My turn to play the French and, given the left section cards in my hands, I decided a cavalry battle on the French left was a good idea. It wasn't. While I did take out the Austrian Light cavalry, this was at the cost of the French Lights and Horse artillery. For variety, Austrian muskets eliminated French Line infantry from the Granary. That's 3:3 (as I still have the two banners for the village).
The French artillery took out an Austrian Line infantry (4:3), but the next major shift was the French re-grouping around the village and back into the Granary ("La Grande Manoeuvre", our 'favourite' card).
After the French in the Granary eliminated the Austrian militia (5:3), the Austrian Heavy cavalry swung round the French left flank to finish off my Cuirassiers (lucky dice) and force back my Horse artillery (lucky, lucky dice) and then escaped back to the hills: 5:4.
However, the Austrian Light cavalry on the right got too close to the French guns and went down: 6:4. In turn, the Austrians shot up the Granary again and General Boudet was a casualty (more lucky dice and it's 6:5)
Fighting continued in and around the Granary, but I saw the opportunity to attack the weakened Austrian on the hills. French infantry stormed out of the village (thanks to a "Bayonet Charge") and eliminated two Austrian Line units. (However, emptying the village meant I lost the banners for that, so the score was still 6:5.)
The Austrians counter-attacked the now-weakened French infantry, taking out two of the Line units (6:7) while the Cuirassiers nipped into the vacant Granary. I grabbed another part of the village to make sure Evert didn't get the banners for this. The Austrian Heavy cavalry trotted into the Granary as well and my efforts to dislodge either came to nothing (the Granary lets occupiers ignore a retreat flag!). That was a good fight and ends in a 6:9 win for Evert (the second for the Austrians).
This game ran substantially longer than our first: 43 turns over two and a half hours - spread across two evenings. I think we were being more cautious. And the aggregate score is 15:13 to me.
I’ve also posted this report on my BGG blog (with pictures!):
www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/176362
