16 players IIRC, at least that's how many stars I saw. Did we lose anybody?
It was a tremendous spectacle, but knowing the Anglo-Allied army well, I was pretty sure, seeing that this was the Prince of Orange's corps and included Baron Chasse's Dutch-Belgian division that we probably wouldn't be able to pull this one off. We had General Hill's division as well which included a small brigade of foot guards under Maitland plus a few British regiments but most of the army was made up of dubiously-motivated Dutch, Belgians and Hanoverian militia regiments. I commanded Detmer's brigade of a Dutch Fusilier battalion, a Belgian Chasseur battalion and four Dutch-Belgian Militia battalions. The militia were rated 3 under the SoW system and the regulars a 4. Having played many many games of ACW SoW with troops of worse quality than this I felt we might have a chance but during the post-battle debrief I found out that the French were 6s and 7s I was shocked!
I was the very tail-end brigade on the line of march as the army moved off in a north-easterly direction from just west of Badenhausen towards Austingen with our cavalry brigades under Gen Hays moving on Rohr to spy out the enemy. I had a lot of fun just remembering how satisfying it is in this game to get a brigade marching along a road for a half-hour or more.
I eventually sighted a French brigade deployed facing north astride the Eichstadt Road somewhere north of Eurenbach and our army ahead of me seemed to be frustratingly intent on marching all around it in a wide clockwise semi-circle. I deployed to observe and threaten the left flank of the enemy and for the longest time they seemed unsupported. I sent off several riders to Gen Baron Chasse (Swinder) advising him that the enemy held the objective though only weakly but our slow amd measured plan ran on, like unstoppable clockwork. I received the order to move from my position threatening the enemy left, right across behind the army to just west of Appersdorf where I deployed as the reserve behind the rest of the division. By now the French on that dam*ed "sausage hill" had been reinforced by guns and more brigades and it looked like we'd have to push them off it the hard way
I was deployed on the left wing with 2 of Kg-Soldier's brigades to my right and his third brigade (3 British regiments under Whiteflag) on my left. We had to advance up a gentle slope and into a wood. We gained ground although my troops were very twitchy and needed constant rotating out of the line but we actually pushed the French back a couple of hundred yards and began to swing around and threaten their right only to see them draw up on the southern fringe of the woods on the high south bank of a small stream which my brigade would have to ford across and then attack up the far bank.
All my units in the firing line had suffered many more casualties than they had inflicted and the Netherlands Militia were very poor troops. They would stand and take it in the line for a while but they could not win a battle.
It was at this time that I learned (mostly from seeing the horizon behind my right shoulder crowded with fleeing fugitives) that our centre had collapsed and we had to halt our advance and draw back north, trying to cover what was left of our centre.
The Nap Mod definitely gives a fantastically colourful game. More please!
