I recently fought a small engagement on using PK and Hal Hood's glorious 15mm Maximillian collection. Each side had about a dozen units. These units are the worst of the worst. Regulars were D8 fire, D6 melee, and D6 morale!!! That's the vast majority of the troops. The rest were peasants with 6/4/4 stats. Each side had one recent unit or two. D12/D10/D10 was the best and that was an Austrian Legion unit. We did some very unique things this time. I will also post the 40 JPG pictures I took. They will be posted to the http://www.garrison-clubs.org site (look in the Charlotte Garrison gallery). It's well worth a look if you want to see the huge variety of figures Hal has assembled. (15mm FreiKorp, Frontier, Musket Miniatures, Old Glory, Minifigs, etc). Most of the buildings are mine, including a scratch-built town section. Scenario: Mexican Republican forces had finally caged the forces of Maximillian in the town of Queretaro. Maximillian with the remnants of his army (Imperial troops and Mexican peasants) were awaiting the inevitable Republican assault. Maximillian sent out two cavalry regiments on patrol to see if they could locate the Republican Mexican forces. Unfortunately, the Republican Mexican forces found him first. Maximillian hoped the two cavalry regiments would return in time for the battle. (Strategem card, D8 vs D8) Setup: The Imperial Mexican forces are deployed in defense of Queretaro. Half the city is walled in while the other half is the low rent district. Most of the Imperial regulars and Austrians infantry are deployed in the walled section. One battalion of regulars and 3 battalions of Mexican peasants infantry are deployed in the slums. The Imperial Mexicans have a single section of 8# guns! Talk about lack of fire power! The Mexican Republican forces are arrayed for battle in front of the city. Each command contains 4 infantry units, 1 cavalry unit, and one artillery battery. The Republicans have two full batteries (one heavy, one medium) for their assault. Their best unit is the Los Supremos Padres. D10/ D8/ D8. I told you we were playing with trash! Sequence Decks: This is where we did some really unusual things. Hal walks in and says pick any 16 cards you want in your deck!!! You should have seen the look on my face. So we were able to tailor our decks to suit our needs. This sounds great until you have to pick those 16 cards! You have to make some critical decisions about fire, movement, deployment, etc. Sixteen cards is not very many. Then Hal add the additional crap cards to the deck. I had the honor, as the Imperial commander, to get s dress line cards, an Undisciplined Fire card, and a Ragged Volley card. And you thought the 1806 Prussians were bad! This gave me twenty-six cards. Commanders: This would have been all fine and dandy had Hal not given Brian and I the chance to roll for our leaders! I proceeded to roll a 3 for Maximillian! Ouch! Add a Command Indecision card to my already glorious deck! My only conciliation was that Brian rolled a 1 for his overall commander!!! Add two Command Indecision cards to his deck. This would lead to all sorts of problems for the Republicans. The Battle: The battle started with the Republicans deciding to do a little urban renewal on my city walls. The Republicans, thinking they had little chance to assault the walled section of the town, thought they would open up with their heavy artillery and blast down a few walls first. These were crumbling adobe walls so my thoughts turned to were to setup the second line of defense! Fortunately, these Republican artillerists hadn't been training very well as they continuously missed the walls over and over again. Frustrated the Republican army surged forward andstopped! (Command Indecision) They then decided to fire some volleys while out of range (Undisciplined Fire). This happened for a long time. The Republican command, frightened of who knows what, didn't want to approach the slums in attack column formation and decided to wait for a deployment card. When they got it the units were so intermingled that they all could change formation. This lead to several units going out of command. The artillery battery in that command advanced and unlimbered, never to fire a shot the rest of the game! (out of position, no targets) Finally, the Republicans launched their assault on the slums. Los Supremos Padres lead the way occupying one town section with two other battalions in support. Then Los Supremos Padres made a bold move and deployed in the street below to attack the only regular Imperial Mexican unit in the slums. Then the infamous move card came. They crossed the street and fired two withering volleys into the town section where the regulars were holed up. Losing three stands the unit routed out of the area. (unralliable of course). This left me with only three Mexican peasant units to defend the slums. The local sub-commander seized the initiative and ran to safety of the town walls! "You're own your own!", he was heard to say as he led his beautiful charger back to walled town. The situation was grim. Los Supremos Padres were still in the street, but had cleared the first two town sections. A second Mexican Republican regular unit now occupied the other town section ready to assault my Mexican peasants in the next town section. The Republican unit in front of the Austrian gun section advance to contact with the battery. All the Republicans needed now was a melee resolution card! [Some of you are asking, "What the heck was Eric doing during this assault?" Well, I was shooting everything I had into every Republican unit I could see. Remember those Peasants had a D6 fire factor, while my one regular battalion in the slums had only a D8. I had plenty of chances, but I could inflict a single stand lose! I must have fired 20 times with the peasants, regulars, and gun section.] Back to our show... As fate would have it the Melee Resolution card came up, turned of course by the Republican side!! So the assault in the slums by the Republican regulars against my peasants, and the charge against my guns were going to become a reality! The slum assault was vicious. The peasants fought back with courage and skill. (They beat the enemy) The attack stalled and the Republicans became disordered. Fate?! Locked in melee the decision will come on the next Melee resolution card. The artillery must have had at least one barrel loaded with double canister as they to disordered their attackers, but were locked in melee also! Yipes!!! I survived! I couldn't believe it. The next melee resolution would be D4s vs. D4s. I'll take those odds. The next cards that came up for me were Artillery Move, Artillery Reload, and Command Indecision. Since I was locked in melee I couldn't use those cards, but it goes to show you how fickle war can be. Had the Republican not gone into melee with my guns I probably could have made a mess of their unit and moved out of engagement range! So we proceed to tie the next die roll ... end of turn. Shuffle, shuffle, discard, discard ... I win the initiative and happened to draw a Melee Resolution card. Will the Gods of War smile on this poor Imperial commander? I roll a 4 on a D4 with my Artillery and Brian rolls a 3! Since they were already disordered from the first round of melee the Republicans rout! ! Holy smokes! Then the battle in the slum. My friend rolls a 3 and once again I roll a 4!! Rout again! Whaaa Hoooo! The mood of the Imperial garrison has gotten much better all of a sudden. Now all I need is a big impetus run and maybe I can turn this around ... I get four pips! Harrumph! I flip an Infantry Move in Open. Great, there goes my routing Imperial regulars. Another pip lost and the unit runs off the board. Down to two. [Note I have two peasant units occupying slum sections down the street from Los Supremos Padres). If I can just get them formed up in the street they can charge Los Supremos Padres in the flank!!!]. Flip the next card, DEPLOYMENT!!! The peasant straggle out into the street in DEEP formation about 5 inches from the Los Supremos Padres flank. I'm out of impetus. The next impetus victory is huge. All I need is an infantry move in open and I can smash into the flank of Los Supremos Padres. BTW, Los Supremos Padres are also unloaded! Die roll please ... I win a whopping 3 impetus. Geezzzzz! Who wrote these chicken #@W*$% rules?! I flip a card ... Cavalry and Infantry in difficult terrain?!! Now that I'm out of the buildings I get the move in difficult terrain! Wait a minute ....  I move the other peasant infantry unit into the slum section behind Los Supremos Padres and deliver a volley in the rear. I inflict enough casualties to cause one stand of damage. Now Los Supremos Padres are disordered, have no flank support, and have lost one stand. MORALE CHECK! Which they fail by one and since they are already disordered they rout!!!! The peasants have repulsed the Republican assault!!! The Republicans concede the game and will assault Queretaro another day. The Republicans had three units routing, 6 morale chips left, and still were not any closer to taking the town than when they started the game. They only lost one stand of casualties. I have lost three stands of casualties and had 16 of 21 morale chips left. Great battle, frustrating battle! I thought the game illustrated the ebb and flow of combat, and that even the worst units can_ make a difference in the right circumstance. That with the right card sequence a lot can be accomplished with just a little initiative. We were commanding some really poor fighting forces, but I really had a good time. Makes you appreciate the better armies and their sequence decks. Hope you enjoyed this tale of danger and daring! Look for the JPGs soon.... Back to Piquet Dispatch Vol. 1 Issue 4 Table of Contents Back to Piquet Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Piquet, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com