All the King's Men, Friday night game.

Looking to be our regular thing, Friday nights are wargaming night for Spencer and I. Last night we had another rousing game of All the King's Men. Figure are 54mm (aka 2 inch) figs, the kind you can get 36 in a bag for $9. Spencer painted them all. We're playing 7 Year War era stuff here.

 



I chose to play France while Spencer chose The Allies (Britain and all). I like playing France when given the choice. I had the advantage of being able to set up all along my side of the table (south) while The Allies only had about 2/3 of the north side to deploy.

 

France's battle line.

Ally's battle line, boxed in on one side due to the hills and woods.

 

Knowing the Allied restriction and how important it is for infantry to be moved into a position to bring their muskets to bear I set up my infantry in column, thus they moved quicker than in line formation (10" move in column, 6" move in line). I had 2 infantry units in column and my first few moves were getting them to the middle of the field and formed in lines up against the Allies.

 

I immediately lost an cavalry unit on my left flank from Allied cannons. I accidently moved my skirmishers too far but, fortunately, that misstep was not a game changer. The Allies also moved skirmishers into the woods and they took pop-shots at each other. Than we both decided to move cavalry into the woods and a bloodbath ensued resulting in The French holding the woods with the aforementioned skirmishers.

 

Princes of The Woods of Death!

 

French lines holding and bearing fire upon the Allies in the middle of the field.

 



 

A slug fest ensued after the brutal fight in the woods. We exchanged fire and adjusted lines where needed. In the end the French came out the victorious ones. Moves were being made by both sides to take the town in the middle but all was for naught as it was too late. Heavy casualties resulted in The Allies withdrawing from the field.

 

French units moving towards the edge of town, anchoring the right flank's pincher move.

 

Spencer set up the table before I got there, and he drew up maps so that we could do a "blind" deployment prior to coming to the game. The big lesson of this game, for me at least, was how important infantry are. Bravo!

 

Edit: Not 30 Years' War - 7 Years' War.