CHOTUSITZ - A short report on the first two moves of the solo game

 The Austrians pushed forward with their infantry. The gun line caused some confusion as the infantry moved to keep the fire lanes open.

After the I'd played this through I suddenly realised the Austrians were over egged in the artillery department so the problem will be less of an issue in subsequent re-fights.

 The Grenz on the Austrian left pushed forward to taunt the Prussian cavalry with a desultory fire.

 On the Prussian left Waldow's cavalry began to deploy....

 ....and with the aid of a Brilliant leader card, accomplished the feat with alacrity.

 On the Prussian right, as Buddenbrock came forward, the Austrian cavaly under Bitthyanyi descended the ridge to meet them and support the Grenz which were looking decidedly overexposed.

 On the Austrian right Liechtenstein's cavalry took the initiative. 

 It wasn't long before the cavalry action on both wings became a swirling melee of charge and counter charge. 

Things didn't progress very historically - the Prussians came off worst on both wings - but there is no accounting for some dice rolls!

 Turn two saw the Austrian infantry beginning to engage. It was at this moment that I began to see a problem with the set up. 

I realised that I had set up the battle with Chotusitz and Leopold's command too close to the Prussian base line. Although I had left the timing of Frederick's arrival vague, it soon became apparent that he would have no room to manoeuvre when he did arrive.

 Leopold's infantry began to scramble into Chotusitz.....

  ......before overwhelming numbers of Austrian white coats, admittedly with some casualties, smashed all before them.

 As turn 2 came to a close the cavalry battle on the right was finally resolved and the Austrians, much dispersed, had total control of this wing.

 The infantry assault on Chotusitz was about to begin.

You can clearly see, in this picture, the restricted space into which Frederick can deploy (between the road exit on the Prussian baseline and Chotusitz). When he arrives it will be immediately into the teeth of Austrian musketry.

 On the extreme right the Austrians prepared their cavalry to redeploy towards the left.

This picture shows another error in the set up. I chose to feature the Brslenka stream and boggy ground along the whole length of this end of the table. It took up too much room and made the deployment area between it and Chotusitz too narrow.

I could see that the game, due to the set up, would not work as planned so I called a halt to it. I will reset the table before attempting the battle again. Solo games have more uses than just to have fun.

I've decided to play it at almost one unit to one regiment next time. I've just got one more unit of Austrian cavalry to paint ( I painted two more last week), two or three units of Prussian infantry in tricornes (so I don't have to use fusiliers) and a unit of the Guard (3rd battalion in mitres).