Beta-Test Solo WSS Campaign System - 1st action

 I've had to rationalise my hobby time lately because of some Real-World stuff, so I've taken the opportunity to do some work on my solo campaign system, to be used with my Corporal John rules. The great advantage of doing this on an informal basis is that I can fix it on the spot if it needs it. That's right, I can inflate the tyres while I'm travelling along.

Yesterday the campaign threw up an encounter game - fairly small. I must give the Jolly Broom Man a grateful shout for his help in doing sanity checking and quality testing on walk-throughs (walksthrough?) - thank you sir, and God bless you.

This first fight was the Action at La Bienveillance. An interesting mix of army types; the Franco/Bavarian force (under Feldmarschal Graf von Arco) fielded a predominantly cavalry force, the Allies (under Generalmajor Wissenstein) had a more traditional mixture of arms, but were secretly very scared that the hordes of French cavalry would sweep them away!

 

Austrians in nice straight lines await the arrival of the enemy

A win required the accumulation of 8 Victory Pts; there were no positional objectives giving bonus VPs.

Some form of narrative should emerge from my photos; a quick spoiler is that the Allies were surprised to win by 8-6, but it could genuinely have gone either way. As is customary with Corporal John, and all other members of the Commands & Colors family, units absorbed early losses without much effect, but as attrition and morale failures built up the excitement grew and units were eliminated more rapidly, resulting in not a few surprises.

 

View near the commencement from the Allied right flank. Wissenstein has command of his own Infantry division at this end, while Vielgluck has a mixed command of infantry (some Hessian) and cuirassiers on the Allied left

 

 

From behind the French left, we can see that the Allied infantry made a rush to take the woods to their front. On the French side, Arco commands a mixture of Bavarian cavalry and infantry at this end, while General Chatrier has all the French line cavalry for the entire campaign army at the far end

 

 

Here's Chatrier himself, leading some of King Louis' finest into action on the French right

 

 

On the other side of the hill, the Austrian cuirassiers await the onslaught, more nervous than they look

 

 

Austrian infantry stayed safely in the woods near the village of La Bienveillance; this was the cat & mouse period at the start, when casualties were few. The elite Bavarian grenadiers suffered badly from being exposed to Austrian artillery fire

 

 

Chatrier's attack goes in; he had a big superiority in cavalry on this flank, but the fighting went on all afternoon. Inevitably, the Austrian horse were eventually worn down, but the French suffered too, and this sector of the fighting probably tied up more French troops then might have been expected

 

 

On the other flank, Wissenstein is under attack in his wood

 

 

Time for Wissenstein to emerge from the woods

 

 

1st Bn of IR Thürheim seized one end of the village

 

 

Around this time, the French cavalry overran one of the Austrian batteries, though they lost a lot of men in the process

 

 

Wissenstein's boys are out of the wood, and advancing bravely...

 

 

The field is pretty empty on on the French right now

 

 

...back on the other flank, Wissenstein's infantry are withstanding the efforts of the Bavarian cavalry, and causing them much loss...

 

 

...though there was a major reverse when the 2 battalions of the Bavarian Leibregiment took back the village in devastating style. In particular, the 2nd bn of IR Thurheim retreated a total of 600 paces in one move, and were so upset by the experience that they just kept going

 

 

Back on the French right, Chatrier with one of the remaining French cavalry units stood and glowered at the last of the Austrian cuirassiers, neither unit having the energy to put paid to the other and potentially win the game 

 

 

Wissenstein's infantry - notably a couple of battalions from IR Lothringen and one from IR Scharfenstein, finally eliminated another of the Bavarian cuirassier regiments, the VP score became 8-6 and the Allies had won

 

 

And these were the cards that helped to do it!

I now have started the bookkeeping exercise of working out what proportion of each unit's losses will rejoin the ranks after the battle, to carry forward into the next steps of the campaign. I have a couple of notes about things in the rules that might need a tweak or two, but pretty good so far. I will probably be a couple of weeks before I resume my efforts, but I can pick up and put down this little campaign as time allows, so it's a useful little project.