Slitherine

So this weekend my Anglo-port faced some French in the peninsula.

My main goal was to get a better feel for the extended line....nice.

Now the French met me in kind for a bit. Veteran extended line with charismatic divisional. It is a powerful thing of beauty. The only thing we were missing was artillery attachments.

Didn't get the full use of them as the French had good counters. Oh did I mention I was uphill for a bit too.

It interesting piece was when I became disrupted and some French Hussars moved up. I formed tactical which in hindsight was a mistake. Then on rallied to good order, which was likely. The French had an infantry unit that failed on its combined attack. But still the extra fire power would have been better at trying to halt both units with firepower.

What was interesting is the hussars who got disrupted from fire still closed and then we both dropped a level in melee. The line held and then the English reserves came up and all was wonderful.

I dither on about this because there are several interesting bits that I liked.
1st the extended line is handier than I thought.
2nd a single light cavalry really needs to be used to exploit the line that is weak, not create the whole. I know he was hoping I would form square and he would pass through.
3rd if you want to defeat an opponent's extended line be sure to bring more wait to bear on the frontage.

Anyone try Guard infantry in extended line? A bit to SYW. But ought to be pretty viscous.

I tend to stay concentrated in tactical or deep since the scummy Austrians usually wait for me to come at them.

I would push two or three (or maybe even a fourth angled at you) units on that extended line.

They can be good for hitting buildings. But I found out don't try to put a large unit into extended line!

If you intend to fight in the linear fashion rather than the newfangled perpendicular reformed fashion, you really must have Extended Lines for the best 18th C look.

I agree a large unit in extended is vulnerable and the way to beat an extended line is to mass fire on it.

One of my extended lines took 4 hits and did the old outcome skedaddle with was not fun for the Portuguese dragoons in reserve.

I countered by assaulting an enemy square with dragoons and KGl light. The combined assault made short work of the square which appropriately surrendered to the combined arms assault.