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.

Piquet game 4: the setting

After two fleeting skirmishes (here and here) I feel like trying another linear battle, with all the march and evolution from columns to battle lines included.

I still don't have the full historical OOBs from the battle of Zinna painted up yet, but will try to use the historical unit values this time to reflect some of the differences between the involved armies.

The battleground is pretty open, with low hills, except for some steeper hills and trees on one edge. I will ignore the low hill edges for movement and only use them for line of sight and an uphill melee modifier. The steep hill edges stop move and are half move to cross, but on any movement card and without command penalty.

I will let the Prussians enter from the top right corner of the table in a single column. They will come in in three brigades:
1. Right wing with Wunsch, Plettenberg Dragoons and the 2 batallions Hessen-Kassel
then army HQ
2. Left wing with Salmuth, Hoffmann and the Dragoons
3. Reserve with the two grenadier batallions

The Reichsarmee will march in from the bottom left, with two parallel columns
1. at the very rear of the table: right wing with the Grenzers, Ansbach Dragoons, the converged grenadiers of Mainz &Co, Ferntheil and the 4th batallion of Mainz
2. followed by the reserve of the other converged grenadier batallion and Kurpfalz guards
3. in front of them, marching on the near end of the large hill, the left wing of the remaining 3 batallions Mainz and the Hohenzollern cuirassiers.

Piquet game 3: the story

As last time, I want to wrap up the blow-by-blow game reports for my last game (here and here) into a quick photo story.

The scenario: after the last engagement, a small Empire corps keeps following a retreating Prussian corps (OOBs here). The Prussian rear guard is just leaving their night quarters when the Empire van appear on the other side of the table.

As always, click on the pictures to see a larger version.

In front of the building, the Prussian rear (Frei infantry and Hussars) have turned around to face the Empire vanguard (Grenzers and a converged Grenadier batallion) while the first Prussian units return to the table from the left table edge.

What I like about the rules of Piquet (or Shako, for that matter, with its special rules for marching to battle in the SYW rules option) is that they allow you to play out the historically critical part of battles that happens before the actual shooting. Who turns more move cards at the right time, and can bring his units to the table and unfold them into battle lines before the other side is ready?

The first race was to see whether the pursuing Empire troops would be able to charge the retreating Prussians before they could organize themselves. Spoiler: they wouldn't...

In the center, the Empire Dragoons threaten to attack the Prussian rear guard, but they have managed to face the Empire with their cavalry protected by a skirmisher screen.

While the first units on the table face each other, both sides are starting to bring more units onto the table.

On the left table edge, the Prussian HQ brings up the first Fusilier battalions

From the right table edge, the Kurpfalz guards are the first reinforcements marching onto the table.

After some hesitation, the Dragoons took heart and charged the Prussian rear, hoping to force a breakthrough while the Prussian main wasn't ready. It didn't go well.

The Wunsch skirmishers receive the charging cavalry with a crushing volley, killing one Dragoon stand and disrupting the attack.

After some more units came on the table, the Prussian Hussars counter attacked the Ansbach Dragoons and swept them off the table.

Situation at game end

With both sides firmly established on the table, both HQs remember their original goal for the day - avoiding a useless larger engagement and just staying on the move.

Animation: Anker GK-NF 18 Stadtkirche

Schon vor längerem hab ich ein paar Bilder vom Aufbau der Stadtkirche gezeigt, heute gibts einen kleinen Trickfilm.

Wie immer sind die Fotos beim Abbau entstanden und dann in umgekehrter Reihenfolge animiert. Viel Spaß.

Slow-Mo Piquet game 3: turn 5

Turn 5, phase 1 (14:30)
Sequence decks still unchanged

Roll 1: 10:13, 1:2 pips
Prussians turn diff. move, dud
Empire dress lines

Roll 2: 1:10, 3:6 pips
Prussians turn deployment, deploy Salmuth and the Grenadiers (2 and 10" off table) to line formation, turn inf move and advance the main (the disordered Frei inf can't move).
Empire turn cav move, withdraw the Dragoons, and deploy their Cuirassiers (just off table) into line formation.

Roll 3: 9:8. Empire turn musket reload.

Roll 4: 4:17, the remaining 8 pips go to the Prussians.
They move up their rearguard to a bit more than 2 moves behind the main.
Then turn dud, cav melee, diff. move, officer check. Try to rally Wunsch, D20 d1 for disordered, d1 for rally, d1 for enemy within 1 move for D8:D8, 7:3 fail.
Turn elite reload, native mobility.

Phase 2, roll 1: 5:7, 2 Prussian pips turn dud, musket reload.

Roll 2: 19:11, 6:2 pips
Empire turn melee res., inf move. Move up the main. Turn cav melee, dress lines, mov in III/IV.
Prussians turn maneuver, dud.

Roll 3: 5:3, 2 empire pips turn elites reload, art reload.

Roll 4: 3:18, remaining 8 pips go to the Prussians. Tuen cav move. As the Prussian Frei infantry are already disordered and confused (they even forgot to reload when they had a chance), I will let the Hussars charge through them without further damage (which is my reading of the letter of the rules, anyway).
Next, turn musket reload and this time reload Wunsch. Turn Melee resolution and fight the already disordered Dragoons at D6 u1 charging = D10 vs D8 d1 for 1 stand lost, d1 blown, d2 disordered = D4 (I guess it can't get worse than that). Result 8:2 wipes out the Dragoons.

This ends the battle - the Prussian intention is to keep marching and there is now no way the Empire infantry can stop them from doing that.

The Empire cavalry is gone, and the infantry too far away to bring the Prussians to battle

The biggest tactial learning from this engagement is not very surprizing at all: without artillery it is hard to damage or even pin an opponent who doesn't want to engage. Even more reason to push ahead and paint up some big guns (the first artillery unit is already waiting to be cleaned and primed).

Learnings / rule mistakes noticed while playing:

• cav units would have counted as two for army size determination
• cav charging skirmishers does not have to wait for cav move, can happen on an opportunity pip
• movement in III/IV also allows all units more than 12" from an enemy to move (and all movement cards allow formation changes to such units)

30 mm flats: Zinna / Piquet roll call April 2020

By now, the last few remaining units have been recruited, so here's one more inventory of what I have, will soon have and should order next to build the Zinna OoB.

I will again note the unit defaults for Piquet, both for games with generic values where same size armies are played, and for more historical games with unit qualities reflecting the lay historian's prejudice.

Prussians: 7 of 8 infantry battalions, 2 of 2 cavalry regiments, 0 of 1 artillery battery

Unit type	Piquet default	Piquet histo-rical	done / to do	OoB so far	Comments
Elite Infantry	12-8-8	12-8-8	2	1x Willemey  1x Burgsdorff	Grenadiers
Line infantry	10-8-6	10-8-6	4	1x Hoffmann 1x Salmuth 2x Hessen-Kassel	Fusiliers
Light infantry	10-8-6	10-8-6	1/1	2x Wunsch	Frei infantry
Light cavalry	x-6-6	x-6-6	1	Malachovsky	Hussars
Medium cavalry	x-8-6	x-8-6	1	Plettenberg	Dragoons
Heavy cavalry	x-10-6	x-10-6	n/a	none at Zinna	Cuirassiers
Lt. Artillery	...	...	0/1		3-pounders
Staff	-	-	1	HQ	generic generals

Empire: 9 of 14 infantry battalions, 2 of 4-5 cavalry regiments, 0 of 1 artillery battery

Unit type	Piquet default	Piquet histo-rical	done / to do	OoB so far	Comments
Elite Infantry	12-8-8	10-8-8	2	2x converged Grenadiers	Grenadiers
1st Line infantry	10-8-6	10-8-6	1/1	1x Kurpfalz Guards next: 1x Hessen-Darmstadt
2nd Line infantry	10-8-6	8-8-6	5/3	4x Kurmainz 1x Hohenlohe resp. Ferntheil next: 2x Baden-Baden, 1x Württemberg
Light infantry	10-8-6	8-8-8	1/1	2x Karlstädter-Oguliner	Grenzer
Light cavalry	x-6-6	x-6-6	0/1	planned (unit tbd - either Szechenyi from Zinna or one where standards are known)	Hussars
Medium cavalry	x-8-6	x-6-6	1	Ansbach	Dragoons
Heavy cavalry	x-10-6	x-8-6	1/1	Hohenzollern planned: Trautmannsdorf	Cuirassiers
Med. Artillery	...	...	0/1		3-pounders, Franken
Staff	-	-	1	HQ	mix of generic Austrians and Empire units present at Zinna

Open beyond this list:

• Remaining infantry (2 batallions Ernestinisch-Sachsen)
• maybe a 2nd Hussars unit
• maybe one more Grenzer unit

Tabletop workbench: new recruits

Motivated by some recent solitaire gaming, and some progress on painting, I ordered the next batch of recruits and started to muster them. I'll have to fill in a few gaps to fill up the ranks beyond the first batallion resp. battery, but here's what I got so far.

With these, my Zinna project will be nearly complete. 

As always, click on the pictures to see a larger version.

Austrian Hussars (still waiting for a third standard bearer)

Infantry regiment in reserve (this will be turned into two batallions Baden-Baden)

First gun for the Prussians (one more gun to be added, and a first battery for the Empire)

Another infantry "regiment" which will be split into one batalloin Hessen-Darmstadt and one batallion Württemberg

Oh, and the last three Empire Grenadier companies from the Zinna OOB are nearly ready:

Last three Grenadier companies for the 2nd converged Grenadier batallion, from left to right: Ferntheil (with drummer in Ansbach uniform and another Grenadier with "Prussian" mitre cap from Bayreuth), Württemberg, Baden-Baden. All nearly complete, except for buttons and a few more details.