Beneath the Lily Banners 2 - A test game.....at last!!

La Couronne

 As some of you may know I've been painting up an Allied army for a Nine Years War game, while my pal Richard has been painting up the French. We finally had enough troops to play  what we thought was small test game a couple of evenings ago. It was great to finally get a game under our belts and to test the rules out. Richard set his force up and I mirrored his deployment, we kept the scenery to a minimum just for ease. Rich has had a few small test games on his own and made up a deployment and movement sheet instead of using the movement markers as per the rules, this worked quite well as you didn't know what your opponent was up to.

 William's centre and left

 The extreme French right, with the elite class Picardie regt on the far left.

The French deployment - Richard had 2 brigade of infantry with three regts in each, and 2 brigades of horse with four squadrons in each. We picked 1 infantry and 1 horse (both squadrons) to be an elite regt, he chose inf regt Picardie on the extreme left of the pic and the Mounted Grenadiers of the Guard, (i think I got the name right), which is at the back on the far right. We also had to pick 1 regt to be raw, I never found out his raw regiment!!

End of turn 1. My elite regts were the 1st Guards, which are in the front line third up from the bottom and the Dutch Guard te Paard were my elite horse, don't strain your eyes but they're  the two squadrons in blue in front of the mysterious green mountain, otherwise known as a tape measure.

In the initial setup we both threw for our commander ability, Richard was Skilful while I was Competent, I did originally throw a Plodder, but we changed it so we could have a reasonably balanced game. 

The Allies advance to the farm, while the French hide behind the hedge (and Fran was nowhere to be seen, sorry an in-group joke!!)

Richard's lovely painted horse advancing. 

Princess Anne's Horse, the Guard te Paard and in the background
Waldeck's  Horse all advance

Another shot of the French Horse.

I threw well here and could move all my troops, so boldly charged two squadrons onto the French Horse, who I believe were the Musketeers of the Guard Royal Eccosse. (Rich has painted a lot of guard!!)

French Infantry Second  battalion  - One of these must be the raw unit??

After my perhaps over confident charge, Rich moved a Horse unit ready to move in to attack if his
Scots  Horse survived the Guards charge.

And here's a close up.

Another close up, as above only I smashed Richard's horse,  he countercharged both his units but  this one failed to move the 3 inches needed to gain the charge bonus, (he he!) So I wiped his unit out to the man and captured his colours. I took 2 casualties. We were a little unsure what my regt would do now?? Having destroyed the unit, I was now in a strange position, after consulting the rules we were still unsure, so we decided that my unit would pursue forward in a straight line rather than stand or take the ground, I'll have to email Barry Hilton, for his views on the situation.

The French did move over the 3 inches in the other melee above and kicked my butt bigtime
and this was the result, Previously the 2nd Princess Ann'e Squadron was forced back after taking
casualties from artillery fire, it was then joined by the 1st squadron, who lost the melee.

An overall pic of the battlefield.

My left of the battle field. Richard threw well in the movement...I didn't!! Mt raw unit can be seen
at the bottom of the photo -The Scots Fuzillers.

The middle and right of the above pic, I've manoeuvred inf regt Prince George of Heesen-Darmstadt, to get a fire on the  Royal Eccosse Horse who are in forced pursuit.

The right of the field, the second Guard te Paard and the 2nd Royal Eccosse have charged
 each other, the +6 dice for the French Horse is a real killer!!!

An overall pic at the end of the game

Light faded and the enemy broke of for tea and crumpets.

We both really enjoyed the game, hopefully very soon we'll have another bash!! We both realised that the what we thought was a small game wasn't. The first 3 turns wizzes along, but once melee ensued it slowed down quite a bit. There were several things (like I already mentioned) that we were unclear of, Richard wrote some questions down to send to the League of Augsberg Fighting Talk forum, unfortunately, I left them at Richards, he said he'll join up the forum and put the questions to Barry and the other guys from the site. So hopefully we'll clear them things up before the next game.
Cheers
Ray