Charles of Lorraine comes good

There are many reasons why I would have been a terrible general, most prominently my complete unsuitability - both physical and psychological - for being a soldier in the first place. The specific failing that translates most directly to wargaming is my problem with visualising things; my brain simply doesn't work in a way to allow me to readily see things that aren't currently in front of me. This manifests itself in a variety of ways; for example you should see me struggle to assemble slopes and hills out my Hexon terrain. Over the last two weeks, in the Battle of Aussig, it caused me to fail to recognise that my artillery (that's my remaining artillery, having lost one gun immediately we started) was already ideally sited, and thus to wander it about the battlefield to no effect. In the end James - the not entirely neutral umpire - pointed out where I was going wrong, the guns came into action and the game was over shortly thereafter. For the record this in no way implies that I have reconsidered my opinion about the overall quality of James' advice and I shall forthwith revert to my normal practice of ignoring him completely.

I was actually going to win anyway. It had been a good game, really showing off the strengths of the Piquet system. At the beginning of the evening the Austrians looked like the only possible winners, and then a combination  of initiative and luck of the cards swung things back to the Prussians before, just when they were close to an upset, things reverted and the Austrians finally triumphed. My initial set up wasn't so good and my tactics may have been dodgy, but I did get one thing right. Knowing that I had a huge superiority in morale chips, I challenged pretty much every time I caused a stand loss and chewed up enough of the Prussians morale to prevent them from rallying back UI when it really mattered.

This was the first encounter of the campaign and I at least am still getting used to the impact of the campaign rules on the tabletop game. Some aspects were clear, for example there were no cavalry melees as both sides kept an eye on the post battle pursuit phase. Others came more into focus as the endgame approached. The balance between firing early (and therefore inflicting stand losses which will influence the campaign) and not (being loaded and able to opportunity fire is important in Piquet) is nuanced, and one of those judgement calls that it will be very easy to get wrong. I thought that the final stage - the restriction on withdrawing until reaching zero morale and then the option to do so thereafter - worked OK, although I think it perhaps needs more constraint on when it can be triggered.

So, a rare victory for Charles and we move on to turn three.