28mm Napoleonic game

 The club has recently welcomed several new members recently and one of them, Chris Johnson, was keen to quickly get into the swing of things by bringing up some of his excellent and huge Napoleonic collection. He wanted to use his heavily amended version of Black Powder so i brought up my 5th Division British 1812 figures and he brought his French.

Each side had one infantry Brigades and a cavalry brigade. Richard and Steve, also new members participated in the game and i also took a brigade and the cavalry on the British side.. 

 The fine terrain boards also belong to Chris and he wants to store them at the club premises to release space at home. They will therefore be available to use on club nights and Saturday games.
 so thanks to Chris for that gesture.

The British setup.

The French set up.

French cavalry. (Of course the British never faced Carabiniers in the Peninsular)

British cavalry, Light Dragoons and Dragoons.

Action quickly got under way as Chris ordered his infantry forward 3 moves and succeeded with his command roll.

French cavalry advance

And are charged by the British

The Light Dragoons cover the French heavies.

Steve attempts to outflank the French infantry.

and charge home

Skirmishers engage.

The French win this 3-2

and are force back leaving their supports to cover their retreat.

The French follow up with a sweeping advance and push the supporting squadron back also.

The remain in position to reform.

This doesn't look good for the French

The French were indeed pushed back but the flank attack failed to destroy them as might have been expected.

The other cavalry units clash.

The two infantry brigades shorn of their skirmish screens prepare to engage.

The French columns go in.

One of their columns fails to charge home due to the weight of fire against them.

The cavalry combat

leaves the British withdrawing.

Column v line...

With the column thrown back

The British then charge the exposed remaining French column. The situation looks untenable for the French.

The British cavalry are reforming or removing stamina.

The French column was indeed thrown back but crucially not destroyed.

The French column opens fire on the British line.

French lancers take a chance and, exposing their flank to the British cavalry. turn to support their infantry and dispose of a unit of British skirmishers.

The infantry are successfully reforming.

and are ready for the British charge. Due to a lack of space to deploy they remain in column.

Following a disastrous failed command roll the British cavalry remain uncharacteristically  inactive having been presented with a perfect target to charge.

The British charge fails

As time ran out the battle was still in the balance but French casualties were much higher than the British and close to being a broken brigade for the infantry. Victory was given to the British but i suspect another couple of moves could have resulted in some very interesting cavalry action by one side or the other.

The game was very interesting and many of the amendments worked really well. I particularly liked the opportunity to charge during the opponents move.

We have a big all day Napoleonic game planned for 22nd August and we will be using these for that so it should play to a conclusion. I will be doing a report for that also.

Cheers

Mick