Klosentheim, the Sixth!

Guard infantry! Surely they are the pinnacle of military skill, daring, and professionalism! A paragon of combat competence! A force that the rest of the army can look up to! Or so one might think. On this battlefield, however, they are actually something that one could look down upon; in a quite literal sense, given that the Milchfrau Leib-Garde have been squashed flat by the hooves of the Zentan palace cavalry. The Bachscuttelers are comprehensively defeated (below).

To be fair, the regimental history will be able to state quite categorically that the unit did not rout from the field. But this is only because, after the comprehensive trampling that they received from their enemies, they have about the same mobility as a dining room rug, and also about the same height. The remnants are rolled up and removed from the battlefield.

Barry-Eylund seems unfazed and continues with his plan. This is because he only has one plan, and he intends to continue executing it until he has achieved victory or killed all of his men. In Bachscuttel this is known as 'using one's initiative'. (Above, top) Troops from the second line have filled the gap created by the flattening of the Leib-Garde. The whole Bachscuttel infantry line has been pushed up close to their enemies.

(Above) General Bulbous responds by applying one of the cardinal principles for success in Mittelheim warfare: if it worked last time, try it again, harder. He orders his palace cavalry forward once more in another attempt to break the Bachscuttel line. To give them a bit more oomph, they are accompanied by one of the army's clerics, Imam Fatih. Fatih has already had some experience of the Zentan style of warfare. It is a style that usually favours the bold drinking of coffee, and then sudden strikes against portions of the enemy that look quite short, weak, or preferably asleep. But this time, Bulbous is really going for it, stirrups in and clerics out.

(Above) Alas, this time it doesn't work, and the fresh enemy infantry, with their grenadiers forward, drive the sipahis back. It's a nasty situation: the cavalry are perilously disordered, the enemy infantry are levelling their muskets for a volley, and Imam Fatih has pulled something badly in his Turkish delight.