Slow-mo Piquet game 4: ratings and turn 1

Commander ratings

Prussians D20+2, rolling a 1 for a poor commander. Add a command indecision to their sequence deck.

Empire D20-2, rolling 15 for an average commander, no deck change.

Army characteristics

Prussians have 9 units, plus 2 for the two elite grenadiers. Draw the minimum 3 cards of 6 or higher: Cavalry Morale, Infantry Morale, 10. Discard Cavalry Morale, draw 9 for 19 morale chips and Inf. Morale up 1.

Empire have 11 units, plus 2 elites, and with a card divisor of 4 they also get the minimum three cards: 6, 7, Infantry Move. So 13 chips.

Terrain

I will treat the slopes of the higher hills in the corners as level III terrain, but the lower hills as kind of level I.5, i.e. stop on contact, move at normal speed and melee affect up 1 for the unit with the height advantage.

The grey marsh/stone patches and forests are level III, the brown earth patches are level II.

Turn 1

Phase 1, roll 1: 15:8, 5:2 pips

Empire turn Infantry move, bring up all three brigades. Turn another infantry move!

Prussians turn dud, cav move.

Roll 2: 1:9, 2:6 pips.

Prussians turn dud, infantry move, move all three brigades. Turn officer check.

Empire bring up the right and left wing columns.

Roll 3: 3:9, 0:5 pips.

Prussians move up their HQ, turn another officer check and advance their HQ into the Eastern village. Turn two duds.

The two Reichsarmee columns are starting to march on the table. In the background, Prussian HQ in the right hand village and the Prussian vanguard.

Phase 2, roll 1: 20:5, 10:5 pips.

Empire move their rear guard, turn dud, then maneuver - just a little bit too early to be of much use. Then turn 3 more useless cards and a cav move (but again too early to split off cavalry units from their command group's movement). Although they are still in march column, I will allow the Grenzers to make an extra move on that card. Then turn another useless reload.

Prussians turn dud, officer check for no action, dud, premature cav move, cav melee (which, I just noticed, also allows Prussian regulars to melee!).

Roll 2: 17:16 for a single Empire pip, turning - dress lines.

Roll 3: 2:8, Prussia geta the last 4 pips. Turn heroic moment for - a difficult move they can use to advance their troops as they are still far enough away from the enemy! I will apply the restriction to "one unit" to the whole right wing, and will charge them two pips for that. The last pip moves up the left wing.

Phase 3, roll 1: 2:6 for 1:3 pips.

Prussians move up their rear, turn another slightly premature cav move, and a reload.

Empire turn a dud.

Roll 2: 2:12, 3:7 pips.

Prussians turn a dud and an inf move, move all three groups. Turn two more reloads.

Empire turn officer check, bring up their HQ. Turn dud.

Roll 3: 7:7, turn ends.

The Prussians stole a march or two on the Empire... I just need to remember that their right wing is now a move ahead of the rest from the heroic moment.