War of Austrian Succession Battle Report

Thursday's game was a War of Austrian Succession match-up between the Allies (Me & Josh) and the French (Gary). It was a pick-up game, so no particular battle was being recreated. Below we see the initial set up. On the bottom/left are the French deployed with almost all their mounted on their far right. Opposite them are the Allies. The center is held by a "thin red line" of British troops. On their right (picture's left) - with troops in ambush in the town - are the Dutch and on their left are the Hanoverians, moving into position in columns.

The French moved hard on the Allies' left, sprinted across the table and fanned their horse out to attack the Hanoverians who turned to face them as shown below. You can also see a brigade of Swiss troops (in our rules each stand is a battalion) coming up to support the French attack in the center.Here's a close up from behind some of the French horse and dragoons. (I really need to get some flags on those poles...). The French figures are Old Glory and the Hanoverians are Essex.

While the French were pushing on that side of the table, a Dutch (played by Josh) assault column stormed forward supported by some grenadier battalions coming out of ambush from the town and fell upon "Les Volontaires" on the French left flank:

It now became a question of which flank would crumble first. The Dutch on the Allied right had some initial success and looked like they might carry the day, but the French left managed to hold together even as Dutch troops circled around behind their line as shown below (Note I didn't have enough Dutch troops, so I subbed in some Prussians - that's why the flag is Prussian!):
It took the Allies quite some time to scythe through the demoralized troops of the French left. Conversely, after some initial losses from shooting, the massive wave of French mounted slammed full force into the Hanoverians on the Allied right, who seemed they might hold, then blinked, then evaporated:

The French then careened into a line of British that had been brought up in case the Hanoverians did not hold. With the Brits stretched over the entire board, command control became quite strained. This was the point at which Gary masterfully threw his Swiss in in the center to add further to my difficulties. A few valiant and glorious attempts to turn the situation (including a glamorous counter charge by some British dragoons that routed their French opponents, chased them back to French lines and attacked a battery of limbered, redeploying guns before finally being cut down) brought the French to a half a hair's breadth from breaking before the Allies finally broke and the game was over.

Final result: French 9-3 victory. The score doesn't really show that the French were significantly bloodied, too. In fact, two combats in the last bound both went to the French. If either of them had gone to the Allies it would have been a 9-4 victory for the Allies.

However, none of this is meant to diminsh the laurels that Gary rightfully deserves for a well executed battle plan that gave him control of the game and eventually the victory. Well played, friend!