Some miles from their main body, a French line infantry regiment with four guns attached is on forage duty and making it's way to a well known grain store. The guns are for added security as the stories of Allied cavalry and especially lancers have been terrifying for the infantrymen. The main armies are now very close and the men know a big fight is coming.
For this hapless regiment their own fight is sooner than they think as Austrian light cavalry have already secured most of the grain from the 'well known grain store' and were about to ride off. It gets worse as the 1st battalion spot lance pennons not too far off...
French forces: 3 battalions line infantry with 4 guns
Austrians: 2 squadrons of lancers
3 squadrons 1st hussars
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French 2nd batt with artillery in tow                the other 2 set up on the road to the right of the pic               The French 1st battalion ceased to exist with more than two thirds cut down. The French also lost all their gunners and teams but retained their guns as the enemy cavalry rode off. Austrian casualties were light losing only 16 men due to some badly aimed volleys from the infantry. The poor French went back hungry and pulling their own guns! Another slight victory for the Allies.  |
Another nice game, good photos. What rules do you use?
ReplyDeleteMrF
Hello MrF, thanks for the nice comment.
DeleteI use my own home-grown rules with ideas borrowed from others and from many different sources. The rule I use for 'morale' for instance comes from an old 'Miniature Wargames' mag.
I have browsed through a number of commercial rules but found them too complicated for me and with so much information to remember I simply get lost. I don't use points. My rules are pretty basic with a lot of flexibility. They centre around control and losing control and a units experience. After reading eyewitness accounts of Napoleonic fire-fights these two factors reign supreme and are all important. A quick example;
A raw/green unit at the start of a musket duel will be ordered to fire a volley which it happily does. However, because of their inexperience every subsequent round they will continually fire independantly until they break, retire or the enemy retire. You have lost control of this unit until then. The damage they inflict with independant fire is at a minimum. They will even fire on friendly troops if they happen to pass in front of them! A veteran unit on the other hand will fire up to three volleys before even they will lose it and start a continuous independant fire. A good unit commander then will order his veteran unit to cease fire after 1 or 2 volleys thus maintainig control in the next round. As you can imagine it takes nerves not to fire at your enemy who is still firing at you.
It's the noise of the muskets and the excitement that makes the inexperienced unit stop listening to their commander. And with experience comes restraint or control. This is what I learned anyway reading all those accounts of what it was like. I'll explain some more in my next post.
A very nice report, photos are impressive, a great work!
ReplyDeleteHi Phil, thanks a lot! I'm surprised with the photos myself. So far I've been using an old Sony Ericsson phone! I must get a proper camera.
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