Battle of Red Hill

Last Saturday, Wes R. and Bob M. put on a great game of Black Powder 28mm Seven Years War's. It was a pretty low key game, with just three of us participating so getting through the whole scenario was doable.

Wes and I commanded the Prussian-British Force bent on removing the Russians, commanded by Bob, from their commanding Hilltop position. On our far left, Wes had under command a large cavalry contingent split into Light and Heavy brigades. A brigade of Prussian infantry (with a Grenadier Bn) was to the right of the cavalry. I commanded the right with a Prussian brigade of infantry and the mix brigade of British infantry and cavalry.

 

 

Being on the defensive, Bob commanded from his left to right, a small brigade of cavalry, two small brigades of infantry facing off against my force. Then he had a brigade of Russian infantry and Austrian allies to deal with Wes’s infantry, and on his far right was a large brigade of cavalry to deal with the Prussian cavalry. Lastly he had a small brigade of Grenadiers as a reserve.

The Prussian force got off to a slow start, especially my command (the translation of Prussian orders must have been lost on the British command who took several turns to cross the creek). True to fashion of the day, the cavalry on our left flank immediately began to clash, and both sides' cavalry would charge and counter charge each other for most of the battle before the Prussians finally got the upper hand.

The lone British heavy cavalry regiment was able to counter the attack of the two Russian dragoon regiments, though was shaken and unable to pursue. Wes infantry moved to firing range and slowly advanced against the Russian- Austrian infantry defending the hill; he was never able to throw the Russians off it though.

Belatedly, my command of Prussian infantry, less one battalion, moved and engaged the Russians; and over two turns delivered several stunning volleys onto them. By turn five, my British infantry had finally moved up and issued a massive opening volley (5 dice per bn!) … that failed to dislodge the Russians. It would take the Prussian infantry another turn to break the Russians.

With the light cavalry brigade chasing off the remnants of the Russian cavalry, Wes turned his battered heavies to outflank the Russian line. This forced Bob to move one of his Grenadiers to cover the flank.

While the center was holding, his left flank was about to fall as well, so Bob had no choice but to have the Grenadiers boldly move to within a dozen yards of the Prussian Cuirassiers to deliver a knock out opening volley (again five dice) onto them … and failed to do one hit!

The Cuirassiers then swarmed over the Grenadiers and while they held out a turn, eventually broke. This was the last straw for the Russians; with both flanks about to collapse a general retreat was issued that ended the game.

Postscript: Overall I had a great time … thanks again to Wes and Bob for putting the game on. It was so enjoyable I am contemplating rebasing all my 7YW’s figures! We pretty much played the game as written (RAW), and using a few of the rules from the Last Argument of Kings BP supplement.

The one house rule Wes introduced was the allowing a successful command and one move on a roll one or two points higher than the command (everyone had a 7 staff rating). Wes really liked it, as he believes it eliminates the possibility of a player not doing anything for several turns. I was not too keen on it, as I basically made the command rules very generic.