Since my opponent wanted to try his Muscovite skirmish force I had the joy of meeting a new enemy.
After looking at possible skirmish forces Muscovy can muster I decided to go with a strong Polish skirmish force again. I pondered on Gosievski foray which would have been historically correct, but decided to run with more numerous force using pancerni as main strike force.
My force contained 4 point colonel, with lieutenant-colonel, 2 banners of pancerni 3 strong, combined to a squadron at deployment, 3 banners of cossacks 3 bases strong, 2 banners of tatars and 6 bases of volunteers. My opponent fielded 2 strong formations of boyars son, formation of field dragoons having both spear and musket armed troops, 4 bases of servant cossacks, and a skirmish sotnia. He had a commander whose command he would find out at deployment and onepoint second in command.
As a weaker player my opponen got to choose the scenario from randomly chosen. He rolled patrol and twice the search of supplies. Cursing slightly he chose the forage, where his task was to attack my force that was divided into two separate commands.
On the left i had my colonel, 1 banner of tatars, pancerni as one large squadron, elite pancerni and a banner of cossacks. On the right I had volunteers, one banner of cossacks and lieutenant colonel.
Due to difference in our troop strength my opponent got to roll for special effects. My colonels command fell from 4 to 3 and banner of cossacks and tatars were delayed. As You can see I deployed a bit stupidly - sideways to my opponents deployment area and had thus my flank threatened already in the beginning.
On the left at the side of the mill my troops saw hordes of Russian cavalry approaching.
At the half burned inn opponent was infantry, but the cossacks and volunteers were hampered by the walls. At least on the left it seemed crucial to get initiative.
On turn one I maneuvered a bit back from the enemy, to get room to turn towards him for possible countercharge. On this side he had not given charge except to skirmish sotnia that failed to make contact, but managed to keep the charge order by succesfully making a skill check.
Field dragoons advancing in good order, cossacks forming a firing line and contemplating charge.
To add injury to insult my troops pourerd bullets and arrows to advancing muscovites. Pancerni gave skirmish sotnia some hits. Tatars were the heroes of this operation though - puncturing enough boyars sons to kill a base and send the rest back in disorder. Way to go
On the right cossacks harassed the spearmen with idea of disrupting them and then closing in for the kill. Volunteers just milled around.
Round 2 Skirmish sotnia charge the pancerni, boyars sotnia charged the tatars who withdrew and were in turn charged by the elite pancerni. Muscovite infantry advanced steadily.
Rather disconcertingly pancerni despite their huge superiority of numbers failed to hurt the skirmish sotnia and were forced to withdraw.
Similarly the elite pancerni who attacked superior number of boyars sons lost and were forced to give ground.
The lieutenant-colonel by the inn was surprised by the swift advance of the dragoonsand barely escaped with his life. Retalitory fire by volunteers and cossacks had no effect.
And neither did the carbine fire of cossacks in the center.
Round 3 - round of knockout. The elite pancerni beat the boyars sons in the battle of the windmillhill and pursued them relentlesly. In the center cossacks took postition in the flank of skirmish sotnia - which was annihilated by the charge of the pancerni.
The better armor, pistols and elite status of the pancerni added with good to hit rolls by me and abysmal armor saves by the opponent made the day on this flank.
On other flank cossacks fell back, leaving the contesting of objective to volunteers, who did suffer some injuries from
musketry.
Round 4 saw elite pancerni driving rest of Muscovite cavalry, who had
remained disorderd since being shot byt tatar arrows, off the battle
field and ambush group of muscovite servant cossack emerging from a
grove.
On the right cossacks poured fire into the inn occupied by the field dragoons with no visible results. At this point we decided to call it a day. My opponent felt he had no tools to dislodge me from vicinity of objective and I had no interest in charging past the dragoons in the Inn.
Great victory to the commonwealth and quality of Polish pancerni. The lack of commandpoints by my opponent was sorely felt as was the fact that he lacked close support artillery he likes to use with his infantry. Similarly being used to disciplined Swedish Reiters he was not happy with the way the muscovite cavalry disintegrated when taking casualties.
