Gitschina: aftermath

After a single-impulse Turn 5 (in which the Austrians passed their first army morale test despite their army commander Hadik being captured), the first impulse of Turn 6 was highly bloody, with the Prussians losing their fusilier unit and the Austrians losing a cuirassier brigade and another musketeer brigade. The Austrian second in command, FML Nikolaus, Count Esterhazy (promoted from -1 subcommander to Poor commander), sent a staff officer with a trumpeter under flag of truce to the Prussians to suggest a cessation of hostilities, offering to cede the field to the Prussians and to retire with colours cased and drums silent. Von Schwerin accepted these terms. At that point, the battlefield looked like this:

The respective armies are in the following state at the end of the battle:

FM Kurt Christoph Count von Schwerin (Kronoskaf)

Prussians  (Army Morale Test Point 4; currently lost 4) 

Von Schwerin: Great commander

Artillery1

Artillery2

Buddenbrock: valorous, +2 command: KIA, replaced by Krosig +1 command

Cuirassier 1: 7SP reduced to 5SP

Cuirassier 2: 7SP, broken

Hussar 1: 6 SP, broken

Manteuffel: +2 command

Grenadier 1: 7SP, broken

Grenadier 2: 7SP reduced to 2SP

Fusilier 1: 4SP, broken

Platen: exceptional subordinate, +1 command

Musketeer1: 6SP reduced to 4SP

Musketeer2: 6SP

Musketeer3: 5SP

FML Count  Nikolaus Josef Count Esterházy (Wikimedia)

Austrians (Army Morale Test Point 3; currently lost 4.5)

Hadik Average commander (POW)

Esterhazy, Poor commander

Stampach: 0 command

Cuirassier1: 7SPP reduced to 3SP

Cuirassier2: 7SP, broken

Bosfort: -1 command

Musketeer1: 6SP, broken

Musketeer1: 6SP, broken

Musketeer1: 6SP reduced to 5SP

Musketeer1: 6SP

Artillery1

Sincere: -2 command

Dragoon1: 6SP, broken

Grenzer: 5SP, broken

After the Battle's Over

Since neither army broke or was pursued from the field, both sides undergo the "End of Day" Process, rallying scattered troops, collecting cadres, and reorganizing units. 

Each unit remaining on the field may attempt two recovery rolls, such as they might make during a battle.

Then each broken unit, although itself eliminated, renders a 1SP cadre of its type--regular heavy or light cavalry; guard, grenadier, or other regular infantry; irregular cavalry; irregular infantry. These cadres may be used to "top up" any remaining units of their type on the battlefield. Cadres that cannot be used are lost.

Finally, units are consolidated, so that only one unit of a given type is smaller than its maximum normal size (7SP for Austrian cuirassier, for instance, or 8SP for Prussian grenadiers). Units thus may end up larger than they started the battle, as the armies are consolidating to the maximum size of units at the start of the campaign, and so making up for attrition losses as well as battle casualties.

After this, they are in the following state:

Prussians

Von Schwerin: Great commander
Artillery1
Artillery2
Cuirassier 1: 8SP
Grenadier 1: 5SP
Musketeer1: 7SP
Musketeer2: 7SP
Musketeer3: 3SP

Austrians 

Esterhazy: Poor commander

Artillery1

Cuirassier1: 6SP

Musketeer1: 6SP

Musketeer2: 6SP

Thus, the Prussians, who entered the battle with nine infantry and cavalry units totaling 55 SP, lost four units and 25 SP in the battle, while the Austrians, who entered with eight infantry and cavalry totaling 49 SP, lost five units and 31 SP. For the weaker force, facing a much superior commander and on the strategic defensive, the Austrians acquitted themselves very well.

Von Schwerin's army holds the Gitschina area. Since Gitschina is not a fortress, Count Esterhazy does not have the option of standing siege; he must withdraw either to the depot at Koeniggratz or to join von Browne's army at Muenchengratz.

Lessons Learned

While protracted, bloody, and unsatisfying for, I fear, everyone, the battle of Gitschina did teach me a few lessons.

1. We need a quicker way to resolve battles. There's a simple and gruesome way to resolve combats in the campaign rules, which lacks finesse and grandeur but would get the job done. If all else fails, I will use that in future to prevent a battle producing a 4-5 week real-time pause in the campaign. Before I resort to that, I would rather devise an algorithm that will take into account more than just how strong the point totals of both armies are and how good their commanders are. But far and away I would prefer a battle that they players themselves get to fight. I'm still trying to figure out how to build a Might & Reason module for TTS or VASSAL, or how to set up a game on a platform like Zoom or Skype that I could moderate but have the respective army commanders involved, making decisions and giving orders for me to implement, while other folks could hang out and kibitz.
2. Might & Reason is an interesting game. The battle rules (which are the point of M&R--the author stuck the campaign system on for fun) are typical Sam Mustafa: they don't abide by a lot of the traditional tropes and mechanisms of classic miniature wargaming, but they do have a lot of period flavour, they play fast (relatively speaking!), and they have ingenious mechanisms that have a good deal of subtlety to them. I was reminded of a lot of details of rules as I played this battle out, and I learned some interesting depths to some elements of the game.
3. I need to get painting! If we are ever to have a tabletop game of M&R, whether via the Internet or eventually face-to-face, I need to get more figures painted and based. I have some Prussians and Austrians ready to go, but they would not have been sufficient even to do this moderately-sized battle, so I have work to do. I am actually tempted in the long term to adapt Et Sans Resultat to fight 18th century battles, but I think if I do that I will build new armies with Baccus figures, which aren't available right now. My old stocks of Heroics & Ros figures will be fine for now, but they need to be something more than Primer White (even for the Austrians...)