Slitherine

After the pyrrhic victory in Lützen - as described in my previous AAR - I took on Nördlingen. Knowing something about the history of 30 Years War, I expected this one to be unbeatable. Difficulty is the middle one. But something surprising happened...

After assessing the battlefield with my staff, I came to following conclusion:
- I will go after the main hill, as recommended in the briefing.
- The way around the hill from the right looks tempting... Getting there with my cavalry and mopping up the the enemy cavalry would allow climbing the hill from the right, flanking the defenders.
- The enemy in front of my left looks strong, probably more are hidden behind them? Though the terrain looks suitable for cavalry.
- The gorge between the objective hill and the next one looks like a highway for some curassier action...

My plan is quite simple actually:
- I will use the cavalry on my right to recon by force the way around the hill. If the enemy attacks there, the force will delay and allow the bulk of the cavalry to turn back and then I will use infantry to plug the pass...
- I will use my infantry to move up to the objective hill and I will try to beat the defenders in a shooting game, as charging the barricades may be undoable, even for the Salvos. And the enemy tercios have a lot more men, but they have less units. I will try to break them up one by one using concentrated fires.
- I will use the left flank infantry (in the forest) to move up to plug the gorge.
- I will use the artillery and cavalry on my left to counter any enemy movement on the opens on my left.

Let the battle commence! (Ps. I recommend looking at the minimap in the images to see the big picture).

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I start moving up on the right, concentrating all my cavalry to move on my extreme right in a column. The infantry moves straight towards the hill, with one brigade veering to the right, ready to assist the cavalry if needed. On my left I see the enemy hussars moving up. Let them come! I pounded them with artillery while they rushed across the plain and when they were close enough, I used my two arquebusiers to flank them and shoot them down with muskets.

And as I expected, the enemy had more cavalry behind the objective hill... a lot more! Knowing my cavalry will not have room to flank and that's my only chance against the ciurassiers, I leave a few units behind to melee and the rest turn around, moving to positions behind my center infantry line. I orderly push the 3 Pike&Shot units to close the pass to my right flank. They soon engage the cuirassiers, that are reluctant to charge the pikes.

At the same time my infantry moves to the foot of the objective hill and are engaged by the tercios and light guns. Hopefully my advantage in number of firing units can outweight the fire of their two tercios!

Part 2:

The shooting game is on at the objective hill. My infantry is concentrating fire and imperial casualties are accumulating a lot quicker than mine. The light guns prove to be a problem, but giving them some musket attention disrupts them and the fire tones down, at least in accuracy. My right holds nicely with the enemy mass of cavalry now isolated from the main events. Good! On my left, the infantry takes positions guarding the enterance to the left flank of my assaulting brigades. The enemy pushes some arquebusiers through the gorge, but they are dealt with using cannon and musket. Cuirassiers seem to be trailing them, but again the pikes are giving a strong message, and they will not charge. To keep the enemy busy I locate few cavalry units on the left crest of the hill, so they cannot join forces. Though they seem reluctant on doing that with just cavalry. Soon the tercios on the left hill start moving...

On my left I am getting enough of the enemy heavy cannons ripping apart the troops guarding the gorge. I take the cavalry force and move up, with arquebusiers in front. Moving closer to the enemy cannons more imperial cavalry is spotted behind the cannons. Ouch. Still I feel lucky, as I have the cavalry force in the center, itching for a battle.

The musket duel on the objective hill is going my way. With the first line of tercios shot to shreds and routed, the imperial sends in the old veterans, that move partially down the hill to meet my Salvos. Not a smart move, as they left the safety of the field works! The reinforcing spaniards meet fire from 3 sides and start losing men, quick.

On the left as my arquebusiers get in range of the enemy artillery, they send in the whole force to meet and greet my cavalry. Of course this was taken into account and I turn the infantry line tad bit left and move part of the reserve cavalry to support. Soon a huge melee erupts, with both sides taking losses, but the enemy losing 2 of the 3 cannon units and getting hit by accurate musket and cannon fire, that takes out Pike&Shot units one at a time.

Part 3:

With another tercio running from my accurate musketfire the way up the hill seems to be opening. I send the infantry forwards and also the rest of my cavalry to envelope the defenders on the hilltop. The cavalry uses the rocky slopes and with the imperial cuirassiers busy on both flanks, the cavalry manages to slither their way to the remaining tercios' rear. Only one tercio from the next hill managed to climb the objective hill to support the defenders, the rest were engaged by my infantry on the left and forced to either run, or fight back.

On my left, the situation is fluctuating as both sides charge and countercharge. In the end my cavalry there takes a beating, but the infantry line holds, shooting up anyone trying to move towards the objective hill, or out of the gorge. Unfortunately one unit of hussars reappear in my left flank, and manages to engage the cannons before I manage to divert one cavalry unit to shoo them away. I lost one artillery battery, the other one fires at the imperial tercios and cause at least morale drops.

With the left holding well enough, I start the final push on the objective. Seeing this, the cuirassiers to my far right try to charge through the Pike&Shot stationed there, but in the end my line holds, and the cavalry is beaten badly. My infantry reaches the top of the hill, while one tercio is proving too hard to fight back from the forward slope, even with 2 Salvos and 1 Pike&Shot. I bypass the nuisance with the rest of my force and on the top a proper musket duel erupts. With more units firing and cavalry charging the flanks, I gain upper hand and capture the flag on the hill. Before the mandatory 5 turns of holding the flag are up, the imperials lose heart and are beaten!

On the first attempt, I pulled off what Horn did not - was the scenario easy, or am I simply getting better at playing? The game suggests increasing the difficulty. We'll see

Even I was surprised!