The Napoleonic Wars, General de Brigade, 28mm

This was a rare chance to play a game up in Orkney, and it was in effect the inaugural game of the resurrected Orkney Wargames Club. We have only two members so far, but its a start! Anyway, this was a Napoleonic clash, set right at the start of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, in October 1812 – just before the snows came. The premise is that a French rearguard is holding the main Moscow to Smolensk road open near Mozhaisk, while the rest of the Grand Armee steals a march on the Russians. In this game a shortage of French figures meant we gave them an abandoned redoubt to defend.To reflect the scrappy nature of this period both sides started with a small initial force, and rolled to bring on reinforcements. Essentially the French were defending with two small brigades backed by a small cavalry force, and a slightly larger Russian division-sized force was attacking them, with the objective of seizing the redoubt covering an important road junction.Both sides started with one brigade on the table. Dougie Trail commanded the French (aided and abetted by Mark Colston), while I gave my eight battalions of Russians their first tabletop outing. This was also the first scrap for Dougie’s “Perry Plastic” Frenchmen.The grand plan began to unravel right from the start. The Russian brigade launched a rather premature attack on the redoubt, while the first of their reinforcements – a cavalry brigade – pinned the rest of the French in place. The trouble was, the French also rolled well for reinforcements, bringing on their infantry brigade on Turn 2, and the cavalry brigade on Turn 4. Worse still, these cavalrymen came on from the Smolensk Road, and appeared right on the flank of the Russian horse. The French infantry formed square, and repulsed a charge by the Empress Cuirassiers, who promptly retired right into the path of the French cavalrymen.The dragoons caught them in the flank, and disaster was only averted by a counter-charge by the Marioupol Hussars, who are rapidly becoming one of my pet units. The dragoons were eventually driven off, but the Russian cuirassiers pursued them off the table and out of the game – a not particularly helpful trade-off. Meanwhile the French and Russian hussars charged, counter-charged and eventually pulled back from each other, bloodied but unbowed. So much for the great cavalry “stramash” – lots of whizzing around, but the result was an inconclusive trade-off and stand-off. Meanwhile the Russian infantry made a hash of their attack on the redoubt, with one defending battalion of Swiss seeing off first one Russian battalion then the other, while the guns poured canister into the third Russian battalion, who faltered in front of the guns. All in all it wasn’t a particularly good morning for Mother Russia. The Russian infantry reinforcements arrived at last, and launched a determined assault on the centre of the French position. They saw off the Westphalian Guard in front of them, but they were also a little too successful, as in the process they exposed their flank to the French reserves. They were duly routed in short order, leaving just one two battalion Russian reserve on the table, to take on five battered but still serviceable French and Allied battalions. Only an idiot would launch another attack.Naturally, that’s exactly what I did next. Not surprisingly the Russians were a little hesitant to charge home, and it soon became clear that the only thing preventing their complete annihilation was the presence of a large and menacing battery of Russian guns. Bowing to the inevitable, I called it a day, and pulled back, protected by the artillery. Frankly, of my new Russian army, only the guns and the hussars came out of this little tabletop debacle with any sort of reputation. Clearly I need to re-consider my policy of launching unsupported bayonet charges, hoping that the doughtiness of the Russian soldier will win the day…We used the tried and tested General de Brigade rules. Both Dougie and I are familiar with them, having written their Seven Years War counterpart, and after experimenting with other Napoleonic rules we opted to use the reliable set we know. Of course, we’ll use Black Powder for really large games, but I still think General de Brigade are the best divisional set on the market, and still better than all its shiny new rivals.

Natur

Tags: General de Brigade