FK&P AAR: Overlord!
/Off to Overlord, Abingdon Wargames society’s annual show, to play a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant pit on as a demonstration game by friends Si and Mark.
I would play the Polish-Lithuanians versus Gary and Si playing the Ottomans.
The set up was an approximate version of the end of a very important battle in the Vienna campaign (they’ll never know that I can’t remember which one!) in which the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, headed by the Winged Hussars, destroyed the Ottoman cavalry and won the day.
I had set up hoping that history would repeat itself, with the Hussars and Pancieri heavy cavalry on the right of the line facing the Ottoman horse, and with my lighter cavalry and Haiduk levy infantry on the left. The Ottomans had their guns and Janissery veteran infantry in the centre, but only their Azabs on the right, so I was hoping that even if the Hussars didn’t do the business, my infantry could defeat the far right of the Ottoman line and then loop in to roll up the fiendish Turk.
The battle began with the Poles pushing forward strongly across the whole front except the far right, where the cavalry command there stubbornly refused to move forward.
Confident in the quality of the Hussars, my tactics on the right were just “get stuck in”…which seemed to work very well as before long the Ottoman cavalry had melted away in front of me.
At the other end of the table, the Janisseries unwittingly played into my plan by not coming forward but choosing to exchange inconclusive long range fire with my Haiduks.
This meant that I could then, as planned, try to get around the left-hand end of his line…which sort of worked in that I did manage to get into a decent flanking position, but just couldn’t deliver a coup de grace that would let me start rolling it up.
Meanwhile, the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, having defeated their Ottoman equivalents, turned in (well, those who weren’t pursuing did) and started to roll up the enemy line from the other end.
This culminated in a flank charge into the Guard Janisseries plus “marching band army standard” that should have swept them off the board but unfortunately just bounced off!
There was still nothing much happening at the other end of the table. My flanking manoeuvre was still sort of working, the Janisseries were still hanging back…
…which gave me the opportunity to hit the pesky Guard Janisseries with another unit, and this time the extraordinary chits I pulled from the bag did the damage and destroyed them.
This actually won me the game as I think I took five medals from that one unit (two for the unit, two for an officer and one from the marching band standard) which was quite lucky as the rest of the Ottoman line had finally realised that they needed to do something and had moved forward in a threatening manner!
But they were too late. As mentioned above, the game was already mine not, I hasten to add, as a result of any great tactical manoeuvring on my part: it was the Winged Hussars crashing through the Ottoman horse that did the trick. I was having a good day on the chits as well: saving far more often than I should have, and getting some cracking attack chits in as well.
All in all it was a most enjoyable game and a great chance to play with Si’s beautifully painted toys. The Overlord show was good as well: heartily recommended for a visit and definitely on the list for next year.
