By Michael Lane

This evening five of us gathered at the excellent Firestorm Games to fight another Seven Years War battle between King Frederick II of Prussia and the Austrians under Prinz Karl Von Lothringen. We used once again my collection of 15mm figures and were once again play testing Simon Miller’s new “Lust for Glory” rules for 18th Century warfare.

As before Douglas Baldwin and James Churchill commanded the Austrians while we had three Prussian commanders. Sid Bennett commanded our left wing horse as Von Zieten while I commanded the right wing horse as Georg Wilhelm Von Driessen. Phil Sweeting took the two Infantry Brigades and had Der Alte Fritz to help him. We used him as a brilliant general while the Austrian Von Lacy was treated as brilliant on the Austrian side with most other Generals as gallant though each of us also had a “Martinet” style commander (an excellent drill master but likely to be shot by his own men).

Once again I fought the Austrian cavalry wing with James, my nemesis of last Friday, in command. He did not disappoint me, entirely smashing my cavalry wing and killing Von Driessen into the bargain. He was first wounded and then killed by a second wound. By the end I had one shaken squadron left of my initial ten squadrons.
Fortunately my co-commanders fared rather better. Douglas Baldwin’s right wing Austrian cavalry was overwhelmed by Von Zieten ably deputised by Sid Bennett.

In the centre the infantry were slugging it out, though as it was a 12’ table, I wasn’t sure of the details much beyond the nearer battalions – the joy of big battles. A Prussian battalion overran an Austrian battery and then took our primary objective beyond. At the same time the King himself was closely supervising one of the Prussian battalions in the right centre, fighting the Austrians at close quarters, where he first suffered a mere scratch, indeed a manly scar. He was then hit again but this time he was felled, stunned for a turn but fortunately with no loss of Victory Medals, as we were by then down to a mere two Victory medals.

The Austrians at that time had six Victory Medals left but lost four when they lost our primary objective. Sid then managed to get the last two Victory Medals we needed to win and did so giving us a close Prussian victory, we only having two medals left ourselves as it ended.

That was quite a battle and most enjoyable even if I personally was given a lesson in cavalry generalship by James. This time we used “one hit” cavalry squadrons rather than “two hit” cavalry regiments. The squadrons become “shaken” if they suffer that one hit rather than being simply destroyed. However unless you can rally them, they are easily destroyed while shaken, by a shooting hit (no save permitted) or by being charged. If you fail a rally test they now retreat one box which can take them off the table. If an Ace is drawn for the rally the shaken unit is destroyed. It makes for a much more interesting cavalry fight and a rather different one to TTS or For King & Parliament Cavalry actions with units with multiple hits.

We plan another battle during the summer break, this time with my Austrians engaging Douglas Baldwin’s Ottoman Turks. That will be rather different with the Austrian confronting Ottoman Janissaries and Sipahi cavalry. An enticing prospect!