Seven Years War battle Saxe-Bearstein vs Stagonia

 The vague plan was to have some sort of battle including some part of the collection of Jeff Bluebear about once a year.  The COVID issue messed with that, along with some moving houses along the way.

It has been a few years since the Seven Years War era "imagi-nation" of Bluebear's Saxe-Bearstein took to the fields of Mars.

Cod and I managed to get them into action in a meeting-engagement, that was super interesting, in that maneuver was also part of the action - something that gets missed often in the 'big battle' line-em-up and shoot.

a key moment in the battle for a hilltop

We had the venue of AJ's Games for this event and it worked out well.

the game space formed our backdrop
as patrons came and went exploring the
game shelves next to our setup

we were using the same scenario as
the ECW game from the last tabletop
action at my home (see previous post)

time-lapse camera was set-up
after we had built up the tabletop terrain

I brought along a couple of guest observers
from the Alpian Wars set by Jeff
partly for discussion about the
BloodAxe miniatures we were using

The time-lapse covers the marching action well.

Essentially Stagonian forces managed to snag a hilltop, seen center right, and from there poured fire into the advancing Saxe-Bearstein columns.

With 2/3 brigades broken the Saxe-Bearstein army withdrew.

as usual dice rolls were critical
in Black Powder rules
you need a mix of low and high
rolls ... 

sadly for Cod, running the
Saxe-Bearstein forces
he rolled opposite many times

This opposite rolling made for a very stop-start affair for the Saxe-Bearstein force getting into the battlefield, or worse caused one infantry force to be left alone facing three times their numbers with artillery against them.

seen in the bottom right corner of the
time-lapse, this was the only
ground that Saxe-Bearstein was
to take this battle

Forced into the small 1/6th of the battle area, with little room to deploy, it was good effort that caused the Saxe forces to take down 1/3 of the Stagonians, who started with slightly more cavalry and less infantry than the Saxe forces had.

One of the neat parts of the random forces for the tabletop is that you get the more nuanced uneven engagements that happened in real life.

Again a great game from Jeff's troops!

Seven Years War Battle - Black Powder rules & Saxe-Bearstein vs Stagonia

 

Saxe-Bearstein marches again

Greetings gamers!  The miniatures collection of Jeff of Saxe-Bearstein will march out onto the tabletop again this June 27th 2021.

You can follow along the action by tuning in at around 11 am Pacific time to the twitch channel:

https://www.twitch.tv/murdocksmarauders/

The game play spots are all filled with a slate of in-person players.

Weather is expected to be fantastic - if a bit hot, so we will have the tent for shade and plenty of airflow.

Something of a tribute to Jeff is likely also.

STRATEGIC ACTIONS

More moves done in my 7 years Wars Cyberboard system:


General Situation in central Urope

British fleets took out at 4:1 odds Dutch Shipping off the norther coast of Holland.

Big Battle in Pilsner had:
+3 King Fredrich
+2 Seydliz
+2 Henry
and Prussian (called Altmorania in my fictional "Urope") troops 4*3, 4*3, 2*1

vs

Austrian +1 General Daun
troops 3*2
Saxe-Bearstein troops: 3*2 and 1*1

For at total of 1.4 advantage to Prussia. Not enough to get any strategic bonuses.

The Plan die rolls were dismal for the Austrians and fair-good for Prussians, which eliminated the defensive bonus for the Austrian/Saxon positions.

3 Major rounds of Battle ensued (each about one hour in length)

Round one went to the Prussians who gained a position bonus of +2 and took only 10% casualties while inflicting 25% on the Austrians.
Round two was the reverse of round one save that it was slightly less damage to the Prussians (only 20% casualties)
Round three was the clincher, essentially the same as round one, for the math, the problem was that the Austrian side could not take any more of such casualties and now the odds were tipping heavily in the Prussians favor.

The Saxons were abandoned as a rear guard and Daun commenced the withdrawal. A lucky shot into a nearby artillery battery nearly killed Daun, he was lucky also with his saving throw. The Prussian Prince Henry suffered a lot of damage (almost dead) from a fall during a cavalry charge.

Other actions were at:

Miastokrol, Russians kept the fortress after a 2 hour attempt at siege, 20% casualties to the Prussians caused them to break the siege and retreat.

Vienna! I decided that the "vile" Stagonians, would do a mad action to grab territory, in Linz and Saxe-Bearstein while the Prussians were busy with the main Saxon and Austrian armies (even though this would likely piss off their nominal French 'ally'). Well in this round the Austrian capitol Vienna was only covered by one force, and a shot at the nearby troops would keep them from helping the capitol ... taking it would make Stagonia a major player! HA fat chance!

Both the flank column and the force attacking Vienna were defeated. The one into Vienna was killed to 55%, then the rest were caught in a pursuit 100% loss as the rest are now prisoners.

The other force had to retreat into the mountains, near the area of Tipplebruder ...