A modal realistic Battle of Lobositz

When my biographer comes to write the chapter related to wargaming in 2016 he may get somewhat confused. We have already refought the 1756 Battle of Lobositz once and, if I have been paying attention, will be doing it again at Derby, complete with extinct volcano and mad cavalry charges. Now, in the campaign set one year later we find ourselves once again fighting a battle with the same name. However this time not only is there no Lobosch, but the Prussians under Prince Henry were trying to pass north through the Mittel-Gebirge not south.

You are probably expecting this blog post to be along the lines of ' I rather like Piquet despite the Austrians having been hammered again' and you would only partly be wrong. The Austrians won, as they were always going to given their superiority in numbers, but it wasn't the crushing victory that it might have been. The reason for that wasn't - for once - incompetence on my part, but was rather because that mechanisms in Piquet allow for unusual narratives to develop; and that's certainly what happened. My own plan was to attack on my left with infantry while moving my cavalry, supported by artillery, around the village on the right to take out the Prussian cavalry that I expected to be there for no better reason than there was nowhere else for Peter to put them. I concentrated my infantry on the left, but the extent to which I could do this was limited by the quantity of units and the space in which I could deploy them. The strategic campaign situation made it a fair possibility that the Prussians would attack despite being outnumbered and would hope for the best. In such circumstances my plan, after much detailed pre-battle analysis and consideration, was to busk it.

James has already posted about the game so I shall simply highlight a few points which I think pertinent:

•  The main reason that things developed the way they did was that for the second game running the Prussians got absolutely all the initiative; they had had more than twenty before I'd turned a card. In a more traditional 'you go, I go' game I would have had many chances to fire at the smaller force as it approached. In Piquet it doesn't work like that. I think it's that element above all others that puts off some people. I won't deny that it can be frustrating, but the fact that things can, and do, develop in a different way every time one plays is what I really like about the game. It is worth noting that the only pause in the flow of initiative to the Prussians was, as so often in Piquet, just at the point where forces had closed and it would have been most useful.
• Initiative isn't the only variable in Piquet where luck can upset one's plans. I had six commanders: two were average, one - Archduke Charles himself - was poor (resulting in an added Command Indecision card), and three - three! - were abysmal. In the event none of this mattered, but had my ability to rally units been called on, then I would have been stuffed.
• That was where the luck ran out for the Prussians. Piquet involves a draw at the beginning for morale and other factors. I drew well:
• I had plenty of morale; not a huge amount, but sufficient.
• I drew a Brilliant Leader card; effectively a wild card. It only came up once during the game, but served as a very timely musket reload.
• I drew a Infantry Morale Up 1 card, meaning that my units were more likely to pass morale challenges; given my superiority in morale chips this was very useful.
• I drew two stratagem cards. I've been playing Piquet for years and do not recall ever even having drawn one before. One stratagem - heavy rain - was no use to me so I returned it (for which I received a Melee card which was never turned in the game), but the second was a belter.
• This second was Heroic Command; all units in one of my commands could ignore the first stand loss for all purposes. I designated my largest command, that on the left under Arenberg, with which I was to make my main attack. As luck would have it that was where the Prussian attack came in. Without this card things would have been much worse.
• My final area of luck was one that could have happened in any wargame. I kept hitting things every time I fired. I had been on the receiving end of something similar during the Battle of Sobotka. Sometimes that's just what happens.
• I thought the latest withdrawal rules had a lot of merit. The fact that I didn't achieve anything during pursuit fire was irritating, but simply proved for a non-Piquet mechanism (this is real bucket of dice stuff; I could only just fit my twenty seven dice in my hands, or find space on the table to roll them) it provides a wide range of possible results similar to the game onto which it has been bolted. It's also entirely consistent with Charles being poor and in command of a bunch of abysmal generals.
• The decision to end the game was driven in large part by timing and logistics, but I was happy with it. I was about to finish off the Prussian cavalry with artillery and the infantry in the centre by sheer weight of numbers, but looked likely to take further losses on my left. I was also somewhat worried about Arenberg, who appeared to be aiming to fight the Prussians single handed, and whose loss would have had negative consequences in the campaign.