Two portions of Turkish Delight

A WD friend, Tim G, popped by for a visit today, so I entertained him with a  look at my early attempts at rules for the Hapsburgs v the Ottomans in the time of Prince Eugene. They have featured on the blog briefly back in February, but I thought it was time to return to them, now I have painted more figures.

This is most of what I've got. There's some Ottoman artillery still in the box, but that's it, I think.

Tim took the Hapsburgs on the right and I commanded the Ottomans.

Tim got an early breakthrough when his Fearless Hussars chased off my Wavering Akinci.

Undeterred I ordered my army forwards, although I was losing out in the cavalry battles on both wings.

My Sipahis charge into the Imperial Cuirassiers, and are greeted by a devastating pistol volley. 

Not much coming back from that. Ouch.

At the other end the cavalry battle is harder fought. Note the new "Drawing" marker indicating that neither side has the upper hand in that melee. These have been introduced as no one seems to remember what happens from one turn to the next.

My left wing is in considerable disarray.

Tim gleefully surveys the mayhem he has caused.

My attempt to overrun Tim's guns is repulsed. His gunners flee behind the supporting infantry, who fight me off with bayonets fixed.

We had to stop there as Tim had a long drive home. My cavalry has lost on the flanks, and I'm losing the musketry duel in the centre. We'd got quite a lot done in the hour and a half we played. Tim was sufficiently interested to take the play sheet home with him, muttering something about an ongoing mid 18th century Ottoman project.

I then had a quick reset ahead of this evening's game and made some changes to the play sheet.

Here we go again. I had Chris, Phil & Tim, so I joined Phil to make up the numbers. Chris swapped from his normal seat so he wasn't fighting Phil again.

This game played out very differently on the wings. Phil was facing Tim, and his luck was not in. Things started okay, as he positioned his cavalry carefully.

Not repeating my early tactic of masking the Ottoman guns as soon as possible, Chris refused the centre and moved up everything else.

My cavalry wing was going a bit better. I've softened up one of Chris Sipahi units, in front of my Cuirassiers, with artillery fire. My Hussars are doing alright against the Akinci, but are suffering to the Sipahis in the middle of the picture. 

Phil's leading cuirassiers reveal themselves to be Unsteady, whilst Tim's Sipahis are Fearless. He loses the melee and fails a morale test or two.

On my end Chris charges in with his Sipahis. I pistol him thoroughly and inflict melee hits too. He has to take three morale tests, which he fails spectacularly.

As Chris' men head for the baseline, I rein my chaps in. They will be needed to hold this flank.

Phil's cavalry is holding on. Just. That infantry flank guard is essential.

The infantry close. 

Imperialist musketry ripples down the front line. It has mixed results.

Chris has routed the Hussars trying to contain his Sipahis. I put some infantry in as a flank guard.

Chris tries to close with our line, but two of his Azab units are broken.

Tim is throwing everything at Phil's end of the line.

It is all falling apart quite badly now at this end of the table.

The first Janissary unit closes with our line, charging through the smoke.

They are broken and flee, but my chaps have taken a hammering in the process, and a fresh Janissary unit approaches.

Phil's end of the infantry line starts to crumble in the face of overwhelming odds. 

We move across one of our reserve units to bolster Phil's infantry, but both cavalry wings have gone. We're hurriedly trying to put together a defensive box, but the cavalry are beginning to lap round our flanks .The writing is on the wall for us, and we draw the game to a close.

Fast and furious stuff, with the game determined by some excruciating luck, rather than great skill. Having said that Tim & Chris didn't do anything wrong, so were good for the win.

I'm liking the way the game plays. It has enough changes from the Jacobite rules to make it play differently, but is close enough that you can tell it comes from the same source. 

Now, to paint some more Sipahis and get the battalion guns painted for the rest of the Austrian units.