Tuesday 30 June 2015

Somewhere in Spain...



Another Black Powder game at The Shed this week....link to Eric's Blog .  We played out a Peninsular game with British vs French, struggling for control of 2 villages.  Thanks to Black Powders speedy cavalry rules I managed to lose my main artillery almost straightaway when it was ridden down by cavalry without even getting the chance to unlimber!

My main infantry brigade was the forced into square by the menacing cavalry before being hit by 2 French columns...somehow the doomed square managed to hang on for several turns and eventually forced the attackers back...to be honest some very lucky dice rolling saved my bacon.

My cavalry meanwhile had crashed into their opposite numbers on the French flank resulting in both Brigades being quickly battered and needing time to recover.

By this point the other British brigades had manoeuvred out of a bottleneck and into position to attack and the French had lost enough units for us to claim the day, despite the Brits being pretty battered everywhere.

It struck me afterwards that villages and towns often become unduly important in games...in this case both sides raced to control the 2 villages and committed lots of our troops to try and achieve this or to dislodge the occupiers...both sides might have been better employing them elsewhere on the table rather than feeding them into the meat grinder.  I suspect this also happens in the real world...shades of Hougoumont!  Maybe a lesson to take away for the future...

The Line Infantry are forced into square...
 

...while the fight for the town begins
 

The square is hit by 2 Attack Columns
(we decided this was allowed...I know it's a source of debate)
 

The Cavalry clash on the right flank
 

The British seize the other village on the left flank
 
Thanks as always to Eric for laying on a great game!


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