summer brings bitter battles

More marching takes place in June, but the results are not as pacific as those of May.

In the north, Konigsegg settles in to his siege of Goerlitz, using up the supplies at the forward depot in Budin. But Prince Maurice steers a course straight for confrontation, marching his army east. Konigsegg chooses not to evade, so a battle will result outside Goerlitz.

GFM von Schwerin, reunited with Prince Henry, marches south searching for the new army under Daun. They are forced to use up the captured supplies stockpiled in Koeniggraz, as Breslau is too far to draw supply. They arrive in Hlinska dusty and disappointed; the enemy they seek cannot be found.

For FMs von und zu Daun and von Browne have moved west to the relief of the fortress of Tabor. Frederick readies his army for a mighty clash with the Austrian armies in the south.

Meanwhile, as ever, Prince Charles turns his mild visage to the face of war in Europe and raises a single eyebrow. What a lot of noise, his expression seems to say, what a lot of bother!

Fortress rules and a supply rule change/clarification

I have been reviewing these rules while processing the May II movement orders. I'm sending around a reminder of how fortresses work and, as a result of my rereading, a change/clarification of how supply sources work.

Reminders:

An army must stop on entering an enemy fortress area, unless a friendly force is already present assaulting or besieging the fortress.

To successfully assault a fortress, an enemy army must have more infantry and artillery units than the value of the fortress (in this scenario all fortresses are 3s, so attackers must have at least 4 infantry and/or artillery). If there are enemy infantry/artillery inside the fortress in addition to the garrison, this will increase the value of the fortress. The turn *after* a siege is established, the attacker may attempt to assault the fortress; even if he fails, the chance to successfully assault next turn goes up, as long as there are more attackers than the modified value of the fortress. A failed assault seems not to cause any appreciable loss to the attacker, though I need to check the discussion group logs and errata to be sure (this seems too generous).

To simply *besiege* a fortress (not assault it), an army must have at least 4 infantry units and 1 cavalry unit. At the end of each turn of siege, there is a (noncumulative) chance the fortress will fall.

If a fortress falls, its garrison become prisoners and if it was a supply point for the defenders, it now becomes a supply point for the attackers.

Change/Clarification:

I had not noticed this last part of the siege consequences before, so I had assumed that supply points (unlike depots) always remained either friendly and functional or friendly and nonfunctional if controlled by the enemy, but did not become enemy supply points. Since friendly fortress supply points can become enemy supply points if captured, I can only assume that unfortified supply points change sides when they are captured too.

This would mean that when Pilsen was captured by Frederick, it became a Prussian supply point.

Maybe everyone else had already twigged to this and I'm the slowpoke. :-)