Dougfest 2022 - Zeitlessheim (pt1)

The main event for Dougfest was a 5 player game. Usually Doug makes us try and puzzle out the battle later but he gave us enough hints to guess on the Friday night: Blenheim. 

Historically the British under the future) Duke of Marlborough  did a fantastically long march across Europe to aid his allies vs the French and Bavarians. Logistics being what they were (weren't really) it was an amazing accomplishment and achieved with no small amount of tactical surprise. 

The Frenco-Bavarians were in camp and caught a bit flat footed by the suddenly reinforced Austro-Prussians who immediately went on the attack inspired by the British under Marlborough.. Picture above we see the Anglo-Austro-Prussians to the 'North' of the picture and the Frenco-Bavarians to the 'South'.

The Bavarians/me will be played by Italians and green clad cavalry (lower left). Seth/French are lower right. Prussians/James (upper left) . Upper Centre are the British/Doug. Upper Right Saxons/Peter. Linear stands of trees help give a clear delineation between commands.

 

Friday night we did the setup blind. I was the Italians on the left flank (because I liked the snazzy green uniforms on one of the units), and Seth was the French to the right. 

Our whispered conversation we decided to counterattack hard, leading with our cavalry. We were hoping for a turn one surprise to the enemies infantry having just crossed a fordable river. Hopeful we would paralyzing and/or murder the lot being split across a river.

It was a bit of a bold plan as we were on defense and could easily play conservatively far back with a large reserve

Our victory conditions were primarily contingent upon holding the towns. Unbeknownst to us, the enemy would only score VP for killing us (at a higher rate than we get for kills).

I anchored my infantry all around the towns and pulled off as much artillery and cavalry as I could to join up with Seth's forces, split around a small forest in the middle. We both felt that playing defensively against the flanking players and focusing on the central command (the British/Doug) would give us a fair chance to break his command and gain some bonus VPs while then letting us defeat the remainders in detail.

The table reveal left us a touch dismayed (1st pic shows the whole table on reveal). The enemy was much further back than anticipated (we later learned this was part of their setup conditions). 

Our troops were far enough forward to immediately come under cannon fire. This typically means you want to hurry up and fight, or flight and avoid just standing around......particularly with cavalry as they are a bit more fragile than infantry (they usually have less hits/hitpoints/pips than infantry). 

 

 On my flank the cavalry did manage to stall out the Prussian cavalry advance, though an unholy amount of mounted huns were moving down the far flank.

The single town held by Seth/French was (very) strongly held, so the Saxon/Pete chose to screen them and steadily move his troops to counter any sort of breakthrough/push back of the British by the French. Strategically this did end up isolating the Saxons for a lot of turns, but also isolated the french defenders. It was almost certainly the right decision as towns can be a tough and bloody nut to crack.

My flank was fairly static as I tweaked my troops slightly, set my infantry into square where necessary, and plinked away with a 1/3 of my artillery. 

The cavalry on the river side of the Town (centre) was sufficient to dissuade the cavalry from forcing the river. The penalties to being disordered from fording and being infantry not in square against cavalry was very punitive (and rightly so).

 In the centre the lions share of the Franco-Italian cavalry raced forward, well supported by cannons. The hope was to kill off the enemy cavalry, force the infantry into square (shown by larger cubes on some of the bases), and murder them with cannon fire. 

It was actually quite fascinating in this battle how well combined arms worked. Usually we have far less cavalry when playing traditional Napoleonic battles.

 

 There was a few turns that were mostly closing and artillery fire to soften up the enemy. The Franco-Bavarians had a small advantage in Cannons, and the Prussians had some poor luck and lost numerous cannon to supply challenges and overheating (we have a rule that guns that successfully kill the enemy have a chance of attritioning) opening up the artillery inequality.

 

 

 

 As the central cavalry fight was up in the air the Prussians made a bold charge across the river to put pressure on my horse holding them back. Between the hun heavy cav in front and the infantry to the side and artillery shots dropping on them they were clearly not going to last long. They did the only thing cavalry should do in this position......CHARGE!

It didn't go well (as expected), but did grind the enemy down a bit. 

 Meanwhile Seth/French had locked the enemy into square formation, but was still slowly dealing with the oppositions cavalry. Once that was cleared the infantry could march up to punish the squares. 

Unfortunately I was felling a lot of pressure on my wing with the Prussian cavalry stack of doom making steady progress. It become clear that their light cavalry intended to hook around the towns towards my Line of Communication (LOC). This seemed suspiciously like a legitimate victory condition so I now had to start shuffle infantry around to try and extend my line (and as a result thin it out).

It was going to be a race between routing the British and routing the Bavarians/me.