Sunday 8 September 2013

7/9/13 10mm Naps

Busy day yesterday with a large Napoleonic game at the club, two sofas to move and then a small FoW game at Pauls. Everything bar the sofa moved had been previously expected!

The Nap game was pretty huge, and was based on a scenario from an old issue of Wargames Illustrated. The scenario had a Russian force defending a hilltop with a redoubt and a town on it, and two French divisions attacking. I'm afraid I didn't get the name of the battle.

The rules used were General de Brigade, one that I have used before but not that I know particularly well.

The setup:

Russians on the right, French on the left. 

The French opposite my little corner.
I was given command of the Brigade on the leftmost flank, which started the game on hold orders - specifically to hold the hilltop to the left of the redoubt. Stuart had my right flank and the guns in the redoubt and Jon had our far right flank. In front of my position I had some Cossack skirmishers and a unit of elite horse artillery. On the hill was a battery of 6 pdr artillery and 4 battalions of Russian infantry.

Across from me I had Young David and Dave, who's objective was the hilltop and the redoubt.

Young Davids French Brigade - Figures are John P's (I think).
The units were all deployed as per the scenario, so we were pretty limited in choices. I certainly got as far as deploying my infantry into line, but the majority of my movement was done with the Cossacks and the horse artillery.

The French advance begins:

The French begin their move forward. Both sides would start rolling for reserves in turn 4 or 5, with one of the Brigades being Cuirassier heavy cavalry - these would arrive to the right of the town in the picture above.
Jon controlled the Jaeger brigade that held the front of our hill and the woods on the far right. Stuart had the infantry on top of the hill that he managed to change to engage orders and start to move forward to support the Jaegers.
Jons two battalions of Jaegers in the forest on the right flank ended up tying up a full French brigade for the full game.

Jons Jaegers in action.
On my side, Young David infantry brigade was heading right for my skirmishers and horse artillery, which starting hammering away at them. Some good dice rolls from me saw at least one of his battalions taking a hammering. My battery on the hill also added it's fire.

Note the blue casualty marker on the middle French Battalion. In the distance you can see Daves brigade (half in line, half in column) engaging the Jaegers in the centre while flanking towards the redoubt.
Young David attempted an assault against the horse artillery, just after my skirmishers rolled a double 6 which resulted in his Brigadier being wounded and sent to the rear. His assault closed the distance, received a load of canister and legged it back down the hill.

One base off and 4 casualties and the attackers rout!
With the French closing on our defences, I started to pull my horse artillery and skirmishers back - all the time thumping away at the french to my front. The routed french battalion doesn't recover, and a few turns later leaves the table. The rest of Young Davids Brigade continues it's advance towards the Russian gun line. By this point, reserves from both sides had started to turn up. The Russians received a light cavalry brigade just to the right of the redoubt, and a heavy cavalry brigade over to the right of the town. Both these units were on Hold orders, so a determined effort began to change the orders. Something the Russians aren't very good at in this rules set. Luckily, the lights get changed quickly to engage and the heavies not too long after.

A few turns later, as the battle develops. A lot of action is taking part on Jons flank as he defends against three brigades of French with help from Stu.
French Cavalry and infantry reserves also turn up on the far right flanks. A turn or two later, the French heavy cavalry and a Russian infantry brigade turns up. Young Dave ends up with the French heavy Cavalry (the previously mentioned curassiers) and Jon gets the Russian infantry on the right.

By this point in the game the goings on on the far flank had become a bit of a mystery to me. To my front Young David flung his troops forward - two of his battalions reach assault range of my line, and charge - the third gets caught by my horse artillery, and starts to retreat. At the same time, the Russian light cavalry breaks one of Daves infantry columns it had hit in the flank, over runs them and does an uncontrolled charge into Young Davids retreating battalion. Unsurprisingly, this means Young Davids second battalion is lifted from the table.

His charging units reach my gun line, I fire, he runs. At this point I had only lost 6 casualty markers (equivalent to 120 men) and he had lost 3 to 4 thousand. His Curassiers stubbornly refused to change orders, and his infantry brigade broke and was lifted.

Broken French units. Now you see them...

Now you don't! Note the French heavy cavalry brigade in the distance (and the town filled with french casualties looking for vodka!)
With the French attack on the redoubt defeated, the battle churning on on the right flank and time almost up, we called it as a Russian victory.

The final table:

The centre.


Another view of the centre.

The right flank.

1 comment:

  1. Looks like a great game, I can't recall exactly the battle? We played it a couple of years ago. You did well with tge pics on tge dreaded emerald green cloth.!

    ReplyDelete

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