A Seven Year's War Game!

Thirty years or so ago, we were playing a lot of Seven Years War in 15mm using Warfare in the Age of Reason. Our armies got rather large.

Then Scott had to sell off his Austrians and French and my I was left to slowly build my own in-house opponent for the Prussians. 

I last had my SYW figures out in 2013 for a game of Maurice with the Mad Padre.

In the meantime, Scott has been able to rebuild his Austrians so it was about time they got on the table.

Prussian left

Prussian center 

Austrian right and center. He's massed 6 regiments of Cuirassiers and Dragoons 

Austrian musketeers 

Austrian hussars and Croats looking pretty on his left

My light troops on the right; hussars, jaegers and Freikorps. 

Thundering Doom approaching like the Rohirrim at Minas Tirith 

See those Musketeers with all the hits and the "Unformed" marker? Yeah, they won't be there for long. Notice Scott's team shirt. I'm sure it helped.

Ouch baby, very ouch. Ridden down the first line and about to rout the second line.

Breakthrough! After this picture was taken, we realized that I could counter-charge with some dragoons and one of the cuirassier regiments had to back up to fight my dragoons. Not that that changed anything for the infantry.

A second battalion of Musketeers about to be ridden down

Swirling cavalry fight as dragoons try to plug the hole.

Initially I was rolling hot with my artillery fire, dispersing a couple of battalions of musketeers. Although we agreed that we probably had too many batteries on the table for an 18th century battle.

But then when he launched his big cavalry charge my dice rolling went badly and things went rather pear-shaped. His cuirassier regiment that broke through two lines of musketeers also overran my Life Guard Grenadier battalion! The Foot Guards finally saw them off with a volley and they retired in disarray, with only one hit left before dispersal.

Counter-charging dragoons also rolled badly and were dispersed for their troubles, so this left my left wing and the cavalry brigades faltering. I had hoped that the "new unit curse" would help me, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to extend to whole new armies.

We were trying to use General d'Armee, but I'm not sure how well it reflects the period. Artillery is perhaps too powerful, and infantry musketry not powerful enough.