Just after the game vs Phillip I was invited round Mike’s to have a game of General de Brigade.
I was really looking forward to this as it has been ages since I’ve had a Napoleonics game and Mike has a splendid collection of vintage 25mm Minifigs, all the cabinets in the short clip below are his collection which covers pretty much all combatants of the wars.
Unfortunately I was beginning to really suffer with my chest so picture taking wasn’t too good for this encounter as it was taking all my concentration to deal with the game. Mike had come up with a great scenario taken from a wargames magazine. It was an encounter at the start of the Waterloo Campaign with Jerome’s division trying to cross the table whilst being prevented by a Prussian Brigade. The fight turned out to be good fun as both of us had few troops on table to start with reinforcements coming on at randomised places.
I started with a Landwehr Regiment and a Jager detatchment and had to try to hold two river crossings at separate ends of the tables, both had villages on my side of the river. I decided to hold one with a battalion of Landwehr and the other with the jager with my other 2 Landwehr battalions held centrally as a reserve. The French were coming on with a Regiment at each crossing. The village on my left was not held very well, the Landwehr battalion only managed to slow down the French for about a move or two before the French smashed into the village and bundled them all the way out – Conscript Landwher vs Veteran Leger isn’t good!
(Sorry about the flash!)
On the right Mike had room after the crossing to manoeuvre around the village whilst the Jager inflicted the odd casualty as they passed. I managed to bring on my Infantry Regiment on this side of the table and they quickly advanced to the town but had troubled changing orders to engage the passing Frenchies.
Over on the left the French ground on and once they managed to get a Ligne Regiment across the river supported by Cavalry the gig was up for the Landwher and they broke under the pressure. My Hussar regiment made an appearance on this flank and did sterling work in a do or die charge which broke a Leger battalion but this flank was completely lost and Mike managed to exit a few battalions off of the table to boot.
Meanwhile on the right things went a wee bit better – my infantry finally managed to go to engage and slowed down the end of Mike’s disappearing column enough to prevent more units exiting the table. The best part of the game for me happened here too. Mike had brought his other Light Cavalry brigade round the village on the extreme right of the table to avoid the traffic jam ahead. I had left an Infantry battalion in square to cover the rear of my other infantry who dutifully blazed away at the passing French Chasseurs, my artillery then came on the table just near where the Cavalry would pass (jammy roll number 1), then my Infantry managed to kill the French Cavalry general causing them to falter right in front of my unlimbering guns (jammy roll number 2), I then rolled really well when firing and broke the whole Brigade of cavalry.
We finished up with Mike winning as he had gotten off quite a few units and the rest were poised to do so soon whilst breaking nearly half of my force. I got lucky defeating his Light Cavalry and my regular infantry were in good shape so would have been able to withdraw them safely. A good fun game with lots of random things happening to keep it interesting one of those scenarios that you could play lots of times and never have the same thing happen twice.
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