OK so we played this today and it was great fun but unfortunately we didn't get to a conclusion. We managed 9 of 12 turns in 8 hours. It seems a long time, but in there we took breaks and had lunch as well.
Here's a few pics taken with my cell phone
This is game start from the French side of the table. The right center of the picture is Antoing with the river Scheldt just out of the shot. Fontenoy almost in the center and the Bois de Barry (sans trees, we forgot to put them out until about turn 3 or 4) in the upper left.
The Dutch view. (in our case Austrians as we have no 15mm Dutch) The bottom left we see the pesky heavy gun battery that gave one unit the fits all game. The Austrians were able to get into Antoing but they could not clear the town.
And finally the Hanoverian and British view. The Hanovrians managed to breech Fontenoy but had no better luck clearing the town to claim it.
More pictures later.
There were several historical similarities as the game progressed. It didn't seem the Austrians heart were in it to win it. At least not when it came to dealing with the redoubts. And if the cavalry commander could have his way he would have rode down his own men to get to battle. They were constantly looking for a gap to get at the French. Alas the chance never came.
The French skirmishers in the Bois de Barry were a continuous bother all game as they were in history. The aforementioned battery across the Scheldt kept one unit in check the whole game as well. No sooner would it rally from it's fire it would be hit and break again.
The two generals were in not giving mood to offer first fire to the other when the guards met. They blasted each other to smithereens but neither would give way. Eventually it was the French and Swiss guards who relented.
It was just at this point in the game when it seemed the British would isolate Fontenoy and break through the lines that we called the game. One of the players had to go and I had a family emergency. The game was definitely not over and it could have gone both ways yet. But it seemed to be headed towards an historical outcome, but would it have been?
We are going to have to play this again to the end to find out.
