The New Aschenbach Army

Progress on Luftberg continues - all infantry are now painted up to their coat facings, plus I've now saved up enough to order the rest of my figures.  For a moment however, it's time to turn attention to their foes in Aschenbach and repeat the brigade organising process.

The Aschenbach army organisation proved to be a lot easier than I had thought.  After the massed hordes of Luftberg’s army, the relatively fragile Aschenbach machine proved a lot easier to break down.

The guiding philsosphy: hard hitting groups of specialists!  In Might & Reason (as in real life, historically speaking) the Prussian/Aschenbach army is good for striking hard and fast, and – well, that’s about it.  So, with this in mind, here’s the logic:

First up, the infantry – the Luftberg style of four regiments plus artillery won’t do.  The whole Aschenbach army contains six line regiments in total, so straight away we’re cutting the size of a brigade to three regiments.  In keeping with the logic of producing a hard spear-tip for the army in attack, I knew right from the start that my two regiments of grenadiers would get put into a single ‘Guards’ brigade.  At three regiments a brigade, that gives them a regular line regiment for backup to their mitre-hatted brilliance.

Three line regiments can go together straight away to produce a ‘standard’ infantry brigade; and the third infantry brigade can be the last two line infantry regiments, plus the fusilier infantry regiment.  Three brigades of infantry, each of three units, but with wide quality shifts between each.

Next: artillery.  In M&R, only gun-crazy armies like the Russians get a specific artillery brigade with it’s own commander, but the armies can keep artillery aside in a central ‘army reserve’ unde the direct whim of the general.  I decided to do this in the end, creating a little artillery park for Feldmarschall Von Krumper rather than disperse them piecemeal.  Now, in the style of later-years SYW Prussians, our bluecoats can use massed artillery to blast an opening in the enemy line as Frederick did in many of his fights, such as Kunersdorf.  True, that was where he took one of his heaviest defeats ever, but I’m sure the logic holds! 

Now, last of all come the cavalry.  I pondered how to share out the regiments (two cuirassiers, two dragoons, one hussars) and considered doing it in the style of Luftberg, producing one crack cavalry brigade and one ‘leftovers’ brigade, but I ultimately decided against it.  The Aschenbach cavalry is naturally superior to it’s rivals, and so it should be sensible to have two capable brigades of one cuirassier and one dragoon regiment each (plus the hussars added to one brigade, making it a little bit stronger.)

So, the Aschenbach army stands at a 'Guards' infantry brigade, two ‘regular’ infantry brigades; a ‘heavy’ and a ‘light’ cavalry brigade; plus an army artillery reserve.  By pure coincidence, six formations – just like Luftberg.