Great Victories - Part 2

At the start of this month I thought it would be fun to work through Marlborough's Great Victories, using 'Dominion of Marlborough and Peter The Great'. I'd play against Mrs Kobold and we'd swap sides, so we'd each get a go at being Marlborough in each battle.

What with one thing and another it's taken three weeks to get around to playing teh second battle. I'm betting that it will take three weeks to get around to the next one as well.

Still, last night we set up Ramillies.

I had the first go at being Marlborough. The Allies start with unreliable artillery in their front-line, and sabres on their left. They have elite infantry in reserve. The French position is a strong one, with infantry behind difficult terrain in the centre and on their left, and massed horse on their right in the open country beyond Ramillies itself. The French right flank is covered by a river. 

Deciding that I didn't want to test the unreliability of the artillery I decided that a cavalry attack was the best opening move. It was inconclusive.

Catherine, as the French, made use of the strong defensive position to focus on the centre and her left. Both of my artillery units proved reliable, and the French rolled abysmally when it came to trying to destroy them.

As an aside, I mentioned in a post yesterday that I hadn't featured my Russian and Swedish commander figures in a post. So here's one of them, standing in for Marlborough.

Anyway, not only did the French have rotten rolls trying to hit my artillery (it's 50/50, so pretty good), but my artillery rolled a couple of sixes and drove the French out of their defensive positions. I assume that in cases like this the artillery represents infantry with strong artillery support rather than specific massed batteries. So this is the Allied first wave crossing the stream and taking the heights beyond.

Anyway, that committed the French reserves to the centre and left.

The French had dome better on the right, driving off my Dutch horse. I brought up some of my reserve infantry to parry the French horse.

I don't have photos of the later stages, but the game had lots of inconclusive combats and went to nine turns. Although I lost one of my reserve infantry units, I did rally back the Dutch horse. The French failed to rally their lost foot, and eventually Marlborough's infantry battalions drove back the French right to win teh day. I record scores based on how many units the winner has left (including returned reserves). Marlborough won this one 5-1.

We swapped sides. The French position actually looks pretty good when you're sat behind it.

I opened up with my horse on the right, routing the Dutch,

One of the Allied artillery units proved unreliable - it was the eighth reliability test we'd taken across four games, and the first one to fail. Once again some of the French infantry were driven out of their defensive positions, to be replaced by their reserve horse. At this stage we both had all of our reserves committed, and there was a horrible matchup in the centre, with some original front-line French infantry facing Allied cavalry, against which they get a tasty bonus for being prepared.

On my more open right flank, my cavalry swept all before it and turned the Allied left.

Mrs Kobold pressed my left with her elite infantry, but couldn't shift the horse there and turn my flank. After some fierce fighting I finally took out the Allied centre, for a French victory.

The French won this one 3-1.

So the current scores are:

Alan - 13 points

Catherine - 8 points

Marlborough - 8 points

French - 13 points

Next up is Oudenaarde, which has some interesting unreliable troops on both sides.