Friday, June 23, 2017

Battle of Kolin, 260th Anniversary Edition - Prep

View behind Prussian right flank
The 260th Anniversary of the 18JUN1757 Battle of Kolin will be refought on Saturday, 24JUN2017.
Croats Garrison Krechor
The anniversary provides motivation to pull the 18mm SYW collection from its storage lockers and put it in action, once again, on the fields of Kolin.
Kolin Initial Deployments
Prussia in the fore, Austria on the heights
The game will be fought under the Honours of War rules.  With four participants, this should be an entertaining day on the field of battle.
Below is an Order of Battle for Saturday's contest.
Kolin OOB
To make the game manageable in an afternoon, the forces have been scaled down or bathtubbed a bit.  Each foot unit on the table represents about four battalions and each cavalry unit represents about a dozen squadrons.  Even with that, the game is rather large and deployments consume six feet of table space. 
The long, thin Austrian line
This is only the second or third time HoW has seen action on the table.  For two of the players, this will be their Baptism of Fire with the rules.  Now, to read the rules before the morrow.

Freddie will be on the attack to wrest control of the heights from Daun.
Can Frederick reverse history?

36 comments:

  1. Looking great Jonathan. It will be great to see the game unfold on your blog.
    (It just so happens that we have a game of Kolin planned for 8th July, using our interpretation of Zimmermann).

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    1. Thank you, James! I look forward to your rendition of Kolin using Zimmermann.

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  2. Looking forward to this Jonathan. Honours of War are an easy ruleset to pick up. In fact I think I'm going to go back to them as my preference for 7YW.

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    1. Nathan, Having only played a game or two of HoW, I await to see how the others take to it. It seems easy enough and no stand removal until the element is eliminated is my method of choice.

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  3. Looks like you have a fab day ahead of you with some quality game time. I like the overall battle shot with everything labelled. Have a great day.

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    1. Even if I wind up on the losing end, a day spent with friends over the gaming table is a treat.

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  4. Good looking set up....a long way up those hills to attack !

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    1. Thanks, Matt! It is a long row to hoe for the Prussians in this one.

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  5. Great looking game, a beautiful garrison to attack!

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  6. Good looking game, hope the Prussians win.

    If it's not too late, a couple of suggestions: have your Colloredo division start the game on the March from the Austrian left towards Krechor; and secondly, place some sort of restriction to prevent the Austrian left wing from marching down Prez. hill to attack the Prussian right or else you will have a short game.

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    1. Thanks, Jim! I know where your sentiments lay, no doubt.

      As for your suggestions, notice that Colloredo is labeld as "(-)" on the deployment map. The bulk of his troops begin the battle off table and arrive on the far left flank. They will be making exactly such a maneuver as you describe to join Colloredo.

      As for the formation fronting the P. Hill, they are to hold their positions until "attacked" or until released on a later turn.

      Sometimes, you end up with a short game regardless of pre-game preparations. At least Freddie has an opportunity to make progress before the Austrian behemouth snaps into action.

      Daun will lose Army Morale Points if Krechor or the two hills are lost. Losing one or more of these three objectives (besides units lost) will put pressure on Daun.

      Appreciate your suggestions. Since I will likely be commanding the Austrian reinforcements, I hope Daun wins!

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  7. Looks like it will be awesome Jonathan.

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  8. A beautiful table! I have heard many good things about those rules, so it will be nice to see another report on them.

    Best of luck!

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    1. Thanks, Greg!

      If you have followed my gaming exploits for any length of time, you know that I need a good helping of luck to find success!

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  9. They were a fun set of rules. Thanks for hosting! Your SYW collection is impressive!

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    1. Scott, glad you could get away for part of an afternoon! Appreciate the compliment on the SYW collection. Troops on the table today were not even 30% of the collection.

      You guys pick up new rules faster than anyone else. One turn through and all seemed to run smoothly. We should give them another go before too long of a lapse.

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  10. I had a great time as well. I am looking forward to trying these rules with another scenario.

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    1. Very good to see that you enjoyed the game! You were a double winner today. As I mentioned to Scott above, we should give them another run out before we forget what we learned today. I will look for another scenario.

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    2. Fortunately my opponent's massed artillery prevented him from maneuvering in front of it before the reinforcements arrived. I am thinking of giving the rules a try with my 6mm Napoleonics to see if they work well as fast play rules for the 1809 campaign.

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    3. I think this battle was won (or lost) with the Prussian deployments.

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  11. Looks beautiful! Good luck with the game :)

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    1. Thank you! The game was not as competitive as I would have liked...

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  12. Great lookinh table, Jonathan. I look forward to reading the report.

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    1. Thank you, Mark. I am backed up with Battle Reports, at present.

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  13. Great looking table, I'm looking forward to the aar.
    Best Iain

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    1. The nicely arrayed battlelines often do not maintain their elegance once the battle is engaged!

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  15. Very cool. Looking forward to hearing how the rules worked for you.

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    1. HoW worked well. Very bloody but straightforward.

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  16. Looks great, and good to the 18mm SYW figures on the tabletop; I eagerly await the dispatches!

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    1. Dispatches have been slow to arrive. We have had house guests all week.

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