For my first play test I used a French 1500 point NAW based army playing against an Austrian 1500 point Lasalle based army.
The French Infantry Division consisted of:
3 Infantry Brigades each consisting of 1 Line Infantry, 1 Light Infantry and 1 Conscript Infantry Battalion
1 Grand Battery , 1 Heavy Artillery, 1 Medium Foot artillery
1 Light Cavalry Brigade, 2 Chasseurs regiment.
The Austrian Infantry División consisted of:
2 Infantry Brigade each of 5 Line Infantry.
1 Light foot artillery Battery
1 Light Cavalry Brigade, of 1 Hussar regiment and a Chevaux leger Regt.
After my failure to get the reserves on in the tournament in Barcelona, I decided to for the moment make my armies from organic and support forces. Even though the forces are more expensive, you are more or less depending on the scenario guaranteed to have all your forces on the table in turn one.
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| Intial setup the Austrians are defending the right flank objectives , the French attacking with two Infantry brigada. |
I played this game solo over a duration of a week, playing the Austrian or French phases of a turn in one sessión and then leaving the table for a day so I could come back to play the opponents phase of the turn from the opponents view.
The French cavalry are deployed in the centre to exploit the Austrian Infantry open flanks.
The Grand battery begins to bombard the Austrian Infantry who are defending the Left flank objective.
The French cavalry charge the Austrian Infantry flank and because the infantry fail to form square they are destroyed with the help of the breakthrough charge riding down the remnants of the battalion.
The other French cavalry unit manage to charge the flank of the Austrian Infantry in the enclosed field, also destroying the infantry unit in the breakthrough charge. The lesson for this is I should have had my Austrian cavalry just behind the flank of the infantry to be ready to counterattack any potential attack.
In the Austrian turn, I move the cavalry to protect the flank of the remaining infantry battalions of the Austrian forcé
The right flank Austrian Infantry brigade readys itself for the French Infantry attack
In the French turn two, the French columns attempt to charge the Austrian line but both fail their Elan test and fall back to begin a firefight.
Both French battalions lose their fire fight and fall back in disarray and the French attack breaks down.
Both cavalry forces charge each other and each side loses a unit , making them take a forcé morale test, which they both fail, with no side now having cavalry support the battle will be decided by the infantry.
The French Infantry rally and advance in mass column to attempt to take the objective.
On the Austrian right flank the French assault goes in and succeeds in in destroying one Austrian unit and making the other retreat through the enclosed field
On the Austrian Left flank, the first two assaults by the French battalions was respulsed but the the final third attack with the support of Grand Battery is successful, and destroys the third Austrian battalion, meaning the Austrian Infantry Brigade have to take a forcé morale test and fail and rout leaving the first objective in the French hands.
Conclusions;
The main reason to play this game was to see if you can play with different bases systems and use smoke markers instead of base removal without to much confusión. In my opinión there is no problem, the only time it may be a little confusing is when a unit is in attack column if you place the first smoke marker on the back bases and then it recieves a second casaulty put it on the front bases. This will remind you to that a base is missing on the placing of the second marker when counting for firing.
I have used the smoke (cotton wool) as markers before in games. It is inexspensive (free if you nick it of your mrs) , It looks good, In Napoleonic times you couldn't have a battle without a lot of smoke. Unlike other type of markers, due to them being placed on the bases they move when a unit move.
Even though I played this game over a few days, if I played it in one session I would expect it to take about 2 hours.
I played the Grand battery special rule because I have found them pretty deadly when I have played against them (A bit like flamethrowers in Bolt action). However due to my terrible dice throwing in this game they were helpful but not decisive. The Grand Battery rule will be looked at in depth in a future article.
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