Rules query
Played our first game with KK last night. All went reasonably well in terms of picking up the mechanisms. One major query though, relating to initiative and firing. He who has the initiative gets to fire first, yes? well we had a case where a line of Prussians advanced on a Russian line. Initiative went to the Prussians every time, so even though they were advancing on a steady formed unit of line infantry, they got to fire first, with devastating results after they got into short range. My opponent thought it was hard to believe that the Russians would just stand there and let (?) the Prussians get the drop on them every time. Obviously the Prussians don't get the -2 for moving less than half so this wouldn't be so bad if the position was reversed but its still odd. Thanks Cash

It's great isn't it? I love being a Prussian. I think the Prussians had the edge in speed, training and in quality of their officer corps. They also had to bring the enemy to battle quickly and rout him so that they were ready for the next threat. They were also heavily outnumbered. All in all the Prussians usually attacked and their enemies were nervous about facing them in open battle unless they were dug in. This is why the Prussian player with the initiative (which he usually is) holds the aces and has the advantage in attack. Don't forget that the Russians get to fire back but minus their casualties.

Where was the Russian Artillery? Our experiance is that these more than compensate and tear bloody (i'm using that as an adjective) great holes in any attackers.

Where indeed? The Prussians had a cunning plan and sacrificed a herioc battalion of grenadiers to make sure the big push worked. That's not the issue though. While I like the Prussians and am very partisan towards them, Frederick and his army were not supermen. Command, drill, discipline etc all much better than the other armies yes but Fred was running out of men as the war progressed. The idea that a calm stationary unit of Russians would wait for the Prussians to fire before returning fire on 3 consecutives moves doesn't feel right, initiative or no, unless they were too busy enjoying the vodka ration ;o) "oh look tovarich, the Prussian dogs have been marching into range but lets have another drink before we return their fire" when in reality i am sure they'd be as keen as mustard (or its Russian equivalent), to get a volley in a.s.a.p. Nothing to do with whether the Russian general is a numpty and always loosing his initiave throws ;o) Anyway, I like the rules and look forward to an errata sheet and some scenarios. PS: we normally use 36 man battalions and might try them out next time instead of leaving some bases off.

But the Russians do get the chance to fire first. If they win the initiative. They didn't which means that the Russian officers havn't been able to calmly await the Prussian advance and crush it in the way you imagine they could. All sorts of things could go wrong. My experience of wargames is that you can't get 4 people to follow a plan and accept someone's orders, never mind 800 of them on a battle field.