Oeversee III, Schleswig-Holstein Action

Saturday afternoon we played the 1864 battle of Oeversee (2^nd Schleswig-Holstein War) again. The first two games saw the attacking Austrians roundly thumped. This time was different. Konstantinos Travlos’ scenario can be found here. Rules: Bloody Big Battles.

 

Andrew and his 9-year-old daughter Emily arrived. Jay had to cancel at the last minute due to a family emergency. We hope he and family fare well. Andrew, an aggressive player, decided to take the Austrians after being warned of their previous fate. The previous Austrians hadn’t had Emily.

Andrew and Emily were delayed a bit and had a long, hot walk from the subway. After a leisurely lunch, completed by my wife’s cupcakes, we started. I deployed the Danes as before, artillery on the right flank hill, shielded from direct assault by infantry or cavalry by the frozen lake, a pair of infantry regiments covering the center. The photos below tell the story. (Yes, the "Danes" are FPW French Naval Infantry. They are on "snow" bases.)

A previous game of Shiloh saw me rolling snake eyes so frequently that my opponents nearly cried with laughter. The pendulum swung the other way, starting with  boxcars rolled against one of the Austrian artillery batteries. Boom.

And here the boxcars reappeared, three times. On the two Austrian assaults, I rolled a moderate 3 each time. The first assault saw the Austrians roll a 1 and barely drive back my 1^st Infantry. The second time they rolled a 5. With modifiers, that sent the 11^th Infantry back at a run with losses and allowed the Austrians to overrun an objective.

The Austrians managed to tie the game, losing 4 bases of infantry and one of cavalry. A base of infantry and cavalry had each fled the field. One artillery base was damaged. The Danes lost three bases of infantry, higher losses than in previous games. Good work by the Austrians, especially facing the deadly firepower of the Danish boxcars. The game took 72 minutes. This was the first time we played it face to face. The first game was run via Zoom, the second on Discord (and bi-continental).

 

I hoped to run the game twice but a late start and lengthy lunch put paid to a second game. The conversation (and beer) was well worth it. We hadn’t seen each other since April.

(Next time I will save edited photos under different names. That way, when I spot typos on the photos I can go back to the originals and correct them. Sigh.)