Sorry chaps for the lack of anything interesting here for a while.
Real life has got in the way somewhat recently. The next two weeks are looking
awfully busy at work and include what one of our customers has deemed a "make or break" visit to our factory (not sure what he means by that because on the one hand their technical guys are saying get it right or else
but on the other their commercial guys are saying that if all goes well there's an immediate twenty percent uplift in volume - either one of which could break us!). What it does mean is long days at work and with little energy left at night for much else.
Having said all that I am progressing with the field fortifications. Right now on the painting desk are the last of the fencing and
gabions for the Malplaquet
refight. Once completed there should be
gabions to cover a six foot long stretch of table and over thirty pieces of fencing. Hope that's enough.
As for the game itself I am now questioning my assumption that it could be broken down into three stages. The more I read the more I am of the mind that no one part of the battle stands alone.
Malplaquet shows, in many ways, the tried and tested methods employed by Churchill in his victories over the French during the war. At Malplaquet he pins the enemy center and attacks the flanks, in doing so he forces the enemy to denude the reserves and center to defend his flanks. Once that is complete he launches the central assault and unleashes his massed
squadrons of horse. All this whilst detaching some of his troops and moving them out of
sight of the enemy.
Malplaquet has elements of all of the previous battles rolled into one, very bloody, decisive victory.
But it does raise questions over his ability - something that we tend not to do today and certainly something very few of his biographers have ever done.
Why didn't he attack on the 10
th of September when it was obvious that
Villars was staying put? Instead by delaying for a day he allowed
Villars to put in place some very complex and intimidating fortifications. Most of
Churchills defenders point to the fact that he waited for Withers to join the army with an extra 19 battalions., but would the fewer men he had available have carried the field with fewer losses than on the day?
Secondly why did he detach Withers with his force and get them to march through the northern woods instead of employing other fresher troops for the task? Withers' men were tired when they arrived in camp late on the 10
th and were then told off to
march over some of the ground they had crossed previously. Would it not have been better to have tasked
Lottum or Eugen with this task? And if so would Withers' men have been better employed covering Tilly in the attacks by the Dutch?
Tilly and the task he was given is another question. The Dutch are asked to attack a
fortified position even though out numbered 2:1. Yet the attack by Eugen on the allied right goes in with odds of 4:1 in the allies favour. It is this attack by the Dutch that ultimately costs Marlborough his job when the Dutch lose their confidence in the man and no longer desire him to be the Captain General of the Allied army since they consider him wasteful of Dutch lives in favour of other allied contingents.
So many questions. Perhaps some will be more obvious once we get to do the
refight.
his time they include some of the recently (April 2009 anyway - which is recent for Musketeer Miniatures) released pikes.
The pikemen are a simple casting with little in the way of accoutrement's other than a scabbard, which as is customary with Bill needs gluing in place. The figures are well cast with hardly any flash and mould lines. Perhaps because the musket is heavier, these figures feel slimmer than the musketeers previously released. However, they are excellent and look superb en masse.
Next some pics of the sort of thing you can expect to see in the 