Breakout!

That was the name of the game this Saturday, as a Northern Alliance force returning from a raid found itself entirely surrounded by units of the Pragmatic Coalition. Would the commanders of North Polenburg and Stansbach-Anwatsch realize their plight and withdraw in time, or would they be completely cut off by the disparate Coalition forces converging on them from every direction?

The answer, it turns out, was no--though North Polenburg's Queen Jennifer Regiment managed to retreat in good order as did a good part of the heavy cavalry, the Hawks Regiment was badly damaged and the Stansbach-Anwatsch 2nd Regiment was sacrificed wiped out in a gallant rearguard action against Pragmatic troops pouring across the river.

The Northern command, not apprised of the approach of other Coalition detachments, had originally planned to make a stand against the main pursuing body at a point where the river was only guarded by a single, easily defensible bridge. Imagine their surprise, then, when the first enemy soldiers to appear were the Wachovian Hussars, on what had been their left flank, where the light cavalry immediately rode down a gun that had been left out beyond its infantry support.

Initial dispositions of the Northern Alliance

Wachovian hussars capture a gun

The offending hussars were quickly engaged and destroyed by the Stansbach-Anwatsch dragoons, as the Northern left flank redeployed to face a possible new threat from this direction. But the next Pragmatic force to arrive was the main body on the other side of the river--led by mixed heavy cavalry and with two regiments of infantry following behind.

The main Coalition force enters

Cavalry melee on the Northern left

Meanwhile, on the right flank, the Northern commander began to extend his lines to fire at the Pragmatic troops across the river only to find that more Coalition forces were approaching from that direction as well--more Wachovians, this time infantry, who fixed bayonets and charged into the unsuspecting North Polenburgers. Two squadrons of heavy cavalry rode to the rescue, but met fierce resistance and were ultimately driven back by the thin orange line. In attempting to retreat, the North Polenburg cavalry was scythed down by Pragmatic guns across the river.

North Polenburg's 33rd Dragoons charge the Wachovian line

A mixed force of light cavalry was sent to block the Wachovian's advance, but before they could get there they were surprised by a Coalition attack from the rear--a force of cavalry coming up the road directly behind the Northern Alliance's main position. In several turns of fierce fighting, the Onkel-Heinrich Lancers and the newly formed 25th "Tannenbaum" Hussars were nearly destroyed, and only saved by the return of the Stansbach-Anwatsch dragoons, who fell upon the victorious Pragmatics as the latter were rallying.

Hussars vs. hussars, and dragoons vs. lancers

Action continues on the right

At this point, the Northern Alliance had realized their predicament, and began to pull back rather than be flanked on both sides--a new force of Schoeffen-Buschhagen infantry had appeared to their left. This sight encouraged the main Pragmatic army, which up to this point had been bottled up by the bridge. The Coalition pressed forward, first with cavalry and then with infantry, besting the retreating Stansbach-Anwatsch 2nd Infantry in a series of melees. As the remnants of the North Polenburg regiments retreated, the Stansbach-Anwatschers were caught and destroyed, leading the battle to be declared a victory for the Pragmatic Coalition.

First push across the river

"The enemy is behind us!" "No, the enemy is behind us!"

Pragmatic forces continue to cross the river

More Pragmatic troops can be seen in the distance.

Remnants of the Northern Alliance army

All in all, it was an interesting scenario. As one of the Pragmatic players, I think the Alliance had it tougher, not knowing the situation or the troops strengths. On the other hand, most of our detachments were fairly small, and the staggered manner in which they arrived meant that it was definitely possible to defeat them in detail--and indeed, the two cavalry forces, though they did a good deal of damage, were destroyed in the process. Then again, we had no issue with taking whatever losses were necessary, whereas the Alliance was told that they had to salvage at least 60% of their troops in order to win. Unfortunately, given the importance of the surprise factor, it would be difficult to run it again... at least with the same players.

The December dispatch

December has been a pretty busy month, what with one thing and another--bad for blogging, but not for painting. Last night, I put the finishing touches on the last of my squadron of Wachovian cuirassiers, which I have been working on diligently all month. Heavy cavalry has been a long-standing weakness of Wachovia, so hopefully these guys will help to close that gap.

The whole squadron

From the other side

A couple of views of the officer

I did manage to find time for one other little NQSYW project: updating the regimental flag for the 1st infantry regiment. Having recently settled on a Wachovian national flag, I decided that the regimental flags should share a unified motif, and besides which, the old one was not quite up to my current standards. (No pun intended there.) I stopped short of repainting the figure himself, though he's seen better days as well.

The new flag is stage one (or perhaps two or three, depending on how one is counting them) of my rather grandiose plans for Wachovian military expansion, the extent of which is hinted at by this sketch from a couple of weeks back:

As of now, only three of those seven units have any basis in reality, and the Cuirassier Guards are still too few in number to warrant a flag. However, this does provide a potential roadmap for a couple of years' worth of work, should I choose to follow through on it. The addition of at least a second infantry regiment has been part of my ambition for a while now, and having done one squadron of cuirassiers, I intend to expand them to a full regiment. Beyond that, we shall see. If I were to maintain my current painting speed of about one figure every two days, then this would keep me going until mid-2014...

(My other big project this December has been Christmas cookie-baking, which has also proceeded apace:

The color similarity between the Empire Biscuits and the cuirassiers' uniforms is totally a coincidence, I swear!)

Sneak preview

First of the Wachovian cuirassier regiment!

Now, to paint eight more of them...

(Well, seven plus an officer.)

A Black Friday for Wachovia

This year it so happened that one of the HAWKs' biweekly meetings fell on the day after Thanksgiving, and since I was home for the Holiday, Dad and William and I decided to take the NQSYW troops up to the club for a game. As it was, we had plenty of players, so I ended up helping Dad run the game. This left my poor Wachovians at the mercies of other commanders, in whose hands they proceeded to do what they do best: get killed in great numbers.

The scenario was "A Threat to the Flank," from one of Dad's scenario books, apparently loosely based on the Battle of the Boyne. The attacking force, in this case the Schoeffen-Buschhagen/Wachovian/Wiegenburg alliance, is attempting to push across a shallow river, and has sent a small force downstream to outflank the enemy. The Western League, this time consisting of Schluesselbrett, Hesse-Hattemstadt, and Stanzbach-Anwatsch, is on the defense, holding a couple of hamlets in a hilly area on the other side of the river.

As it happened, the allied general decided not to commit much to the flanking force--just the Wachovian hussars, who put up a decent showing in what is probably the worst-case scenario for light cavalry in Charge!--fighting heavy cavalry in a confined space. Meanwhile, the main force attacked on a wide frontage across the river, trusting in their numerical advantage. Though losses were heavy, particularly among the Wachovians, they broke first one Hesse-Hattemstadt regiment and then the other. This left only the red-coated Schluesselbrett infantry holding the hill, until some well-timed artillery fire forced the Western League to retreat. 

Dad goes over the rules.

Western League commanders write orders.

Wachovian hussars cross the bridge, new flag in tow.

The attackers approach the river.

A few turns later. Note the fellows in blue coats and yellow facings up on the center hill: a new contingent painted up by Tank Nickle.

Much emptier! The von Nordhafen regiment clears the hill.

Last stand of the Schluesselbrett regiment in the face of the oncoming Wiegenburgers.

All in all, it ended up being a pretty fast-paced game, but it's always good to get the troops on the table. Hopefully my hussars will have a chance to demonstrate their mettle under more favorable circumstances next time, and in the meantime maybe I'll see what I can do about getting some heavy cavalry for Wachovia...

The Siege of Zerfberg

I believe I mentioned in a recent post that Dad and I had been thinking about hauling out the fortress (last seen at Historicon 2011) and running a NQSYW siege game, and this afternoon we got our chance to do so. My brother William also came up for the game, as did Marc, one of my college cronies with some Charge! experience. As Marc had played on the attacking side in one of the Historicon games, he elected to defend the fortress this time, which was promptly dubbed 'Zerfberg' after its commander. And so, William and I set to digging our trenches...

(As far as troops go, Wachovia and Schoeffen-Buschhagen supplied the attackers, while the fortress defenders consisted of the Hesse-Hattemstadt and Schlusselbrett regiments, dubbed the "Western League." This may puzzle anyone who has looked at the NQSYW map, as neither of the latter two countries lie in a particularly westerly direction from Schoeffen-Buschhagen--the answer is that the third member of the League is the enigmatic land of Saxe-Weilenz, whose animosity towards Schoeffen-Buschhagen seems to be matched only by their reluctance to do any of their own fighting...)

The first turn or two saw a number of saps zigzag towards the fortress without meeting much by way of resistance. In fact, we ended up pushing forward too quickly, beyond the support of our main trenchline--as we found when our attempt to dig a new parallel section provoked a sortie from the defenders. I tried to respond by bringing more troops forward, but the fortress defenders had returned to their positions by the time my intended reinforcements were ready.

Wachovian troops in their initial positions.

Placement of the first saps.

We abandon the diggings and fall back.

Grendiers move forward to support, but not quickly enough.

William deals with the sortie on his end of the line.

After that debacle, we took a more cautious approach the next few turns, digging some support trenches a bit further up, while our guns engaged in some counterbattery fire. This proved more successful than usual, as we dismounted several of the defending guns with some lucky shooting, which put Marc in a bit of a tight spot, as we had the advantage in numbers to begin with.

New parallels and battery emplacements being dug.

New trenches within long musket range of the covered way.

Digging another parallel section, this time with proper support.

The defenders' position only got worse, as William managed to take out their mortar with a well-placed shot from his own. And when Marc moved his last cannon over to try to take out one of our siege guns that had moved up to within range of the walls, a concentrated barrage from my batteries destroyed that one as well. From there it was only a matter of time--the next turn, I built a breaching battery right up on the lip of the covered way, and we determined that the guns would be able to open a sufficient gap in the wall before the time limit was reached.

Breaching battery (on the left)

All in all, I thought it went pretty well--there were definitely some moments early on when I thought we were in trouble, especially when I saw three whole companies come pouring out to attack my diggers--but some lucky shooting managed to turn things around. And it was good to get the fortress on the table again, too--the siege has a different flavor to it than a regular Charge! game, so it's nice to switch things up every so often. That being said, my next goal is to get my shiny new cavalry squadron on the table--hussars aren't much use in the trenches, after all...

Setting some standards

I mentioned at the end of my last post that I had one more little NQSYW project in the works, and here it is. It had long been my intention to give the Wachovian infantry regiment a national flag to go along with its regimental flag, but efforts to follow through on this intention have gotten sidetracked on multiple occasions. However, after recently completing flags for a couple of our other NQSYW countries, Hesse-Hattemstadt and Schlusselbrett (not yet pictured, apparently) I decided that it was about time to do one for my own country.

And so, here is the Wachovian national flag, unfurled for the first time:

There's a heraldic pun in here that I think only my brother is currently aware of...

But that's not all! On a recent visit home, I picked up a couple of additional figures for the Prince's Own Hussars, I which I have also completed:

The colonel of the regiment. I've been doing some reading, which suggests that our armies have rather low moustache quotients for the 18th century, so I've been attempting to compensate.

A regimental standard!

And here's a shot of the two of them with the new company:

At this point, I'm not sure whether I'll get any more Wachovians painted before spring, as I prefer to do a good part of my prep-work outside, and it seems to have gotten a bit chilly sometime in the past week or so. Fortunately, I have plenty of plastic to keep me busy in the meantime--and hopefully the new troops should see some action before then...

Horses, but no bayonets

(Alright, I may have missed the window of relevancy on that joke by about a week.)

Anyway, the long-awaited second squadron of Wachovian hussars is now complete! By my reckoning, these are the first new Wachovian troops in more than a year, since I believe the last unit I finished was my second gun crew sometime prior to Historicon 2011. However, a couple of recent games inspired me to finally get these guys finished up. (And naturally, if all goes according to plan, the next NQSYW game will be a siege... where cavalry are kind of useless.)

All in all, this puts the total Wachovian contingent at two squadrons of light cavalry, a three-company regiment of line infantry, a company of light infantry, and a two-gun battery. The next unit I add will either be a squadron of heavy cavalry or a company of grenadiers--the former seems a little more likely at the moment, but we shall see where the inspiration takes me. (And I have one other little NQSYW-related project in the works, but more on that in due time...)

A long-awaited map

Some of my gentle readers may at times have been bewildered by the various fictional countries featured in the battles of Not Quite The Seven Years' War. For their benefit (and to aid my fellow heads of state in planning their future campaigns) I present the following map:

Cities, mountains, rivers, etc. will hopefully be added at a later date...

Past battles and future purchases

Despite just having been home for Barrage, I made my way north again last weekend at the promise of waffles and a NQSYW battle--which turned out to be a great improvement over the previous one, at least from the Wachovian point of view. Since I arrived the evening of the 21st, Dad and I decided to celebrate the publication of The Hobbit and the semi-completion of my Orcish army with a quick game of Hordes of the Things. Rather quick, as it turned out--somehow our generals managed to get themselves into a situation where one of them would inevitably die, and I lost the crucial roll...

View from the Orcish center

Orcish archers and their buddy the bunyip.

Facing down the Elvish contingent in the woods.

No room to recoil--oops!

The next morning, after the promised waffles, we packed about four regiments of troops (not to mention cavalry and artillery) into the trunk of my car and headed down to Chris Palmer's place, where the Pragmatic Coalition would once again face off against North Polenburg. (North Polenburg's partner in crime, Rosmark, is apparently having some internal problems again...) This time, our objective was to drive the enemy out of a defensive position which they had taken up in two villages and which they had supplemented with some redoubts. Fortunately, we had numbers on our side, an advantage which we used to good effect.

I took command of my Wachovian troops, making up our left wing; a combined Schoeffen-Buschhagen and Wiegenburger force, with a significant cavalry component comprised our center, and a second Schoeffen-Buschhagen regiment with light infantry support took up the right. While much of the enemy's attention was drawn to the right and the center, the Wachovian infantry advanced across the field towards the western village, sustaining relatively light losses from the guns in the redoubts. And on the extreme left, I took advantage of the Wachovian hussars' mobility (and lack of opposing heavy cavalry, for once!) to work my way around the very edge of the table and behind the line of redoubts.

Between concentrated cannon fire from our own batteries and the advancing infantry, we were able to suppress one of the two opposing guns. This left an enemy company occupying the western village and another half-company and a gun in the second redoubt. Braving a hail of fire from another company that was being deployed to the scene, the Wachovian hussars charged the rear of the redoubt and engaged the troops there in melee, allowing the bulk of my infantry to advance on the village. There we managed to put the lessons of the previous battle to good use--the defenders were reduced by volleys of short-range musket fire and a few well-placed cannonballs, and we did not have to try the rather iffy business of storming buildings. Meanwhile, our compatriots on the right and in the center had also gained their objectives (though not without some heavy losses, particularly for the Adellman regiment). The enemy was forced to cut their losses and fall back, leaving the field in Pragmatic hands.

(Note: you can read a couple of other accounts of this battle, free of pro-Wachovian bias, here and here.)

The North Polenburg general deploys his forces.

My fellow Pragmatic commanders.

Hussars begin their outflanking maneuver.

I wasn't the only one taking pictures...

Our forces advance.

Cavalry melee ensues.

Wachovian infantry approach the western village.

Wachovian hussars charge the redoubt.

Another Wachovian contingent takes a gun!

A broader view of the action.

Resolving another melee in the center.

We did get in one more game, but I didn't really take any pictures--not that there's a whole lot to see when it comes to 6mm WWII anyway...

In other news, it's an exciting time to be me as far as new miniatures releases go: as though reading my mind, Orion has put out a couple of sets of Byzantine infantry, so I will not be forced to use converted medieval Russians when it comes to expand that army. Finally, Caesar has released a whole boatload of new sets... including the long-awaited (long awaited) Mycenaean chariots, which look pretty darn spiffy, so I may have to get some work in on the Bronze Age again. And of course, I still have a few more orcs to paint, and the next unit of Byzantine lancers, and some Wachovian hussars, and a couple more NQSYW units beyond that... well, I guess I'll find something to keep myself busy. (And everyone seems to want a map for the NQSYW all of a sudden--I guess I should work on that too...)