Game 3 vs Early German, Milano 11/2010
Third game I met an early German army. Lots of warbands and CvO. Terrain would be critical again, as the proportion of cavalry in my opponent's army.
The table was quite good, with a side cluttered by a large marsh and some more difficult. On my right there was my huge GH.
My obvious plan would have been an outflank on the right. The issue was what the german would have done.
The armies deployed. My opponent had just two corps on the table. He deployed the warband mass near the swamp, and the Cv corps with CvO in first line and some IKnF protected in the second line. The army was deployed deep, with reserved ready to fill gaps, and with flanks covered. A sound plan.
I guessed the missing corps could be delayed, but I wasn't sure about it. If I would have engaged the germans in a defensive position, the arrival in my back of enemy Cv could prove deadly. If the corps was delayed, my attack on the right would have made it enter behind the enemy lines and not beside it. This would have greatly hampered my battle, because I wanted to crush the enemy and arrive to the fourth game in a confort classment position.
I decided to stay put and wait the enemy reinfocements. I had a slight hope that my opponent could have made the mistake to flank march, and give me the opportunity to break his corps piecemal.
I waited for six bounds, when finally the germans arrived. A delayed corps. My opponent did not make any mistakes so far, but being him experienced I didn't expect any present. Now I had an opportunity, because the enemy lines were kinked and a flank was exposed.
The bad news was the presence of an infantry corps in the center of his two mounted groups. With WbS in front, I should expect a lot of attrition and repulses with possibly the exposure of the Lh flanks fighting enemy Cv.
Here we go. My attack manouver.
The Germans, aware of the threat, manouver. Unfortunately for me the delayed corps had extremely good pips all game long, and was able to well coordinate the infantry and mounted manouver
Once in line, the germans pushed. I had some pip problem and was not properly deployed. I took the small risk to divide in two my left corps to manouver to a better position and duly proceeded to roll 1 pip. My Lh on the far left can be seen attacking impetously the enemy infantry.
I accepted the challenge and attacked all over the line. In a few spots I gained an overlap versus the enemy Cv, so I tried to exploit this minimal advantage.
If I could make some inroads I would have destroyed his army I thought, and the situation on the right was promising with a bit of luck
.
On the left wing the enemy infantry was too tough frontally, but having disordered the enemy line, I activated a feigned flight.
The ruse failed, because the two corps in the range of feigned flight influence rolled 5 and 6 on their pip dice. The combat went on, and I started taking losses. Furthermore I could not kill the enemy elements on the right end of the line, even when hard flanked.
My opponent methodically pluged gaps and picked off more and more LhS. I was saved by the time end, because I was one element away from losing 10% of the army. 13-12 for me in a game that was a losing fight. It was an excellent result, once I failed my attacks.
In this game I made a couple of mistakes. First, as can be seen in the last picture, I deployed badly because I had a lot of reserves on the right but missed them on the left. My central corps manouvering at the start of the game was not correct.
Second, it would be better to bring immediately the CiC corps on the GH and wait there for the opponent. This would have let me attack any delayed corps two turns earlier, blocking any enemy manouver to organize his line. Would the enemy had flank marched, the hill was a very strong position from where sally, and the enemy to attack there would have explosed even more his flanks. So my bad. My opponent played an excellent game.