Battle of Mollwitz

I have had a couple of requests to show one of our games - so here goes - we played this yesterday..............

The game was fought using the Maurice rules; I took the Austrians and one of my regular opponents, Quinton Dalton, the Prussians.

The Map

I chose Mollwitz as it is a very simple battle, so I could set it up with minimal effort.



This is an extract from 'The Army of Frederick The Great' by Christopher Duffy.
(It is upside down to tie in with the photos below - honest!)

I decided that we should start with the two armies in their historical layouts.

The Forces

I organised this game in a rush, so just did a very quick conversion of the figures in Duffy's books, and scaled it to give an infantry line  which covered the right amount of the map/table. This ended up with  simple one unit for each 1000 men.

Prussians

16,800 infantry - 16 units (I was generous with the hussars), two being elite grenadiers
4,000 cavalry - 4 units
500 hussars - 1 unit
50 guns - 5 unit

Austrians

10,000 infantry - 10 units, one of grenadiers
8,000 cavalry - 8 units
1,000 hussars - 1 unit
10 guns - 1 unit

Troop types

I classed almost everything as 'trained' (I was in a rush), with just two exceptions:

• The grenadiers were made 'elite'
• The hussars were classed as 'conscript' fighting in the battle line.

The next time I play this I will put a bit more thought into it.

I did make an effort to reflect the characteristics of the two forces using the following 'National Advantages':

• To reflect their better cavalry, the  Austrians were given the 'Cavaliers' card, which allows them to re-roll poor combat dice when they are charging
• The Prussian infantry had much better fire discipline, so were given the 'Lethal Volleys' card which allows re rolls of missed shooting dice.

The armies were set up in near historical positions, with a unit of grenadiers interleaved with the right wing cavalry, which historically caused problems. 

The Figures

The Prussian infantry were mostly Prussian figures, with six units from the new range and the rest Karoliners. There are also six new units of Austrians, with the rest Karoliner French.

All of the cavalry are old HE, Karoliner or Rossbach figures, many of them French.

The Cavalry Battle

The battle started with Austrian cavalry making an attack down their left flank. I loaded the game in this area by giving the force a couple of notables to allow them to move and charge easier.

The Austrian cavalry charged into the fray, and with with a a useful hand of cards (two 'stirrups in' cards, which give advantage to charging cavalry), and the 'Cavaliers' advantage (plus some luck dice) soon add the upper hand.

The Prussian cavalry were totally destroyed, however the Austrian cavalry were shot. The dice behind the units are casualties, five hits kills the unit, so you can see they are in no position to exploit their success. 

The Prussian right wing cavalry had gained time for their right wing infantry to redeploy and link up with the isolated grenadier unit. In Maurice cavalry is only effective against infantry when the cavalry is fresh, and the infantry carrying some hits - so time to beat a hasty retreat.

Unfortunately they then became victim of the table edge syndrome, the Prussian infantry could pin them against the edge, so only option was to head back to their own lines. Rather than move away from the infantry - or better still go around the back!

The Infantry Battle

Prussian infantry then filled the full width of the table and attacked the Austrian centre. The attack came on in two divisions, this made it far less effective. The split was due to two reasons, the cavalry attack had made the infantry drift to the right, and to avoid masking the artillery battery in the centre. 

Eventually the Austrian infantry were able to hold off the Prussians, and caused enough casualties on the attacking Prussians to win the battle.

Afterthoughts

A thoroughly enjoyable game.

The Maurice card system was very effective at breaking the battle down into a series of actions, first the Austrian cavalry attack on the flank, and then the advance of the Prussian infantry once the cavalry had been neutralised. This is a far more realistic sequence than the usual everyone attack at once - or having to write special rules to prevent everyone jumping off at the same time.

We intend to play this again, and I will put a bit more thought into the armies to better differentiate the troop types - perhaps make the cuirassiers elite?

Also, I think I will refight it with less units, and leave the Prussian right a little more open.

As always, comments welcome.

And everyone have a good Christmas.