Part XV – Early April - A new front opens
Early April sees a lot of change, with the doubling of the size of the game map : all the Western Front is now opened.
This is a quick look at the Western Front, with in bonus a glance at my Westernmost garnison, the one who will receive the bulk of the French attack the first (in all likelihood) : Wesel. It is protected by Johann von Loen, an otherwise unnoticeable garnison commander.
As I can now order the forces of Hessen and Hannover, I have 3 new armies under my command :
- An Hanoverian army (20 000 men, 4 000 horses, 75 guns) in, well, Hannover. It is led by Johann Imhoff, a very poor commander : 3-1-1 only and a leader easy to anger, which gives him a malus in command points (command points are used to control larger units without malus – I will do a point on this very soon).
- Another Hanoverian army (13 000 men, 6 000 horses, 120 canons) is in Minden and led by Von Zastrow. This group is of better quality overall than the one in Hanover, and Von Zastrow is a good commander… compared to the other Hanoverian generals : he has 4-1-2 for stats. 4-1-2 would be much below average for a Prussian general.
- Finally, Hessen has its own army in Kassel, in the heart of some forest whose name I never knew. The army is of average size (13 000 men, 5000 horses, 100 guns) and its leader, Wutginau, is a poor general with only 3-1-1 for stats. Kassel is an outstanding defensive position, though : the forest prevent large groups from using their numbers in battle, there is only one road from the HRE position to Kassel and few supply available for an attacker.
In addition to these troops, Hannover has quite a lot of cavalry scattered around their Electorate.
Overall, Hanover troops are fairly numerous (second in number after Prussia for me) but of poor quality, both in term of commanders and in term of rank-and-file soldiers. The Hessen ain't any better : poor quality troops led by poor generals, but still their number is very welcome. Brunschweig, you might remember, offers a very limited number of troops, but those troops are really elite.
Due the threat caused by the Swedes, I also have new troops in Prussia : the (event-created) Frei Batalione, who are elite light infantry [Edit thanks to Anazagar - I mixed stuff up].
[More edit thanks to Anazagar :] In addition to these Frei Bataliones, many Landwehr poor quality militias appear in my cities, good to protect against an early attack of Sweden : remember that Berlin has no wall, a strong army may just storm it.
Example here of Stettin, which really is the city the closest to the Swedes (militias are “light blue”, and with a “M” in their icon).
The plan on the Swedish front has not changed – I told it the previous turn. I just decided between this turn and the last one not to go through the forest North of Berlin – where ambushes are possible, but to concentrate my forces in Lubeck as soon as possible and then march on the Swedish ports. I hope to be able to do it before the French attack. Not much of a change of plan since execution had not started.
Zastrow’s army will be committed, as I count on his relatively faster movement (he is active, while Johann Imhoff is not, and has a better command on his men). I also plan to use the Prussian-Brunswickian army West of the Elbe.
The army is not quite ready yet (the officers are there, but they do not command troops directly, since as you can see on the screenshoot they have neither Green nor Purple bars). There are two regiments of soldiers I did not attribuate to any leader in this group.
On the Austrian front, there will be a battle next turn. I decide to attack the city of Prag. I will have to cross a river, which will put me at a disadvantage in the battle, but I am confident in the power of my three columns representing close to 60 000 men together. I don’t want to give my opponent time to gather the reinforcement he could not bring during winter.
In the East, Wedell and von Schwerin will move closer to Olmutz, but not attack him : there are not powerful enough to rout an army led by von Daun. But by being so close to Olmutz, I hope to either incitate my opponent to keep his armies, or at least commander, in Olmutz so they don’t support Prag, or to be able to siege quickly Olmutz if von Daun and his army actually leave for Prag.
Finally, I am asked whether I want to protect Wesel or not. Sometimes, the game let you make multichoice decision, and most of those choices have important effect in the game. I can either abandon Wesel, and thus get some troops “safe”, pay to reinforce Wesel or let the situation as it is. As I need to gain as much time as possible while my Hanoverian column are in Northern Germany crushing the Swedes, I decide to reinforce Wesel (which is actually the best decision in most situation anyway, in my opinion).
That’s all for now. Almost all the cards are in there, and there won't be many new events giving me free new armies. The Austrian player, though, will have an even unlocking his french army very soon (don't know when), and an event giving him control over the Russian troops. After that, we will be mostly on our own (the English might intervene, though).
Next turn… a BATTLE, and not a tiny one.