Copyright © 2011-2024, Paul Scrivens-Smith

Copyright © 2011-2024, Paul Scrivens-Smith

All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior written permission of the creator.

Saturday 16 January 2021

A little solo General d'Armee

 

Having painted more troops to fill in the disparities of our last game I set up another General d'Armee game to play through the rules again.

Each side had four brigades, the French two each of cavalry and infantry, the Anglo-allies one Hanoverian foot, one Kings German Legion foot (veterans), one British foot and one British horse.

I rolled up for random positioning and against the odds both sides started the game with two brigades in reserve.


Seeing the Hanoverian foot exposed on the right the French went all out for them and summoned up some of their cavalry reserves while maneuvering the guns to cover the British. The Anglo-allies bought on their KGL foot to shore up the center.


And I stopped taking overview shots after turn two, so here are some highlights.




The French foot pushed on to the Hanoverians who withdrew in good order before them until the KGL foot were in a position to support them.

With the French foot advancing on the KGL and Hanoverians it looked like they could deploy into line and overwhelm them while chipping away with their artillery and skirmishers.




The British light dragoons launched the first charges of the game, one of them failed terribly against the French Hussars seeing them retreat in some disorder, they fared slightly better against some Chasseurs a'Cheval, but the most telling action was forcing a battalion of French foot into square to have them savaged by the KGL volleys.




The French went into somewhat of a malaise, Hanoverian skirmishing fire felled the Brigade commander opposite them and KGL volleys broke the square which fled in disorder to the rear and apparently did not stop running until it reached Charleroi.

The British cavalry in a true reflection of their type responded with the Light Dragoons attempting to charge the French guns, the close range cannister was not as effective as it could have been, but the result was as expected.




The KGL foot, their blood up charged home on the French infantry who had already suffered from the unequal exchanges of fire and another French infantry battalion scurried from the field. 



The French foot formed a line to overwhelm the Hanoverians and every units volley was so ineffective that they all lost their fire discipline.



The French Hussars despite urging from Ney had a very extended period of Hesitancy and with the British committing their third infantry Brigade to the battle it was time for the remaining French to withdraw and fight another day.


So much for painting new troops, I left four battalions of foot, two regiments of horse and a battery of guns in reserve unused!




26 comments:

  1. Game looks great, Paul! Better to have too many troops than too few. At least, that is MY motto!

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    1. Thanks Jonathan, I life style choice I can embrace

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  2. Great looking game. A shame you didn't get to use all the troops

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    1. Cheers Neil, I'm sure they will get on the table some time soon.

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  3. A beautiful game...with gorgeous minis!

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  4. Super stuff, great to see your fabulous figures out in force on the tabletop.

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  5. Awesome!
    What was the table size for this battle?

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  6. Paul what do you think of Gen D’Armee? I purchased them but haven’t games them yet . I thought they were more for 15mm larger size clashes ? How would you rate them v
    BP2 and Ady’s supplements or Ady's own rules OTH ?

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    1. I really do like General d'Armee for big games especially the way that the ADCs are abstracted to represent battlefield control so that you cannot commit everything all the time and trying to over extend yourself will result in disaster.

      After many games of Black Powder I tired of them, I think that they are far too generic to be accurate for anything during the 200 year time period that they are trying to cover. Although there were some fine supplements they were papering over the cracks of what were fundamentally some very poor rules.

      I've bought OTH and do hope to give them a game in the coming year.

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  7. Very cool. Nice to see some gaming going on, even if solo :-)

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  8. Splendid stuff Paul...
    Of course you had too many miniatures... that what’s meant to happen 😁

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Thanks Aly, always better to have too many rather than too few

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  9. Scrivs,
    Excellent battle report and great looking game!
    Neil

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  10. A fine and impressive sight that looks quite big for a little game, even if it could have been bigger, had you deployed the reserves. You'll just have to fill the table more next time! :)
    Regards, James

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    1. Thanks James, with the units I'm adding all the time, I'll soon outgrow my 8x6

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