Might & Reason - Zorndorf battle – July, 22 2017

With a great delay, I’m writing a kind of battle report for the match we fought some Saturdays ago. The idea was to recreate the battle of Zorndorf using Might & Reason rule systems. I have to be honest … it was the first time a I played with this rulebook but the system of game works well as in all games written by Sam Mustafa.

The battle of Zorndorf was fought on August 25, 1758 during the Seven Year’s war between the Russians, commanded by Count William Fermor, and the Prussian army under the rule of King Frederick the Great. Unfortunately the battle was inconclusive and was fought in a land with more linear obstacles (ie marshes, woods and so on)

The historical researches and the preparation of the battle is totally thanks to Ezio

Below the map with the orginal deployment …

… and the initial deployment in the match. Please notes the fire in the village in the bottom of the photo … Ezio was so accurate to recreate the battle that he decided to put the fire into the village because, before the struggle, some light Russian cavalry regiments got to burn the village at the back of Prussian army.

 All miniatures are 15mm and they are mainly painted by Alberto M. (another club member). On the table there were around 51 units plus the commanders.

I had the control of Prussian troops. For me it was the first match using M&R rules so my initial attack was not so coordinated. I attacked on the center and I used my two wings of cavalry as screen. The Russians were under the commander of Ezio and Flavio

My first fire

After the cannons' fire my troops advance …

… brave men

My cavalry regiments on the left try to reach Russian light cavalry but the terrain is covered by marshes and it is not a great idea to do it. In real battle these regiments will be redeployed on the center after some hours

On the right my cavalry tries some skirmish attacks against the Russians.

I continues my attack on the center …

On the right my remaining infantry units are steady. In the real history they attacked the  Russian Observation Corps  after the main attack in the center was repelled.

On the center the struggle continues and the Russians decided to use their cavalry to repelled my troops.

This action was particular strange because we found in an Osprey publishing book the same imagine

On the right it is a cavalry match

Considering that on the center I started to have some troubles, I decided to redeploy the cavalry regiments on the left …

… while I’m recreating the line

On the right my cavalry is destroyed by the Russians so I start to move infantry against Russian Observation Corps with a little screen of two cavalry regiment of my reserve

The real battle continues on the center but my cavalry does not create holes

The final position of the two armies …

… a draw as in the real battle

Below a schematic explanation of the real battle mouvements

I know that it is a very long post but I cannot publish some further detail of the battle

Russian infantry

Prussian cavalry

A detail of Russian cannons that are firing

King Frederick the Great

Russian cavalry against Prussian infantry