Of Empires & Eagles - Black Powder Day

Adie MacWalter organised a Black Powder Napoleonics Day at Maelstrom Games to be sponsored by Warlord Games. Each player would pick a 500 point force and play three games of Black Powder Napoleonics over the day with some awards to be presented at the end.

There were ten players in all with the following armies:
Adie - Russian, Pete A - British, Pete H - British, Daz - British, Alan - British, Ray - Prussian, Quinton - Austrian, Ian - French, James - French.

I would be using my French and chose the following list:

Army: French

Divisional Commander: Général de Division Comte Pierre François Joseph Durutte					Staff: 7		Agg:		Dec:	Ind:
1St Brigade
Brigade Commander: Général de Brigade Chevalier Jean-Gaudens-Claude Pegot (Marshal’s Baton)					Staff: 7		Agg:		Dec:	Ind:
Unit:	Type:	Arm:	HtH:	Shoot		Moral		Stam	Special
1er Bataillon, 8e Régiment de Ligne	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge
2e Bataillon, 8e Régiment de Ligne	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge
1er Bataillon, 29e Régiment de Ligne	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge
2e Bataillon, 29e Régiment de Ligne	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge
2e Bataillon, 85e Régiment de Ligne	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge
9e Companie 6e d'Artillerie a Pied	Regular Artillery	Smoothbore Artillery	1	3-2-1		4+		2
2nd Brigade
Brigade Commander: Général de Brigade Baron Nicolas Schmitz					Staff: 7		Agg:		Dec:	Ind:
Unit:	Type:	Arm:	HtH:	Shoot		Moral		Stam	Special
1er Bataillon, 13e Régiment de Légère	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge Skirmish Sharpshooters
2e Bataillon, 13e Régiment de Légère	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge Skirmish Sharpshooters
1er Bataillon, 17e Régiment de Ligne	Regular Infantry	Smoothbore Musket	6	3		4+		3	Pas de Charge
3rd Brigade
Brigade Commander: Général de Brigade Baron Adrien-Francois de Bruno					Staff: 8		Agg:		Dec:	Ind:
Unit:	Type:	Arm:	HtH:	Shoot		Moral		Stam	Special
6e Régiment de Hussards	Veteran Cavalry	Sabres	6(+1)	-		4+		3	Reliable Marauders
2e Régiment de Dragons	Veteran Cavalry	Sabres	8(+1)	-		4+		3	Reliable
2e Companie 1er d'Artillerie a Cheval	Veteran Artillery	Smoothbore Artillery	1	3-2-1		4+		1	Reliable Marauders Elite 5+

In the first round I drew Alan Charlesworth who would be using British, I had actually picked this list for him based on the troops that Trev had lent us for the day.

Alan lines up the British.

We had a cracking game, I concentrated on the left flank and Alan in the centre/right. Alan had a poor few rolls and did not really get moving for the first two turns, by which time the bulk of my army was on his left flank. Alan broke my cavalry brigade and had put quite a lot of casualties across my troops, but by that time I had broken all four of his brigades. I scored 34 points and Alan scored 11 points.

This 34 points put me in first place, and although he had lost the game, he had done a lot damage to me and this put him into 5th place.

I would be playing Quintons Austrians in game 2. This game was all about capturing an objective in the opponents deployment zone.

 I chose to play pretty much the same tactics that I had against Alan in the first game, I screened the front and then tried to advance around the left flank. Things were going really really well, I pretty much had Quinton where I wanted him, I had broken his Cavalry and the hammer was about to fall on his left, hew was crest-fallen. Then it all turned, my Cavalry broke and the Light Brigade followed suit. No problem the attack fell on his left. Well despite all the odds in my favour I won one of the two fights under-way but Quinton held. The other fight did not go so well, despite the odds in my favour I lost the combat by 1, the unit threw a three and was destroyed, then both supporting units threw fours - a bit of a 'Rimmer Risk' story I know, but this meant that my army was shattered! Bugger.

My French hammer prepares to fall on Quintons left

Quinton scored a massive 48 pts from this game, I managed a meagre 6 - not going so well now.

In the last game I would be up against Adrians Russians. I elected to change tactics for this game, rather than doing an attack on my left flank I would go for a complete right hook while trying to pin the Russians in the centre. This went perfectly to plan, my Dragoons and Hussars kept up the pressure on the Russian infantry who were pretty much pinned into square the entire game and shot up by my horse battery. During this time my large infantry Brigade had moved all the way up the right hand flank of the table and fell upon the Russian flank. I broke many Russian units, but the Russians put up a stout fight and accounted for a lot of my troops in response. I scored 39 points for this game and Adie scored 25 pts.

Alan Charlesworth wins 'Most Blunders'

Ray Pratt wins the player most in need of new dice award after scoring the lowest points in a game

Peter Harris wins some Austrians for his last place

Ian Baker wins Most Sporting Player

Alan Charlesworth wins 3rd Place

I win 2nd Place

Quinton Dalton wins 1st Place

The entire team L-R Pete Harris, Ian Baker, Ray Charlesworth, Alan Charlesworth, James Woodward, Pete Archer, Darren Dabell, Quinton Ball, Adie McWalter and myself

The final results were:

1. Quinton Dalton - Austrians - 121pts
2. Paul Scrivens-Smith - French - 79pts
3. Alan Charlesworth - British - 74pts
4. Ian Baker - French - 73pts
5. Darren Dabell - British - 70pts
6. Adie MacWalter - Russians - 61pts
7. Pete Archer - British - 50pts
8. James Woodward - French - 46pts
9. Ray Pratt - Prussians - 16pts
10. Pete Harris - British - 14pts

Most sporting player - Ian Baker
Most blunders - Alan Charlesworth

I had a fantastic day, many thanks to Adie for organising everything. Here are some more images from the day:

My French against Alan Charlesworth's British

James' French and Adies Russians

Adies Russians advance on my French

Pete Harris and Ray Charlesworth

Ray and his Prussians attack Alan's British

Pete Archer with British against James with French

My French fall on Alans Right

Quints Austrians

Adie and James strike a pose

Darren orders his ghosts against Ian