The Battle of St Germanus of Auxerre

 Apparently 31 July is the feast day of St Germanus of Auxerre. It was also the day that I crossed the Pennines to meet up with m'colleague Neil for the first time since late 2019 for a game, so that is the name we adopted for our battle. This was a 7 Years War encounter using the Maurice rules. We've had plenty of battles in this setting before but this was the first time that I had a complete army so we designed 100 points ish armies using the Succession Wars rules. The game would pit my Hesse Kassel Reinforcement of His Britannic Majesty's Army against Neil's Frenchies.

The battlefield and initial deployment. My Hessians are on the right, Neil's French on the left. We both made use of National Advantages and both had picked Deadly Volleys and Cadence.

My Light Brigade formed my left flank, consisting of the Buckeberg Carabiniers mounted and on foot plus a battalion of Jaegers. Their job was to occupy the town and woods to my left.

The infantry formed my centre, here in columns ready to march, while my cavalry brigade took the right flank.

Neil's French, in line and ready for battle. The infantry unit in the foreground are a Scottish Jacobite regiment that he forgot to move in his first few turns and so played no part in the battle. As they were one of his more powerful units this was a costly error.

The game started with both armies advancing to contact. It quickly became clear that the open valley in the centre of the battlefield was where the action would be decided. I took advantage of the Cadence advantage and quickly deployed an unbroken line of 4 battalions, with Jaegers in the woods to their left and decided to let the French come to me. We also selected some Notables for this game. One of mine conferred a +1 to hit on any unit it joined. I attached him to the Lieb Regiment, one of my infantry battalions. However, some careless deployment saw the Lieb Regiment form part of my second line so could not use this advantage until late in the game.

On my left the Light infantry had quickly garrisoned the town and a wood to its right. The Buckeberg Carabiniers, scouting forward, found the French artillery within charge range and unsupported. This was too tempting so they unsheathed the sabres and charged the guns. Through some poor dice rolls (poor dice rolling became a feature of both sides' cavalry during the battle) the close assault was inconclusive and the Carabiniers fell back. Next turn Neil invoked a volley, the French gunners calmly loaded grapeshot and blew the Carabiniers away. First blood to the French.

On the right, both army's cavalry became embroiled in an ineffectual melee. As usual, it was the infantry who would decide the day.

My infantry, deployed into 2 lines, waiting for the approaching French.

After a few volleys one French battalion had broken. The French fixed bayonets and charged the Hessian line. After the numerous melees had been resolved, the Hessian 7th Erbprinz Regiment and 5/8 converged Grenadiers had been broken, with no French losses. However, their exertions had left several French battalions in a perilous state. A bombardment from my artillery was enough to break the French Grenadiers and, once my second line of infantry had marched forward, a few more volleys were enough to break several more French battalions. Meanwhile, on the right, my cavalry had slowly started to get the upper hand and had routed a French cavalry regiment. At this point, General Neil offered his sword and I accepted the honours of war.

Final positions, as the continuous volley of muskets takes its toll on the French and their centre starts to collapse.

So, first blood to the Hessians and, despite the final butcher's bill, quite a tight game until the very end. This is the first time that we have chosen our own forces, rather than use a historical scenario. The various armies in Maurice are all quite similar, so it was interesting to see how different our 2 armies are. My Hessians are a small force, but all trained. Neil by contrast has gone for a mix of trained and conscript, resulting in a significantly larger force but of a lesser quality. In the tight confines of this battle he could not bring that numerical superiority to bear, so in the end I think that the quality of my troops made the difference. In a more open field this situation could be reversed.

In the post battle admin my broken battalions have been reformed, but of conscript quality (even my elite converged Grenadiers frustratingly) and my 1st Prince Wilhelm cavalry have become elite. That very useful Notable who conferred a +1 to hit modifier had apparently decided that they'd had their shilling's worth out of him and retired.

Neil has added a write up of the battle from the French point of view on his blog over at asandboxinsheffield.blogspot.com