Rocoux 1743

 In the aftermath of COW we were all a bit gamed out, so Tim put on another mid eighteenth century Table Battles game. These generally involve battles I've never even heard of, and this one was no exception, being Rocoux, which took place in 1743. It does feature our old mate Charles of Austria, notable for never winning a battle and this one had a confusing set of participants. Apparently the Austrians were actually Dutch and the Prussians were French in this one, although there were some actual Austrians present under Charles, although they contributed nothing. All something to do with the Pragmatic Alliance I gather.

Anyway, Russell, Jim and I drew the Prussians/French while John and Mark were the Dutch/Austrians. The Dutch were pretty good, being able to mass up command dice and benefitting from 'linked formation' bonuses. The French however had a powerful Grand Battery, and were able to deploy in depth to absorb losses. Our units were also much bigger, typically 6SP vs 4SP.

The Dutch (left above) had two wings, the inert Austrians who acted as a reserve of SP and a rearguard, not yet in action. We also had two wings , our grand battery and the deep columns (which needed a double on them to activate).

The first couple of turns didn't go well, our guns lined up to bombard the enemy, but they kept attacked, forcing them to react and drive the Dutch off again. This quite put us on the back foot.

We started to build up dice on our wings to attack, although unlike the Dutch we could only put one dice per turn on a unit. You can see we've got a blue dice on two of the wing units and doubles on our deep columns.

Meanwhile the Dutch kept up relentless assaults, first using up our 'deep column' reserves (they are down to 1 SP above).

This is very bad, we only start with one morale chit, so we need to kill an enemy unit quickly as if they rout even one of ours, we lose at once.

Then the Dutch pummelled our Left Centre, which was rapidly reduced to 1SP. We just couldn't get the command dice out in sufficient quantity to either activate the guns (they needed a straight 4) or to allow for counterattacks from our own units (they need doubles).

Although we finally got one decent attack lined up on our Left, the Dutch attacked once more, routed our Centre Left and with that the game was over. Total wipeout. We obviously badly mis-played that one as usually these scenarios are much more balanced. In all the excitement we all completely forgot about the option to shift SP from one unit to another, although we were playing so badly I don't think it would have helped.

Having finished in 25 minutes, we set it up and tried again.

This time we tried to be a bit more canny, and largely discounted the artillery. Instead I wanted to work up some local superiority through spoiling attacks so we could get a three SP advantage locally, which in turn would trigger the mighty 'oblique attack' bonus.

Honours a bit more even here, although the Dutch kept attacking furiously. We've got a decent spread of dice, our reserves activated and we are able to keep chipping away at the Dutch right.

When we've taken losses, we've used actions or reaction to shift SP around. Waldecks Centre Left is still at maximum strength about to attack the weakened Dutch Right.

We finally managed to achieve the magic 3SP superiority, and the extra hit bonus routs one of the Dutch units! One morale chip to us, and one off them. 

And its pal soon follows suit! Two morale chips to us. Now the Dutch only have one left. That is more like it!

We have an awful lot of dice on the left, but the Dutch Rearguard is not in action so we can't attack it. It transpired that we had read this wrong, and the Rearguard should have been committed if any of the Dutch right wing units routed. This is slightly frustrating as we have lots of combat dice and nowhere to go. Meanwhile the Dutch keep pounding our right and we are running out of SP to move across.

The Dutch Rearguard is finally in action so we have something tonattack, but our units are all quite weak now.

We give the Rearguard a right kicking and reduce it it 1SP. But then, curses, our Right Wing collapses and the morale advantage swings back to the Dutch (3 vs 1). 

We are so close to wiping out the Rearguard, but it is not to be, and one more devastating Dutch attack takes out our Left and with it our morale collapses.

That was a much better game, and we played the French far more effectively. The Dutch are more straightforward but the French take a certain amount if finesse. We nearly had them there, and I certainly don't mind losing in those circumstances.

These bigger TB games can be a bit hard to manage as there is quite a lot going on. My second monitor has broken, so I can't really see the cards on my small laptop screen, so that is something I need to address fairly quickly and buy a new monitor.