Prinz Eugen Playtest - the Combat of Zinna - Report

I played through the Combat of Zinna using Max Foy's Prinz Eugen hex-based rules for the War of the Spanish Succession. As Zinna was a SYW game I made a few tweaks to account for the slightly different troop types and capabilities.

(1) I treated skirmishers as normal infantry for firing but gave them a starting status of 2. Also I made it no harder to hit them with firing since I thought that this would make them too powerful. My rationale was that lots of lead flying around would make them more wary of popping up to reload and shoot. There's probably a better way to represent skirmishers, but it worked OK. 

(2) I gave non-Prussian light cavalry a starting status of 2 as opposed to the normal 3 (I'm sticking with the WRG that Prussian hussars were battle cavalry in the SYW). I would have given Prussian lights a minus if they came up against heavies in the first round of combat.

(3) I treated dragoons as heavy cavalry for the SYW. No bonus given for cuirassiers over dragoons, though this was a decision driven by the wish to make a game of it, rather than an effort to reflect historical quality.

(4) I gave heavy guns (12 pounders in this case) a longer range, increasing it from 4 to 6 hexes (1200 paces) representing the incremental improvements in gun technology and professionalism in the intervening 50 years.

(5) I allowed brigade orders to apply for firing as well as moving.

I didn't make any use of formation changing, stacking or spanning. This was mainly to keep it simpler for myself on a first play through.

The game lasted under two hours, and that included checking the main rules every now and again. Partly this was because the action was a small one. Partly it was because it was easy to remember the sequence and factors in tables. Including 3 generals, the Prussians had 15 units and the Imperialists 22 (including 3 generals). To even things up a bit I made the Prussian general Wunsch good (extra command chip) and the Imperialist St André poor (minus 1 command chip). This meant both sides got a basic stack of 6 command chips per turn. * VP target for the Prussians was 7 and the Imperialists target was 5 based on 1/3 of the total units. The rules were pretty clear, although I did discover I'd made a couple of mistakes later on (one more serious than the other, and that was due to my inattention). So kudos Monsieur Foy!

Do the rules give a reasonable representation of linear warfare? Yes. Can you pick them up and learn them quickly? Yes. They would probably play well for armies of up to say 30 units a side (including generals as units). This would mean a relatively small or medium sized action in terms of historic battles. For larger actions you could consider the units as regiments of infantry (large cavalry regiments) or even as whole brigades. In that case I would probably do away with ranged combat for infantry as the ground scale would be smaller, and subsume infantry firing into close combat with suitable tweaks.

The game itself was a close run thing in the sense that either side could have won it in what turned out to be the final turn. First blood went to the attacking Prussians who had some lucky shooting forcing the left wing Imperial cavalry to retreat and wiping out one infantry battalion.

Set-up. Prussians to the right, Imperialists to the left. I used Prussian musketeers for the mostly blue clad Imperial foot, and fusileers and grenadiers for the Prussians (since that is what their units were on this occasion). In the end I forgot to make any distinction in quality. Wunsch has a unit of hussars sneaking behind the village.

The Imperial left (top) has taken a battering and their right wing slowly reaches the stream and begins to cross. Square bases in front of the Imperialists are their battalion guns. Foot units are two bases of 24 figures, so almost 'Charge' sized units. Cavalry are 2 bases of 10. Instead of command chips I am using 'ADC' figures and casualty figures instead of hit markers.

Having gone into an early lead of 4 units to 1, the Prussians begin to suffer the withering fire of the Kaiserlicks, most of whom have battalion guns. You can see the ragged nature of some 'unformed' units and the casualty markers. Lots of Prussian units are on the verge of collapsing.

Top left, the Prussians have bent back the Imperialists left flank but the foot unit with 2 casualty markers fled from contact rather than let the Prussian hussars cut them up. This was a vital point in retrospect as the Austrians had lost 6 units (including one general). In the centre a unit of Imperial cavalry have penetrated the Prussian line, swept away a nit of skirmishers and are about to run amok. They choose to attack the third Prussian battalion whilst their infantry comrades shoot at the nearest two. The combined effect of this turn is that the Imperialists sweep to victory, err... 6-6 (see above *). The last unit to fall was accompanied by Wunsch himself (a 1 was rolled on 'risk to general') so 2 VPs in one combat.

The previously mentioned Imperial cavalry (circled) next to a gap where two Prussian infantry units had been. You can see the 3 other Prussian line infantry are teetering on the brink too (2 losses each - 3 means elimination). Other than that, all the Prussians have left are the hussars and two units of skirmishers (top left) and a battery (top right) and a battered dragoon unit (off camera). Maybe slightly more aggressive use of the hussars might have bagged the Prussians that extra VP needed.

So shades of Kolin here. The Prussians didn't have quite enough units to take the day, whilst possible victory was turned into defeat by the late attack by enemy cavalry riding down the exhausted bluecoats.