It’s a holiday here in NZ today, Queens Birthday so Goldie suggested a game.

At Call to Arms Convention in August we are gaming a 200 point Napoleonic Tournament. Last year it was 220 points and 5 rounds, this year we will do 4 rounds over the 2 days and game at 200 points. Due to the Plague the organizers are restricting overall numbers of participants so we are allowed 8 players.

The brains trust(that doesn’t include me!) have made some changes in the points matrix so Goldie and I decided play 200 point game. Goldie to use his Prussians and I would use French. Half way through a rebase/tidy up of my French so had to proxy in some Vistula legion units.

Terry’s Force:

• 2 brigades infantry each of 5 ligne bttns,1 legere bttn and a battery
• Brigade 2 Polish Uhlans
• Brigade 2 Wurttemburg light cavalry
• The infantry and the Uhlan commanders were Command rating 8 and the Wurtt Cav were a 7. Plan being to assign General to the Wurtts to use his reroll.

Goldies force:

• Brigade Leib Hussars, 2 Grenadier bttns and a small Freicorp bttn
• Brigade 6 bttns Landwher plus a battery
• Brigade 2 musketeers
• Brigade 2 Dragoons,a landwher cavalry and a horse battery
• All commanders were 8’s

We decided to play down the battlefield which was 10ft x 6ft. We used Goldies new 1813 building and my new woods(not quite finished but close enough).

Below is my set up….

And below is Goldies set up. Centre of table has stream to pond and village with 2 defensive position. The race is on!

I won first turn. Both infantry brigades made x3 moves down table, Uhlans 1 move down my right flank, on the left the Wurtts stood around.

Prussians advanced except for the landwher on their left.

Next turn I move up to the stream, occupy the 2 defensive zones with my legere bttns and form checkerboard formation from village to edge of woods. Guns fail to deploy on my left. Wurtts still back in corner.

Now on my left flank I had deployed a skirmish cloud out in front of my columns. Goldie charged this with his Leib Hussars…my skirmishers naturally retired on their columns leaving the Leib hussars in the open. So I deployed into line…and gave them a good round of French gunsmoking!

Below is Goldies situation. On his left his 2 skirmishing landwher have advanced to centre of ridge, guns are moving up but 4 bttns still back at start position. In centre his cavalry have moved up and are behind ridge line with musketeers to their left. On his right the Leib Hussars have retired behind the Freivorps with the 2 Grenadier bttns now behind the Leibs and the horse battery to the flank.

In my turn I did a ‘Follow me’ charge with Wurtt cav into the Freicorps. They could not form square as to close to Leibs and so we decided they would evade, now disordered and Goldie rolled for a 1 move retire. This unmasked the shaken leibs who now got hit stationary. I then moved the left side infantry brigade up in support of the cavalry charge. Shooting caused wound and disorder on horse battery.

After the carnage of my cavalry charge, the Leibs had been destroyed, a supporting Grenadier bttn had broken, the horse battery auto popped and I turned to face the flank of the surviving Grenadier bttn. As brigade was now broken they would have retire 12 inches away from me as first move in Goldies turn.

On my right Goldies landwher had now surged forward and I was taking a bit of firepower!

On my left Goldie has used a ‘Follow Me’ to move a Musketeer bttn to put a block on his flank after the Dragoons failed a ‘Follow Me’ attempt against my flank Wurtt cav unit.

Below is final position in game after several frenetic turns! My Wurtt cavalry charged the Musketter bttn by woods. They formed square. We retired as we would, and I threw in a column against the square. Beat it but it stood and formed disordered line. I also moved up a line and skirmishers from other bttns and shot up Dragoons…..1 regt popped and the remaining 2 regts retired. I also moved the 2 leger bttns out of the village and shot up skirmishing landwher on ridge. Goldie had thrown in the other musketeer bttn against the line that shot up his Dragoons…..I won the combat, they stood and I then hit them in flank with a bttn, jammie sods lost but stood…..I had managed to get the other Wurtt cav to move up and also moved a Uhlan regt over to the left flank. On my right flank I swapped damaged bttn for fresh bttn, formed others into line and this added firepower along with artillery disordered and wounded the battery on ridge. Goldie conceded game at this point.