The Seven Years War, Honours of War, 28mm

First of all – sorry. I haven’t posted a game report in months. In fact, since October. Don’t worry – I’m still alive. It was just work – my forthcoming book Lords of the Salt Road took up all of my time. the last thing I needed was to spend another hour at the ‘puter, when I’d been at it all day. Anyway, I was still gaming – albeit more intermittently – and I’ll ‘fill in’ the backlog of games over the next few weeks. this one is my latest – a lively Seven Years War romp. In the Honours of War rulebook there are four scenarios – one of which is this one. The scenario had the ‘Blue Force’ attacking over a river, and a smaller but well-entrenched ‘Red Force’ trying to stop them. We reduced the size of the table from a 6×6 foot to a 6×4 one, and also slightly cut the number of units.  We played it over two wargame club evenings too, as it was just reaching a climax at the end of the first outing!In our game, ‘Blue Force’ were the French, commanded by the Count of Saint-Germain (stylishly played by Nick). The Western Allies were the ‘Red Force’, who were under the command of Prince Karl of Brunswick (a role which suited new boy Chris). I umpired – or rather tried my best to keep the two in check. It was tough at first, as both of the guys needed to find their way with the rules. Fortunately Honours of War is easy to pick up.The French were on the attack, and had seven battalions of infantry and three regiments of cavalry at their disposal, as well as three gun batteries. As I said, this was scaled down slightly from the scenario, to make things more playable for new players. As fir the allies, they only had for battalions of infantry, plus three more of light troops. This was backed up by two regiments of cavalry and two gun batteries.In their favour though, the allies had a line of entrenchments to hide behind, on the big hill -the Spittelberg, on the smaller hill to the west, and on their bank of the river, the Triebisch. This all meant that the French had a real challenge. Although they had the numbers, the enemy were well dug in, and had two lines of defence. Fortunately they had a trick up their sleeve.On the east side of the Allied line was an unguarded ford over the river. the French knew about this, and so they had a ‘flying column’  – an infantry and a cavalry regiment – which appeared at the ford, and crossed it to the western bank. Chris reacted by sending his cavalry to deal with them, but they then stalled – refusing to move for the next five turns. His cavalry commander was rated ‘dithering’, and he really lived up to it!Meanwhile this new cavalry regiment – Talleyrand’s – swept up the river valley towards Spittelwitz village, and hit the British 21st regiment of foot in the rear. The British fled – albeit in decent order, and the french cavalry turned and hit the Hessian Liebregiment, guarding on the eastern end of the Spittelberg. This time the honours were even, and the cavalry retired to lick their wounds. this though, meant that Spittelwitz was now in French hands.Meanwhile, Nick’s assault over the River Triebisch wasn’t going well. He threw two battalions across a bridge and a ford, to clear the Allied light infantry from their entrenchments. Instead they were met by heavy fire from the lights, and from the guns on the two hills behind them. the result was that one battalion from the Tourraine regiment was routed, while one from La Couronne regiment was forced to retreat. Kudos to Chris for his stout defence.By now it was time to pack up, so we took pictures, and restarted the game the following week. As Nick couldn’t make it I took his place, facing Chris across the table. Both sides were reinforced – Chris getting a Hanovarian foot regiment, while I got a French one, supported by a light unit – the Chasseurs de Fisher. Amazingly these didn’t achieve much, apart from guard the ford, where I was waiting for the Talleyrand cavalry regiment to regain its mojo.The French guns pounded the entrenchments across the river, and gradually broke the resolve of the Allied light brigade, which was forced to retire behind the main Allied line of defence. They also took out the British 21st Regt., which was pounded by artillery as it tried to reach safety. It routed instead. In theory the way was clear to cross the river, but I’d forgotten about the Allied guns. They proved deadly, as they covered the two crossing points.On the French right the assault started well, but the spearhead was met by the Hanovarian von Wangelhein regt.. Having been weakened by the Hessian artillery, with the aid of Hessian jagers the Hanovarian foot broke the leading French unit, a battalion of the Swiss La Planta regiment. The same happened further upstream, where the Hanovarian guns stalled the advance of the Grenadiers de France, who were now bottled up in Spittelwitz.Everywhere I looked, the French drive had stalled. My three French batteries north of the river couldn’t silence the two Allied batteries in their entrenchments, and so any further move across the river was stymied. South of SpittelwitzI lost a cavalry unit which was trying to relieve the stalled force at the ford. Instead it was routed by Hessian fire. So, I ceded the day to Chris and his steadfast Allies, and hoped for better luck another day!