Following the Germanics victory at St Xavier driving the alliance out of the ruined monastry and village the confederation marched on in hot pursuit of the Franco Spanish. The Brunswick commander in particular was full of confidence. He brandished his cockaded hat at every opportunity rousing his troops with a boohuloo (leadership of +2). What could go wrong with the best leadership skills available? A lot as we will see. A key failing was the refusal to pay Sheik Yahbooty his increased pay demands to hire his skirmishers as the alliance were once again fielding their elite Spanish peasants.
The Franco Spanish halted their retreat in the Humperdink Defile, a narrow path besides a river with a mountainous wooded hill coming close to the river. The arrangement was similar to the pass at Thermopylae except no one wore leather underpants (well at least not openly).
There was however a pass through the mountains that led to the rear of the Alliance position. Unfortunately for the Alliance a disgruntled local, it is not recorded whether it was a sex starved hunchback or not, was prepared to guide the Germanics over the pass.
The confederation duly allocated some skirmishers, line and cavalry to traverse the pass whilst the bulk of their force set up in front of the alliance troops who were occupying the defile. For their part the alliance had some line and light guns in the defile and some of the elite Spanish skirmishing peasants that had performed so well in previous encounters.
The battle started with the alliance guns getting the better of the confederation artillery. A unit of Brunswick controlled line were skulking along the river bank slightly in the rear. As the cannon balls started flying they decided that the hostelry they passed on the road had been showing signs of Franco Spanish sympathies and needed further examination. At that they marched off the field ignoring the Brunswick commander's flourishing of his cockaded hat.
The Prussian skirmishers went forward but were met by the elite Spanish peasants who drove them off. This exposed more Prussian line and Brunswick cavalry to the French guns which were firing regularly and finding their range. The line and cavalry suffered casualties. The Brunswick commander was with the cavalry who were elite shock. As more and more fell from their horses his arm ached with the amount of waving his was doing with his hat.
All was still well though as they lined up their charge but then disaster, the troopers did not respond to his 'boohuloo' exhaltations , the charge did not happen and the next turn the Brunswick commander was carried from the field with his fleeing troops.
Similarly the Prussian commander was soon to follow as unit after unit of Germanics turned tail and left the field to re-examine the loyalties and sample the beer at the aforementioned hostelry.
For their part the alliance had suffered few casualties except for the elite Spanish peasants who as usual were fighting to the last man by soaking up all the Germanics shooting
Everying was left to the small Germanic force emerging from the mountain pass. In accorance with everything else that also went wrong. The skirmisher seemed to have taken it as an opportunity to hunt for mountain goats/ collect Eidelweiss or whatever else they commonly did in the mountains. The infantry and cavalry arrived in a somewhat dishevelled, disordered manner only to be met by telling vollies from the French that drove them from the field.
With that it was all over. A total debacle for the confederation and a resounding alliance victory.