Monday, 7 May 2012

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


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3 comments:

  1. Chris B7 May 2012 at 18:03

    Nice stuff.

    What does "Pas De Charge" mean? Reliable in attack column?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Paul Scrivens-Smith7 May 2012 at 18:17

    Thanks, it is the same thing, just a more flavoursome name.

    ReplyDelete
  3. David Cooke8 May 2012 at 00:41

    Pas De Charge! Good idea. I'm going to use it too!

    ReplyDelete