Maurice playtest: part I

In the late 2013 I playtested Maurice Lite: no picture were taken since the camera was jammed at the time. Then in 2014 I bought the fully-flegded version of Maurice and after a more couple of years I decided to playtest it. I have painted enough Danish units to get a small army to oppose at a more or less equally small Swedish one.

The situation is that of the Scanian campaign, a small trained Danish army against a more numeros but less trained Swedish army (so this will not be Helsingors, rather an “Helsingors Lite”…). I kept the terrain as simple as possible (a wood and an hill with a stream at the “short” boundaries, two small hills behind the lines to mark the objectives.

The Danish army (in background) is composed by 2 Regular Cavalry, 3 Regular Infantry and 1 gun, all Trained. The national advantage is “Lethal Volley”. Total points 45.

The Swedish army (in the foreground) is composed by 2 Regular Cavalry, 1 Trained Regular Infantry, 4 Conscript Regular Infantry and 2 guns, Trained: the infantry is all pike-armed. The national advantage is “A là Baionette”. Total points 46.

The Army Morale should be 3 for the Danish and 4 for the Swedish: I fixed both Army Morale to 4 to avoid “sudden death” situations in the very first stages of the playtest.

The battle is a small one, so I can concentrate to understand the rules.

The Swedish plan is to attack with the left flank, which is covered by the wood: the cavalry must spearhead the advance of the trained unit (that with red facings: Narke-Varmalands and Jonkopings) and two further conscript units. The other two conscript are “refused” and protected by the cavalry. By using “A la Bàionette” the swedish hope to break the Danish morale and maybe conquest the objective.

The Danish plan is straightforward: wait for the Swedish advance and kill them piecewise with the “Lethal Volleys”.

The Danish centre with the artillery in front of the infantry units. From left-to-right Lollandske and Prins von Hesse brigade, 1st Danske and Prins Christian brigade and on the right Garden tip Fods and Grenadierkorpset brigade (I didn't make this brigade Elite in the playtest).

The Swedish centre: on the right the Narke-Varmaland and Jonkopings Trained brigade.

A close-up of the left-wing swedish cavalry with the two lines of infantry in background.

The view from the Swedish right-centre towards the Danish line.