Bank Holiday - Big Napoleonics Game - The set-up

We decided that we would set up a 12ft x 6ft table at Maelstrom Games and have a big game of Black Powder Napoleonics on the Bank Holiday Monday - well it's not like the weather is going to be fit to go out.

Apologies for the quality of the images, I left my good camera at work so had to take the old Olympus.

Myself, Trev and James would provide the French, whereas Quint and Adie would supply the Austrians / Russians, we would pick a 2000pt force per side.

The Players

Austro-Russians: Adie, Pete H, Quint, Pete A

French: Myself, James, Trev

As you can see the Frenchies were already ahead in the 'lookers' stakes (although I am in desperate need of a shave).

The Forces

I duly picked the following list for the 2000pts of French based upon the troops we had available:

Corps Commander.

Division				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Foot Artillery		Cannon	Smothbore Artillery		1		3/2/1	4+	2
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Legere		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Skirmish
Legere		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Skirmish
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Brigade				Commander		CV7
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Elite 5+
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Elite 5+
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Division				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Foot Artillery		Cannon	Smothbore Artillery		1		3/2/1	4+	2
Foot Artillery		Cannon	Smothbore Artillery		1		3/2/1	4+	2
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Legere		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Skirmish
Legere		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Skirmish
Legere		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Skirmish
Legere		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Skirmish
Division				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Foot Artillery		Cannon	Smothbore Artillery		1		3/2/1	4+	2
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge, Elite 5+
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Ligne		Reg Inf	Smothbore		6		3	4+	3	Pas de Charge
Division				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Horse Artillery		Cannon	Smothbore Light Artillery		1		3/2/1	4+	1	Marauder, Elite 5+, Reliable
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Cuirassier		Reg Cav	Sabre		10		-	3+	3	Reliable, Heavy Cavalry D3, Elite 5+, +1 HTH
Cuirassier		Reg Cav	Sabre		9		-	3+	3	Reliable, Heavy Cavalry D3
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Dragoon		Reg Cav	Sabre		8		-	4+	3	Heavy Cavalry +1
Line Lancers		Reg Cav	Sabre		7		-	4+	3	Marauder, Lancer
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Hussar		Reg Cav	Sabre		8		-	4+	3	Reliable, +1 HTH, Marauder
Hussar		Reg Cav	Sabre		8		-	4+	3	Reliable, +1 HTH, Marauder
Brigade				Commander		CV8
Unit		Type	Armament		Melee		Shooting	Morale	Stamina	Special
Old Guard		Reg Inf	Smothbore		7		4	3+	4	Reliable, Elite 3+, Tough Fighters
Old Guard		Reg Inf	Smothbore		7		4	3+	4	Reliable, Elite 3+, Tough Fighters

Here is an image of the French force laid out on the set-up table prior to deployment.

Quite a lot of Frenchmen

That is:
Two Regiments of Cuirrasiers, one Regiment of Dragoons, one Regiment of Lancers, two Regiments of Hussars, two Battalions of Old Guard, six Battalions of Light Infantry, twenty-three Battalions of Line Infantry, four Line Batteries and one Horse Artillery battery.

All in all, about 1000 figures on the French side. The Austro-Russians had a similar amount, and I'll try to post their list in a later blog entry.

Here is the Austro-Russian forces set out prior to deployment:

Lots of those other fellows.

If I recall correctly, they had less infantry, about 24 Battalions, more cavalry, about 8 Regiments and more Artillery, about seven Batteries.

The role of the Corps commander was to provide re-rolls rather than leadership. Each corps commander had six chits that allowed a 2d6 re-roll, so typically, an order or break test could be re-rolled.

The Field of Battle

We would be playing on a 6ft x 12ft board. Pretty much on the centre line, offset to the right slightly was as village, about 12" from each sides table edge was a road junction. The left of the table was quite broken up with fields and hedges, the right was fairly open with a wood securing the Austro-Russian left.

The battle would be won as follows:

• Each road junction held: 2pts
• Break opponents army: 2pts
• Hold village : 3pts

The field of battle, unsullied with troops.

Deployment

A rather dark shot of the French deployment.

The French deployed, from left to right:

• Hussar Brigade
• Horse Artillery
• Foot Artillery
• Brigade of 5 Line with Brigade of 5 Line behind off table
• Foot Artillery
• Brigade of 5 Line / 2 Light with Brigade of 4 Line behind off table
• Brigade of  2 Old Guard with  Brigade of 2 Cuirassier and Brigade of Lancers / Dragoons behind off table
• Foot Artillery
• Foot Artillery
• Brigade of 4 Light with Brigade of 4 Line behind off table

An equally bad shot of the Austro-Russian deployment

The deployment of the Austro-Russians from our right to left was:

Advance Guard (3 Jaegers / Grenz , Hussars, Dragoons, Horse Battery) with a Brigade of Germans (4 Infantry, 1 Line Battery) behind
Russian Brigade  (1 Jaeger, 3 Musketeer) with the Heavy Cavalry (2 Cuirassiers, 1 Lancer, 1 Horse Battery) behind.
German Brigade  (4 Line, 1 Hussars, 1 Position Battery, 1 Regimental Guns)
Hungarian Brigade (4 Line, 1 Grenz, 2 Position Battery)
Grenadier Brigade  (4 Grenadiers, 1 Hussars)
Brigade ( 3 Line, 1 Hussars, 1 Jaeger)

The Austro-Russians were pretty much wall-to-wall, this would not be a battle of manoeuvres, we would have to be going right through them.

Here is a shot of Adies lovely new Russians, painted just for the event:

The new boys in town

The Austro-Russians won the dice-off and elected to go first.

Game On

The report of the battle itself can be found by clicking this link