Age
of Reason
22
May 2004
by
Christopher Chu
A
report of a Grand Battle between 8
players played in 15mm
using the Age
of Reason
rules.
 Allied
(Prussia and her allies) against the combined strength of Austria &
Russia. The Allied commanders (from left to right) were Herbert Wong
(Prussian), Cheung Kar Fai (Prussian), Alexander Lam (Ottoman Turks) &
Christopher Chu (British). While the Austrian/Russian side was
commanded by Philip Ngo (Austrian) on the right, Hermann Ng (Russian)
& Lawrence Ho (Austrian) in the centre and James Cheung (Russian) on
the left.
Each
player prepared
8
SP (following SP
calculation suggested by Herbert) for the battle, so 32 SP were fielded
per side. Whilst the Austrian/
Russian advantage
in Artillery was probably
1/3 more than the Prussian (and her Allies) quantity of cannon, the
superior mobility of the Prussians and the quantitative advantage of the
Turks remedied the disparity between the two sides.
 The
Prussian early attack in the centre was repulsed. On the Prussian
left wing, the
army of Prussia was hindered by the river and the Austrian commander Ngo was assigned the cannon set-up on the hilltop. So Herbert
moved forward very carefully, believing that storming the hill would only
cause very serious injury and death to his troops.
On
the other flank of the battle, being suppressed by the strong Russian fire
power (after
a round of bombardment, the British army was badly mauled, with 6
artilleryman being killed, 2 cannons thus being rendered useless), Chu
was determined to give up the defensive position to mount an
assault.
Unfortunately the British infantry brigade failed
the order to charge with their bayonets
fixed.
As
a consequence the first line of British suffered
many losses to cannon fire at close range
and was routed.
 Although the second line of British caused a lot of casualties to their
Russian adversaries through
small
arms fire, the British failed their army withdrawal check after James
Cheung decided use his Dragoons to charge into the British infantry.
Meanwhile,
on the
Allied left wing, Herbert found a good opportunity to seize victory, immediately sending in his cavalry
to charge into the gap that had
opened between
Ngo’s Austrian and Hermann’s Russians. His charge succeed, causing
more than 25% casualties to Ngo’s Austrians
and forcing them to withdraw after their army withdrawal check.
At
this moment, Kar Fai’s Prussians with one of its brigades shattered, and
another crumbling, also needed to take an army
withdrawal check, which fortunately he passed. Lawrence meanwhile advanced cautiously and his Austrians accordingly suffered
light losses.
 Through
some carefully manoeuvring, Alexander briefly detached his brigade’s
leader from the combat, and ordered his Janissaries to support his Spahi (armoured
cavalry) to assault James Cheung’s Russians. This charge rolled
over the musketeers and artillery on the hill, althouigh this, combined
with the casualties from British, was not enough to break the Russian.
More
than 30% of the Allied army was lost that day and, not surprisingly, the Austrian/Russian
players were declared the winners.
The
Grand Battle started at 2:15 and ended about 6:40, with every player
enjoying the day's gaming.
Christopher and Hermann are thinking of playing a regular AoR battle at the next meeting.
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years war
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