Epic Marlburian battle.28.2.13.

Last night's game saw an epic battle,devised by Brian,consisting of two equal armies fighting for set objectives,which had been given points values,the winner was the army with most points at the end of the night.
Paul commanded an Anglo-Danish army consisting of 12 inf. regiments and 6 cavalry regiments,whilst Icommanded a mixed Irish-Spanish-Bavarian army of the same size.---No artillery !!

The table was laid out with a road disecting the width,with a farm at both ends,and a hill and a wood in front of each position-these were the objectives we had to take.

Paul elected to place all of his infantry and half of his cavalry on the left of his farm,leaving only 3 cavalry to defend the right hand portion of his side of the board. I elected to split my army equally to the left and right of the road on my side of the board.

The battle commenced with a general movement forward by both sides,I held my left flank back for a couple of moves to see where Paul's thrust was going to be,I then swung my Bavarians into action,and tried to outflank him,and stormed his farm at the same time.

This is shot of my right flank attempting to take the hill on Paul's left flank,with my combined Irish and Spanish troops,Paul's farm can be seen in the left background.Brian's newly painted Danish infantry are in the thick of the fire-fight,as well as some British infantry.

This is Paul,surveying the advancing Bavarians,who are menacing his lines and farm,the fire-fight on the hill went on for most of the game,with Paul cunningly trying to outflank my right,with infantry.I had placed half my cavalry on my right flank,and, as our rules do not permit cavalry,in this period,to frontally charge infantry,they were impotent,and I had to try and extricate them without getting fired on!!

Both sides are blazing away in this shot,although my Irish are being outflanked,because of the retiring cavalry,this was my "undoing" on this hill,and,at the end of the game,Paul was successful in gaining the points for it.

This shot shows my Bavarians gaining ground and putting Paul's British contingent under alot of pressure,hiscavalry have retired from their original position and he is massing them in his centre.Having moved forward un-opposed I have captured the wood and hill to my front,and gained their points values.

At this point in the epic fire-fight,Paul said "something's got to give soon" and it did!! One of my Irish regiments broke,however at the same time two of Paul's regiments decided to call it a day and retired.Paul was in a good position,because he had massed all of his infantry on this flank,and could replace the fleeing units from his reserves-I could not!!

This shows Paul's magnificent outflanking move against my Irish,now having to face two fronts,with my "impotent" cavalry milling around like spare legs!!

My Bavarians have been ordered to capture the farm,more easily said than done!After two rounds of melee,they were "seen off" by the brave defenders,and Paul had saved his farm,and more importantly,the points it represented.

The final photo! After 16 moves it was quarter past ten,so we decided to count the points up,it turned out that we both had the same number of points,so a draw was declared,which was a very fair result.

A good game,lots of manoeuvre,lots of excitement,highs and lows,what more could you want from a wargame? Well done to Brian for coming up with this scenario,and it was good to have Dave "pop in " for a couple of hours before going on to night shift -now there's dedication!!

Roll on Sunday.