One section of Austrian line infantry led by their level three commander Oberstleutnant Von Strumpa had just about completed an out flanking manoeuvre wider than the Schlieffen plan of 1914 and were approaching my exit point at a fair lick of speed with the intention of capturing and holding the said point for one turn thereby forcing my French to completely re-trace their steps back to the church on the outskirts of the village of Barolo taking the saintly but somewhat bow legged Contessa de Knickerbocka with them. Not an easy task I can assure you particularly with a considerable number of Austrians in their way.
If you recall dear reader this was the situation at the close of play last week, who would get there first? It was all down to who's token was pulled out of the bag first.
Me, Me, two blue flags, out they came the little beauties. Two flags mean I can order any unit, well no choice there, it had to be the French section who had split of from the unit on the hill and had ran down towards the withdrawal point. One throw of three dice running, minus one dice for two points of fatigue, two dice to go four inches - you can just see it coming can't you.
That's it then just don't throw two ones says Neal, frick'n had to didn't he!
French Sergent boil on his arse ran forward a miserable two inches falling short by about an inch and a half, couldn't write it could you.
Fortunately the 'Tiffin' token came out straight after this signalling the end of this turn so there was still the minuscule glimmer of a chance, if Neal had occupied the point on the current turn then I had no-one near enough to take it back as the closest French section had been used this go and can't go again.
Next turn the Austrian number one token came out and Neal's Austrian section casually marched up and occupied the withdrawal point causing a moral test which lowered the force moral by two points, there hadn't been any reduction up to that point so it wasn't a completed disaster but I had to throw the Austrians off that withdrawal point this go.
Another token out for the Austrians, this time Neal decided to charge my French skirmishers behind the hedge, this adventurous decision resulted in one French dead but with two Austrians skewered and their fatigue on about six, they decided discretion was the better part of valour and retired to pick oranges from the orchard.
Crunch time, two more blue flags in a row and it had to be a straight charge in. Now the French in 95 were conscripts but were classed as aggressive, the Austrians on the other hand were line infantry (one class above), were led by a level three commander compared to my level one sergeant but had accumulated four fatigue points on their run around the table.
Neal still had an advantage in dice but it could have been worse. 6's a kill and fatigue point and 5's kills.
As can be seen the French got the win, four kills plus fatigue points on the Austrian group, two kills and a fatigue point on the French.
The Austrian section was forced to withdraw and the commander dropped from a level three to a level two, and the second Austrian section suffered fatigue points from being fired on by the French on the hill.
We called it a day after this as the Austrians were now in no condition to stop the Contessa and her many, many, many friends from getting her to a place of comfort and relaxation, presumably dumping her husband somewhere along the way! She will now be able to inform the Revolutionary Council of the size of all Austrians in the local area - the formation sizes of course!
A cracking game, loads of fun. I have to say that if I had known more about the rules I would have set it up so that the Austrians had a bit more of a chance, it was a bit easy to get the French off the table, but hey, tough titty Neal!!!!
He will get his revenge at some point.
Hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as we did playing.
Dave.
