Copyright © 2011-2024, Paul Scrivens-Smith

Copyright © 2011-2024, Paul Scrivens-Smith

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of the creator.

Sunday 28 May 2017

Wars of the Sun King in the Sun


It's been a couple of weeks since we played this game, but what with being away on business for one week and a crushing schedule of work the next it's took me a wile to finish this report.

Having played our first game of Chosen Men Well Disposed at the beginning of the month we decided to have another go. In the previous game I had boosted the French army by photographing some units then printing them out. We probably had too much stuff on the table that time, so this time we played with smaller forces just using the stuff that we had painted. It would only be myself and Drew today, Bruce and Sasha were unable to make this one.

I got the table set up in the den, but when Drew arrived the weather was glorious so we carried everything out onto the patio so that we could play there.


As you can see from the shadow the sun was super bright so the first phase of the game was the mandatory application of some sun cream :) 


Drew, as usual, opted for the French and I would be the Dutch, last time we played we counted everything as normal regular troops, this time we rolled a die for each Brigade, on a 1 it was raw, for the infantry or dragoon on a 5 or 6 for the Dutch or a 6 for the French it was veteran, for the horse on a 6 for the Dutch or a 5 or 6 for the French it was veteran. Units marked with green stickers are raw while those marked with red are veterans.


As I would be away on business in Mexico City the following day I though it only right that I should prepare for a trip by cracking open a case of Corona and chopping up some limes. Rather a lot of beer was drunk during the course of this game, so some details may be a bit sketchy....


Both of us had a large cavalry division and a smaller one and both of us managed to pit our bigger one against the smaller one, this would have quite an effect on the battle as it unfolded.


The two infantry divisions closed on each other, the Dutch were almost all veterans while a good half of the Frenchmen were raw, as you may imagine the French held back rather to see if their superior horsemen could gather an advantage first.


On my right I had six units of horse against eight French, four of which were veteran, so I would have to play a cagey game here, as it was once we got stuck in, the French had the initial success


As was alluded to earlier, much Corona was consumed during this exercise.


The hard pressed cavalry fight on the right continued, but I was able to balance that out as the game developed and even broke one of the French Brigades and caused the French Division to retire, although it only cost the French a single Critical Morale point.


In the centre the Dutch and French infantry closed to combat, as was to be expected the superior Dutchmen rolled over their French counterparts, who despite showing great resolve were soon overwhelmed. I was struggling to capitalise on this though as Drew was rolling much better than me for Tempo and the French maintained the initiative throughout the battle.


Eventually the French had lost a division each of horse and foot, while the Dutch has lost a division of horse, the 'broke boxes for each army are shown in the next two images, first the Dutch.


Now the French!


We declared a minor victory to the Dutch again and retired to the patio sofa to drink more Coronas and to enjoy some lovely sushi that Victoria had prepared for us.






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