Sunday 17 November 2019

A weekends wargaming - Mollwitz

I've just returned from a most excellent weekend at Charles Grants residence. As usual Charles and his wife Liz are most excellent hosts and as well as the game Saturday night was spent putting the wargaming world to right and reviewing where Crann Tara miniatures go next year!

On to the game - on this occasion neither John Dougan or I had any idea what game we were playing, I have to admit I anticipated fighting a couple of small actions, so it was a most pleasant surprise to discover we were to refight Mollwitz. Next to Fontenoy this is a battle I've always wanted to do and as I said to Charles the original game in his fathers book The Wargame provided me with so much inspiration.
In all my previous engagements whenever I have been the Prussians then I think it's fair to say Frederick has been far from Great 😀 Could I redeem myself?
A very hard fought game, on this occasion the Prussian cavalry on the right flank ably supported by two converged Grenadier battalions ( one did break early on) advanced against the superior Austrian horse and managed to prevent them deploying their strength with the result that whilst the Prussian Cuirassiers fell in droves the Dragoons and Hussars managed to hold the enemy and the Grenadiers managed to provide limited fire support causing a steady attrition on the enemy.
The Austrian foot despite being outclassed in their fire drill stood toe to toe against the Prussians for a considerable period of time but it was at a cost Officer casualties were high causing units to break .
An excellent game and one in which I gave Frederick his first victory - and yes he stayed on the battlefield.
Below in no specific order are some pictures of the game.






12 comments:

StuartInsch said...

Wargaming a classic, at Charles Grant's...what a wonderful way to spend the weekend!
And you won too🤩

marinergrim said...

Terrific stuff. Very fortunate to be playing games like that.

Independentwargamesgroup said...

You lucky so and so, Mollwitz with Charles, a lovely game.

Graham C said...

Absolutely and don’t I know it and I think the added value is Charles acknowledging he hadn’t considered the tactic I used for the Prussians! Shows the replay value in these battles.
Still need to crack Fontenoy

Graham C said...

Paul
Absolutely but your games are always brilliant to look at and play

Graham C said...

Stuart,
You’re right a classic game with the man himself what could be better.

John Ray said...

Graham,

What a spectacular set up, Mollwitz still the best. Nice to see all those Prussians and Austrians on the table.
John

Graham C said...

John,
Whilst not quite as spectacular as your set up you can't help but admire them once on the table, they always look impressive

Colin Ashton said...

You are very fortunate to at such an iconic battle at Charles' place. It looks tremendous. Where's the snow?

Graham C said...

Colin,
It was the spring time version 🤣

Jonathan Freitag said...

Excellent battle! I have played Mollwitz several times and yet to see the Austrian come out on top. It always come down to a race of the Austrian cavalry defeating the Prussian cavalry before the Prussian infantry can close. Sometimes close, but no cigar.

Graham C said...

I agree the Austrians are up against it and it really is down to what they do with their cavalry. I managed to contain them and even gain the upper hand on a number of occasions with the result that they could never bring numbers to bear.
Certainly a game with replay value.