Seven Years War - Die Kriegskunst 28mm

Something different, with Seven Years War today. A Prussian Division attacks an Austrian Division in a game at Chris Packer's new games room. Fabulous 28mm Front Rank and Crusader figures, all owned by Chris.

Here's the Austrians that I commanded for today's battle. Hussars on my right, and next to them a 6 pounder battery.

Two Brigades of Infantry in the centre, and then Dragoons on the left.

The Prussian left wing with Hussars.

 Then Prussian Fusiliers and Musketeers.

Dragoons, Cuirassiers and Grenadiers can be seen in the distance on the Prussian right, together with a 12 pounder battery.

Time for a quick march by the Prussians towards the Austrian line, and this very quick history lesson from the film Barry Lyndon.

A big cavalry clash develops on the Austrian left.

The Prussians advance relentlessly towards the Austrian centre.

Prussian Hussars disperse after some roundshot and then canister from the Austrian artillery

Prussians take several devastating blasts of musketry as they close and fail to inflict many casualties in return.

Prussian right flank Dragoons rout, and then the Prussian Cuirassiers slowly lose the battle of attrition against two Austrian Dragoon regiments, though not before routing one regiment.

The Prussian attack peters out with most of their army broken or falling back in confusion, while there is a relative paucity of Austrian losses.

Some good dice rolling by myself, can recommend this as a tactic! ;)

A few more pics of the lovely figures!

Prussian Grenadiers help Fusiliers face off against Austrian Hussars on the Prussian left at the end of the game.

And also, Chris' excellent games room, with shelves of storage and great lighting.

Fabulous looking game, many thanks to Chris for the day!

Scythed Chariots and Galatians - 1st Corp

Some more ancients - a couple of scythed chariots and yet more Galatian mercenaries (from naked Celt range). These figures are from 1st Corp, a bit smaller than Aventine and Victrix figures, but will look ok with them on the table still I think.

I ended up cutting down some of the blades on the scythed chariots a bit, as it's a gaming piece and long blades are impractical from that perspective and will just end up breaking. This is another reason I chose 1st Corp, the smaller size of the chariot model in general! There's also a mysterious cow "catcher blade" thing that goes under the cab I think, which I left off due to uncertainty and fact that it won't be seen there anyway.

  

Cannon, Cross and Crescent game and houserules

Another Battle of Cannon, Cross and Crescent (available from Wargames Vault), with a few more houserules used.

First off with the activation cards, we used a deck with a card for each squadron (so 3 cards each in this game), and the deck is shuffled and squadrons activate when you draw their card. Also we added two jokers to the deck, one for each side, and when these are drawn you roll to see if your wrecked ships sink (on a 6), and also you move or set fire to any captured ships. Once all cards are drawn we shuffle the deck and start again for the next turn.

Squadrons only arrive on the table on a roll of 3+ when they draw their activation card, rolling to see whether this is left (1-2), centre (3-4), or right (5-6) table third.

We used slightly modified factors for the ships, the main one being gunnery. Heavy guns roll to reload at the start of each squadrons activation provided they are not in contact with enemy. Heavy guns roll to reload on a 6 for Ottomans and 5-6 for Venetians. We also gave Venetians a longer range for their heavy guns - 900 rather than the 600 the Ottomans have.

We didn't include this rule for the game, but in future games we think we will also make light guns only 200p range, and only firing if not in contact (i.e. effect assumed to be subsumed into melee ).

Here's a photo midway through the battle, my Galliots have been sunk or captured by two squadrons of Venetian Galleys on the left, who have only lost one galley in return, and my three Laternas (largest galley class) on my right were damaged early on by Venetian heavy guns. However I've overwhelmed the Venetian squadron on my right with shear number of galleys and boats.

End of game, I've wrecked or captured all of the Venetian Squadron on my right, and captured four more galleys from the Venetian fleet. One of these was lost when it tried to board and capture another captured Venetian ship and ended up being captured itself! This last galley lost in ignoble fashion meant half the Venetian fleet was lost so that was end of game.

Counters we have been using. Grey for heavy guns fired and needing to be reloaded, blue for wrecked (and chance to sink), brown for ship damaged, and black for crew casualties. Two black for captured.  My three Laternas spent most of the game unsuccessfully trying to repair so ended up taking no part in the action!

Houserules seem to work well for us, and reduce the predictability of when you will be able to activate your squadrons and fire heavy guns!