I have mentioned in previous posts that I am quite taken with the Wofun 2d gaming pieces, artwork bu Peter Dennis means the illustrations look really nice. As a means of getting painted pieces on the table at a reasonable price ( around 16-17€ for 2 x 48 figure infantry units) it’s decent value for money. No they’re not as good as fully round figures but I still think they look quite good and open up lots of opportunities to get games played.
So on to Mollwitz, I’ve had the SYW collection for a while and not used them, John Rich a fellow gamer had recently bought the SYW starter set and wanted to try them in a game so I volunteered and thought Mollwitz would be a good starter, a challenge to both armies, ( arguably the bigger challenge to the Austrians) so using C.S. Grants proposed set up from his series of books we were good to go.
We decided to try out Andy Callan’s SYW rules including some of the optional rules and a couple of tweaks. In addition we decided to use the Honours of War command activation rules which worked well.
The set up complete the Prussian horse is outnumbered almost 2:1 whilst the Austrian infantry who are still deploying is outnumbered almost 2:1. The Prussian battle plan was simple the infantry to push on as fast as possible, destroy the Austrian infantry and push through Mollwitz. Their cavalry was simply to hang on as long as possible.
The Austrian plan to engage and destroy the Prussian cavalry and threaten/ attack the flanks of the Prussian infantry thus disrupting the attack on Mollwitz. The Austrian infantry sought to hold the line and deploy the artillery.
Let battle commence.
The early moves was a slightly faltering start with the Prussian first line at first failing to move for two out of the first three bounds, the Prussian cavalry had advanced in anticipation of the Infantry advance.
Austrian cavalry pushed forward on both flanks whilst the infantry around Mollwitz sought to clear the lines and bring the artillery forward.
The cavalry on both flanks engaged whilst the Prussian infantry continued their advance on the Prussian right two battalions of Grenadiers moved out of line to cover the right flank from any cavalry threat.
The ensuing Cavalry melees didn’t go as Austria planned, on the Austrian right it took 3 bounds to overcome the Prussian resistance but this what at the cost of their Cuirassier regiment who suffered 50% casualties and was forced to cease offensive action.
On the Austrian left their dragoons were defeated by Prussian Cuirassiers but the Austrian dragoons road through their opposite number and a regiment of Hussars and tried to move around the Prussian right flank.
Early artillery exchanges went slightly in favour of the Prussian guns.
As the Prussian infantry steam roller continued to advance their Grenadiers on both flanks were forced to hold back and try to prevent the Austrian cavalry threatening the flanks, on their right the successfully deterred the Austrian Cuirassiers but a regiment of dragoons and their General succeeded in evading them and moving towards the rear of the Prussian lines, the Austrian right flank cavalry also succeeded in moving past the Prussian flank guard and moving to the Prussian rear.
Whilst musketry exchange was slightly in favour of the Prussians the Austrian artillery drove the 22nd infantry regiment back towards the rear with some devastating fire.
The Austrian dragoons from the left charged the Prussian artillery from the rear and rode down the men manning the three batteries, they then pushed forward and hit the disordered 22nd in the rear and broke the unit a moment of Austrian glory.
However the Prussian first line were now closing and unleashed some murderous fire driving two Austrian regiments back and destroying one. The threat of the Austrian cavalry caused the Prussians to about face three of their regiments from the second line and it was clear the Austrian cavalry threat was nullified.
With one last push the Prussians broke the Austrian infantry line, despite taking casualties the Prussians over ran the Austrian batteries and broke another two Austrian infantry regiments so that the survivors were surrounded in and around Mollwitz the Austrians had no choice but to concede and seek to withdraw.
12 bounds in 4 hours sent bad for a relaxed battle involving lots of chat, refreshments etc.
casualties Prussians had lost 16 elements of cavalry, 16 elements of infantry and 3 guns.
The Austrians had lost 10 elements of cavalry, 25 infantry and 3 guns. 18 of the Austrian infantry losses were in 3 regiments that were broken the remaining 7 were spread across the remaining 4 regiments.
The Prussians had only lost one full regiment (6 elements) and still had 11 on the table.
The rules worked well, a couple of things to think about re panic tests, disorder and rally but no serious problems.
A most enjoyable game with more to follow and more Wofun.
