Honours of War SYW Solo Game

The final game in my trio of Seven Years War rules trials completed yesterday with a new game (new for me, anyways) on the table: Honours of War by Keith Flint, published by Osprey. 

As most of you who have been following this fun endeavor know, I have been playing the same battle with different sets of rules, and only utilizing 6 units from the Neil Thomas force builder in "One Hour Wargames."  This entire thing was started by Norm with his excellent "pocket armies" idea and I have been capitalizing on his good ideas.

The scenario is #4 "Take the High Ground" from the One Hour Wargames scenarios.  Austrians are the red player, Prussians are the blue in this Seven Years War showdown.  Now to the action!

Prussians in battle line in foreground.  Austrians both atop the hill and to the northeast of the hill.

I really enjoyed the subtle command rules with testing for how the brigade will move/perform this turn.  The ability to get a double move, or possibly not move at all is neat and this is not modeled in a dramatic or "over the top" way like SOME say Black Powder can be....I will say that most of the time, the opposing brigades were "steady" and were allowed a single move.

Initial Prussian moves towards the hill, leaving a good gap for the 2 batteries deployed to support the advance

 I will also say the artillery ranges "feel" right, as do the musket ranges.  I used half movement values since I'm playing with 15mm troops.

The first few turns pass in relative quiet with only the artillery offering battle.  That will change soon! 

Casualties scored on the Wolfenbuttel Regiment on the left as it approaches the guns.  

 A neat feature of these rules are that you place your commander first, where you think he will do the most good and where you want him to go to accomplish something.  This is a neat feature and allows for a small modicum of planning to occur in the battle.  This became really crucial for me as my Prussian battalions in contact accumulated 4 hits and had to run off to rally!

Lights moving through the woods.  Check!

Another neat feature about these rules are the way firing and melee are handled practically the same.  While there are numerous modifiers, they aren't too bad and the game doesn't feel like an accounting drill like some others.

So far, 4 turns into the game, they've played according to my historical pre-conceived notions.  Like marching a regiment up into the face of canister fire means the regiment is going to get hosed with grapeshot and forced back. 

Note the troops with the red die and a number 4 on them.  They've fallen back to reform.  Trouble is, they're still not far enough away and will require another turn of movement to get right to the table edge.

Your army commander automatically removes hits, provided all of the prerequisites have been met.

 As the Prussians are taking "rookie" casualties, the Austrians are rolling 6's on their command checks and garnering 2 moves!  Yikes!  They deploy to reinforce the hill and block any flanking attempt.  Eventually the Austrian regiments will form a solid line with their lights in the woods.

I'm using my Prussian cavalry to screen for me.  Note the 2 Prussian units at the base of the hill.  Their shooting will prove to be abysmal!  Even  with the modifier!  My rolling is just that bad.

Prussians looking okay now but still not causing any casualties.  

 The Prussians are making good use of their guns to drive off the Austrian guns.  It works and the Austrians take 4 hits, driving off the battery!

Prussian attack falling apart!

 Okay so it's worth mentioning here that I got a little discouraged.  The attack faltered and my beautiful battalions all fell back, one after the other!  It occurred to me, though, that there was no reason I couldn't rally the hits off (at least 3 hits, units always keep 1) and send them back up the hill.  It would take awhile, but that's exactly what I did.  I really appreciate that about these rules - that you can put units back into the fight after they run off.

All 3 Prussian units suffering hits and/or in a state of reforming.

 Payback is swift.  After driving off the artillery, the Prussian guns fire on the Austrians on the hilltop, shattering them.  They're "done for" and pull out!

Austrians.  Now you see them.

Now you don't!

The Austrians send a Hungarian unit to the hill to hold it.  Meanwhile, the Prussians continue to rally

 The Prussian artillery drives the hungarians off, too.  I remembered the bit in the rules about the crest of hills but instead kept the men on the forward slope, a victim of habit!

reformed Prussian assault!

 The Anhalt, by the way, the unit I always select to lead my attacks, is stuck, and by stuck I mean since they are out of command they must roll a 4 or higher to move.  Over the rest of the game, they consistently failed to do this.  Due to the pressure of continuing the attack, I had to use my 2 effective regiments to move forward.

I move my cavalry up to charge the lights, while Hulsen prepares to assault the hill!

CHARGE!

Hulsen is victorious but the Dragoons are sent packing!  Both combats took at least 2 rounds to finish.

I had to call the game on turn 11 as my forces were scattered all to hell and back and dinner was ready...  Also the Prussian infantry "brigade" could scarcely be called a brigade with a unit on the hill, the Anhalt messing around failing their command check for every single turn, and Wolfenbuttel forced back twice.

My units are in a precarious position and all close to breaking again.  Meanwhile the Austrians have rallied the guns and are back on the hill with a light battalion and a medium artillery battery.  I'm not even close to breakpoint for either side yet however I'm 4 turns from turn 15 (OHW scenario 4 victory conditions stipulate 15 turns).  This was a clear Austrian victory.  Again!

Thoughts?

Here is what I liked about Honours of War:

All of the fighting is adjudicated through the same table.  This is a very clean way to do it and it moves the game along quickly.

I liked the subtle command rules, until I had units falling back everywhere and could no longer control them.  This would be handy in big battles with scores of units, but doesn't work great for the whole pocket armies idea.

The capabilities of the units are perfect and the battle has a great SYW feel to it.  You have to think like a commander on a horse and musket battlefield.  (I honestly can't think of a bigger compliment than this, by the way).

This is very much a general's game where planning out your battle pays off.  In that sense, it really captures the feel of the SYW in an efficient and elegant way.

As Jonathan says, I can use my singly based unit stands here and it will not really matter too much.

Here is what I disliked about Honours of War:

Are the standard light infantry too powerful?  I played a test game before the test game and I may have been doing something incorrectly because my lights were kicking a** and taking names and shooting like their line infantry cousins.  This seemed like it wasn't correct, and given Mr Flint's obvious knowledge of the period, I feel like I was doing something wrong.  In my game here, the light battalion threw off the dragoons in melee!  This guys are super soldiers!

The strengths of the rules seem to be in bigger battles - meaning a smaller game with a few units per side probably won't play as enjoyable as if you had 20 battalions on a side.  I hope that makes sense.



So there you have it.  My final batrep from this solo, SYW trio of experiments!  I saved the best for last and this was a very enjoyable battle.  I would like to play a bigger game of Honours of War with even more units, perhaps even an historical scenario if I can get more units painted.  I'm glad to have finally played these rules as I've been wanting to for quite some time.