Spoiling for revenge - French vs Russians

After our event on Saturday some debate was had about the effectiveness of upgrades applied to the armies. Martin had dropped out of our game of SAGA on Tuesday night with a cold, so I got in touch with Adie and we arranged a game of Black Powder Napoleonics at 500pts, but no points could be spent on upgrades this time.

My list for the game was:

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					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: 8		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	Regular Cavalry	Sabres	6	-		4+		3	Marauders
2e Régiment de Dragons	Regular Cavalry	Sabres	8	-		4+		3
2e Companie 1er d'Artillerie a Cheval	Regular Artillery	Smoothbore Artillery	1	3-2-1		4+		1	Marauders

 If I recall correctly, Adie had the following:

• Divisional Commander SR8
• Brigade Commander SR8
• 2 Battalions of Grenadiers
• 2 Battalions of Jaegers
• 1Foot Half Battery
• Brigade Commander SR8
• 4 Battalions of Musketeers
• 1 Battalion of Opochenie 
• 1 Foot Battery
• Brigade Commander SR8
• 2 Regiments of Hussars
• 1 Regiment of Cossacks

 Adie was spoling for revenge after our game at the weekend.

I deployed my large brigade on the left, with my horse in the centre/left  and the light brigade on my left. Opposite me Adie deployed left to right his cavalry, infantry and Grenadiers with the Jaegers on the left. I won the roll off and elected to go second.

Adie started a slow advance coming on more in the center, he would fall into my cunning trap. Well, he would, but I played like a complete goober. In our lists the Russians have it all their way in hand to hand combat while the French can usually dance around and outmanoeuvre the Russian.
My plan was originally to try to re-deploy everything to the right and then leave him exposed. Did I do this, no, I just ordered everything towards him!

Despite my 'goober-ish' tactics, things did go quite well. Both batteries deployed and started hammering the advancing columns of Musketeers while the light infantry fanned out and started harassing the Grenadiers.

Legere skirmish against the Grenadiers

Adie had a great turn of orders and after rolling a succession of low dice and a column of Muskeers launched themselves across the table and hammered into my batteries. The foot battery was soon destroyed taking the supporting horse battery with it then a battalion from the large brigade also threw a four and disappeared from the field - bugger!

Things were not looking good for the Frenchies. I did manage to pull back a little though, a battalion of Line on my left did a wide left hook and broke both a unit of Cossacks and a battery of Russian 6-pdrs.

Adie unleashed the remainder of his cavalry, his Hussars tussled with my Dragoons and to compound my poor generalship I also had a poor dice action, eight dice needing three or more to hit and I made two of them.

My Hussars charged a unit of his Musketeers in the flank and failed to inflict even a wound and a volley into the side of another one of his columns did not inflict any hits.

At the end of the game though we both had two broken brigades but Adie had removed quite a bit more of my stuff so it was a solid 24 to 25 win to Adie. Almost a mirror of Saturdays result. Adie had been served up his revenge.

I thought I had taken lots of pictures, but my camera-skills were as poor as my generalship today, but here are a few samples.

We await the Russian onslaught