This scenario replay continues from Part 1 here:

As previously mentioned combat is next up –

Combat #1. France always attacks first:

Correction its just 2 Corps, so it becomes a retreat but he is blown anyway due to ZOCs blocking the retreat.

Battle #2

Bulow attacks D’Erlon. This surprised me as I really thought the chance to hit with Orange would have been good for him against Gerard. But instead Bulow attacks with a net +4, [1 cav, 1 General and 1 star]. But the French roll 5+1 star and it’s a loss for the Prussians so they retreat three hexes NE of Sombreffe. stalemate!

Battle #3

I choose to attack with Drouot, against Pirch. Drouot has 2 stars + Cav +1 adjacent Infantry Corps. Blucher adds his star and Pirch gets 1 for terrain +1 for Cav. Fr: +4 Pr. +3

Dice 1,1..gotta love the vassal die roller…that’s two sets of doubles in 3 rolls. Net +1 a retreat. Pirch is Blown.

Orange attacks Gerard? Now maybe?

Nope! The Coalition passes. That is a surprise. Two things I think here, one is that not committing Wellingtons Reserve might have been an error. It would have put a lot of pressure on the French, and secondly not attacking with Orange with the advantage was not good for the Coalition.

With the pass the French roll 1d6 and get 3 more attacks.

They execute their attack against Ziethen, which ends up a draw!

But with two more attacks available, the Guard Corps of Drouot makes itself felt. They attack the exhausted Cav and force a Blown result. Then follow through and attack Theilman and force a retreat. I probably should have tried to attack Zeithen again… but it might be best to leave him locked down there, out of harms way.

What a turn of events. I was quiet worried about the boxing in here, but it all turned out ok. Lets look at the end turn state:

As we can see, if out goal was to keep the two armies separated with have done that! We also wanted to put the hurt on them. We did that too. Sadly tho, not enough for a decisive result. I sense just a minor fracturing or splintering of morale by the Coalition player. But those 3 blown units will return at the top of turn 6. So in the mean time we have to either destroy the Prince of Orange OR Wellingtons Reserve or two Prussian Corps.

The Brits have Cav arriving this turn. Plus weather will soon be a factor. If the British part of the Coalition wants to fight there are few places it can go to support the Prince of Orange and the Reserve Corps. The two green check marks below are his best bets. While Blucher has some choices to make also.