Hammfilade 2026 - Saturday. General du Corp. Battle of Siebenkiefern (pt3/final)

 Late in the afternoon the Prussians have finally captured their objective town. The original formations (Prussian and Russian) are very brittle at this point, and players are doing their best to be threatening but not actually get involved in combat much (ever combat you fight drops you by a strength point, win or lose. Most units have 3, sometimes 4, points of strength). 

 

The latest prussian command (top of the photo, angled marching to the right) is marching to intercept the latest Russian arrivals (off picture to the right). My own command (centre right) is uncomfortably positioned between the Russian reserve (now active) & another small Russian arrival force bottom centre, and those off picture Russians marching at my back. 

 

 This second photo shows the latest Russian column and makes it clear this is going to be a large clash. My command is attempting to give ground, falling back towards the objective town, as Seth's command (centre top/top right) marches direct on the Russians. 

 

Overall in the battle every corp (even the late arriving ones) have brittle morale. Losses of whole commands (corp) reduce every other corps on the tables morale. Some bad rolls could have a dramatic effect.  

 

 

 

 

 

 Battle lines forming by the second town. You may notice the black cubes (top is grass covered) on some Prussian infantry. This is the square formation marking (cube = square). Good call as that's a serious amount of Russian cavalry. Unfortunately square makes the cannons much more effective. Choose your poison I suppose. 

 

 

 

 Most of the commands have been whittled down to irrelevancy. Combat is just too risky. Cannons have been depleted. The only action that's really happening is the big clash on the right. Around this time we were discussing rules adjustments and such so I missed taking pictures. This game flies along, turn wise, in the late game. 

 

 

We eventually call it based on turns passing and easily predicted outcome. It looks dubious that the Russians will be able to evict the Prussians from the objective town (in a timely manner, and possibly at all). Victory points are calculated (comparative losses plus bonus points for holding objectives). 

 The Russians managed to squeek out a marginal win, despite the Prussians achieving the objective. Holding the second town (left in the pic below) was just enough of a points swing to be the deciding factor. Interesting what-if to contemplate if my command hadn't zoomed down the road on it's outflank and instead needed to shack up/defend vs the massive Russian column. 

Another exciting and enjoyable General du Corp game at another year of Hammfilade.