into the resource r ich, and long contested Mark of Schleiz.  It was at this point that events became, shall we say, less than gentlemanly as the fighting intensified . -- Stokes This time, they managed to hit the side of a barn, inflicting two casualties on the 1st Musketeers opposite. General von Bauchschmerzen's own guns fired into the seething mass of enemy infantry before them. . . Three casualties resulted. On General von Bauchschmern's lefft flank at the western end of the battlefield, volleys of musketry were exchanged, resulting in a number of losses for both sides. About half of de L...

  On the far eastern edge of the field, General de Latte's first squadron of Cuirassiers charged to contact with von Bauchschmerzen's Reiters while the second moved up in support.  In the artist's rendering above, we can also see that the remnants of von Bauchschmerzen's first squadron of Reiters has rallied some distance behind the second.  J ust before 1pm that afternoon, The Battle of Doltz entered a critical phase.  While General von Bauchschmerzen kept a cool head in his wicker carriage and awaited the final Zichenauer assault, General de Latte's plans began to come unraveled as he rashly ordered a general advance to contact, where possible, across his front. -- Stokes Meanwhile, de latte ordered his remaining men of the Ermland Garde to  charge the Stollenian guns and Leib Grenadiers atop the norther ridge just before the village of Doltz. While on the western end of the field, two of the remaining three companies of General de Latte's F...