Honours of War - Lobositz

We gave Osprey's 'Honours of War' a try last night, refighting the battle of Lobositz.

The attacking Prussians are on the left and their Austrian opponents are on the right.

A cavalry attack in the centre. This went as well as most of my other cavalry attacks; it looked impressive and ended in disaster.

On the Prussian left, Daniel attempted to clear Austrian light infantry from the olive groves.

Meanwhile our infantry advanced against Lobositz itself.

That also went as well as can be expected, with the attack stalling in the face of concentrated musketry and close-range artillery fire.

Everyone seemed to like the mechanisms of the game, with alternating command activations, a simple modified die roll for combat results and fairly flexible movement away from the enemy. Like any game it will take repeated plays to work out how to play it (as opposed to just understanding the rules themselves. Supporting friendly units is essential, and gives good combat modifiers, but units can retreat or rout a long way, and interpenetration damages units passed through, so managing your reserves and supports looks tricky. Gary moderated the game, but four of us, who hadn't read the rules before, were able to play the game through to a conclusion within the evening. And we had minimal rules queries at the end of it. That's a good sign, if nothing else.