2015-11-29

Battle Report: Black Powder - Take the fields!

Got another game in this week, it was basicly the same armies as last time, with just a artillery piece added to each army.
The terrain got a bit upgraded as the fight moved in to a small farming village, and this was to be the centre of attention for the start of the battle.

We tried another new thing this time, and that was to reduce the movement speed of all units to half of the standard. So an infantry battalion would move 6" and a cavalry regiment 9". This was made to see if it was more fun when a unit could not get a great order and move of into the sunset, leaving the other far behind.

French Forces
·         Commander-in-Chief – SR 8
o   Marshal Maréchal Davout

·         Géneral de Brigade Lorencez - 4ème Division – SR 7
o   3 Battalions of Line Infantry (1 large)
o   1 Battalion of Light Infantry
1 Foot artillery 

·         Géneral de Brigade Gilly - 2ème Division – SR 7
o   3 Battalions of Line Infantry
o   1 Battalion of Light Infantry

·         Géneral de Brigade Petit - Cavalry Division – SR 7
o   2 Regiments of Dragoons
o   1 Regiment of Chasseurs á Cheval

Austrian Forces
·         Commander-in-Chief – SR 8
o   Feldmarschalleutnant Hobenzollern-Hechingen

·         Advance Guard: Feldmarschalleutnant Vukassovish – SR 8
o   1 Regiments of Kürassiere
o   2 Regiments of Hussars

·         Brigade Generalmajor Kayser – SR 7
o   3 Battalions of Line Infantry (1 large)
o   1 Battalion of Landwehr Volunteers
o   1 Battalion of Jägers
1 Foot artillery 

·         Brigade Generalmajor Bieber – SR 7
o   2 Battalions of Veteran Grenadiers (1 large)
o   1 Battalion of Line Infantry
o   1 Battalion of Jägers

The forces was all deployed at the start of the battle, so that the action would not wait for too long.

French right and centre deployment, a heavy column supported on the flank with both cavalry and artillery.

French left deployment, mixed brigade with some flanking light cavalry.


Austrian cavalry facing their French counterparts

Center of the austrian line, lots of infantry deployed in a french mixed brigade

Austrian right was held by the elite Grenadiers

And the whole table, village in the centre and some scattered woods around



The French unfolded their flags and started to march onto the table, on the French left the flanking units moved forward, but the centre had some trouble deciding where to go, so they kind of stayed put.

The centre moved forward while the cavalry formed up in columns to move of in a flanking maneuver.

The Austrian cavalry moved forward slowly, keeping in line with most of the centre infantry, except the Landwehr who had no intention on getting into harms way, and refused to do anything. But the jägers saw an opportunity and dashed forward into the field, taking cover and started to fire into the advancing French.



The Austrian Grenadiers moved forward in at a steady pace, leaving the jägers to do a flanking maneuver to catch the Chassaurs that had started a flanking move, threatening the entire Austrian line.


The next turn started with some hard riding from the French Dragoons, they quickly abandoned the flanking move and went for a head on charge, stopping just short of the Austrian line.

And one of the battalions occupied the village, taking up cover all over and started to shoot at anyone dumb enough to get into their sights.

Other than that most of the French line took a breather and didn't do anything.

Then the Austrians got their turn, and the Kürassiers quickly took the opportunity to rid the field of some dragoons, and charged straight into them. The first fight ended in a badly mauled dragoon unit that retreated, and the austrians didn't stop for that and flew straight into the next unit, smashing them up quite good as well before they had to retreat. Those heavy cavalry types are rock hard!

In the centre the Jägers got of a great volley and shook the french lights quite hard.

The right hand Jägers also got a great turn in, as they quickly occupied the woods right next to the Chasseurs and also got an excellent round of shooting in, making them think twice about the position they put themselves in.

Meanwhile the grenadiers moved up to centerfield, and the infantry in the centre did absolutely nothing.

Then I think I lost a turn of photos, but the gist of it was that the cavalry on both sides took a moment, the centre was rather still, other than that the Jägers and French lights shot each other up quite a bit. 
In the village some of the Austrian infantry lined up to shoot the French away, and the Austrian artillery rolled up as well to deliver some close range canister fire.
On the Austrian right the grenadiers charged into a French column, beating them back and moving up into the french lines.

In the turn after the French counterchanged so that the Austrians had a unit both in the front, and in the side. But after an amazing roll of the dice, the French lost, with one unit retreating to the edge of the board and the other standing its ground, now facing the angry Austrians all by themselves.

The French in the village shot pretty good, and got some damage spread around

In the centre the French advanced, starting to get into fire lines

But then came the round that broke the French back, first one of the hussars got the large French battalion into square, then the infantry moved up and delivered a devastating volley, and when the smoke cleared, the unit cohesion had completely broken down and they flead.

On the right the Jägers moved up after the chasseurs that had retreated, and shot them up so bad that they broke, taking the whole cavalry division over the edge, also the grenadiers beat down the french in close combat.


In the village the unit occupying it got so shot up that they also left the field, taking also that division over the edge, breaking it and the whole French army.

Overall it was a resounding beating of the French, but they will have their revenge, and I think I need to adjust the forces a bit, the French needs some more help, or they need to ambush a few straggling Austrian units so that they don't show up next time.

Overall it was a good game, I'm not certain that the reduced movement is a great idea, but I'm willing to try it a few more times before I discard the idea. If anyone else have any thoughts on the matter, please share!

Until next time, happy gaming!













2015-11-22

Battle Report: Black Powder - Battle of the Clearing

This week I had the opportunity to finally field my newly painted Austrians on the table, facing my own French troops. So one dark evening me and a friend gathered to fight it out to see how should be the ruler of Bavaria for real!
This started out as a little scenario to represent the first clashes at Teugn-Hausen, but I wanted us to use some cavalry as well, so I threw away that idea and just went for it.

As all the miniatures was mine I made the armies as well, and since I was a bit short on commanders and cavalry on the Austrian side, they had some advisors from Britain brought in to fill the gaps.

This was also our first time to try out larger unit sizes. Before we had that one standard unit was three bases, a large four and small two and tiny one base. But this has the problem of not really looking as good as it could. And we do have access to a rather large table here. So we decided to try to up the sizes a bit.
So here a standard unit is four bases and a large is six, all other sizes are the same. So my Austrians went from having lots of large units to having just two. But I think the aesthetics are very good, and we were both really satisfied with it.

French Forces
·         Commander-in-Chief – SR 8
o   Marshal Maréchal Davout

·         Géneral de Brigade Lorencez - 4ème Division – SR 7
o   3 Battalions of Line Infantry (1 large)
o   1 Battalion of Light Infantry

·         Géneral de Brigade Gilly - 2ème Division – SR 7
o   3 Battalions of Line Infantry
o   1 Battalion of Light Infantry

·         Géneral de Brigade Petit - Cavalry Division – SR 7
o   2 Regiments of Dragoons
o   1 Regiment of Chasseurs á Cheval

Austrian Forces
·         Commander-in-Chief – SR 8
o   Feldmarschalleutnant Hobenzollern-Hechingen

·         Advance Guard: Feldmarschalleutnant Vukassovish – SR 8
o   1 Regiments of Kürassiere
o   2 Regiments of Hussars

·         Brigade Generalmajor Kayser – SR 7
o   3 Battalions of Line Infantry (1 large)
o   1 Battalion of Landwehr Volunteers
o   1 Battalion of Jägers

·         Brigade Generalmajor Bieber – SR 7
o   2 Battalions of Veteran Grenadiers (1 large)
o   1 Battalion of Line Infantry
o   1 Battalion of Jägers

I've been tinkering a bit with the stats on different Austrian units, taken inspiration form some blogs I've seen, and what I've read about them. But basicly the stats for all units are standard, but I've decided not to let any Line, Landwehr or Grenadier battalion form Mixed Order as they didn't think that skirmishing was something for the common soldier. The Jägers are more of a bleak copy of the British Rifles, without all the nice special rules they have. I'll do a more thorough accounting of my thoughts at a later date if there is some interests in it.

On to the battle!
I have to apologize of the photo quality, I used a different camera to take them than I normally do, and it didn't do well with low light...

The deployment of our troops, first out is the Austrians



The French that oppose them


And the whole battlefield in one blurry shot.

The first turn saw the French advance quickly up the field, but the Austrian right was just as quick, and lines was drawn. Some sporadic fire was exchanged between the Jägers and the French light troops.



Grenadiers form line in face of the French columns.

The Austrian left did not have the speed in their legs as the right, so they fell behind a bit, advancing slowly at the enemy.

Austrian landwehr was not that interested in moving and the unit with them was held back as well

During the second turn the french had a plan, to attack with force on the Austrian Grenadiers, but plans did not take form as was planed, and a total misunderstanding of the orders to charge led to the retreat of the two center battalions, leaving the left dangerously exposed.

But on the other side of the battlefield things took orders a bit better for the french and a valiant charge was made into the Austrians big unit there. The result however was not that good, and after two rounds of fighting they was destroyed as more Austrians moved up in support.



Overview of the battle after turn two

On the third turn our reserve cavalry arrived, and for the french this was not a moment too soon. And the first thing that happend was that the Casseurs charged my poor landwehr, that didn't even have time to form square and promptly took it in the face.

In the centre the orders was finally straightened out and the large unit plowed right into the Austrian grenadiers.

Other than that the French right stood its ground, continuing the fire exchange.

In the fighting something amazing happened, the landwehr somehow held of the cavalry, giving them a bloody nose and threw them back to their own lines. The Casseurs commander should have a stern talking to them...


The next round got only a single usable picture, as the chasseurs once again charge the landwehr, this time they form the square, and the line infantry jumped on the grenadiers right next to the landwehr, but was beaten back with a combination of good closing fire and some rather abysmal rolling on the french side. On the left the large units fought again, resulting in mostly nothing, and some fire exchange resulted in a few disordered units here and there, stopping most any order giving over there.

The came what would be the next to last turn as the french line started to crumble, first the Austrian grenadiers finally won the combat, and promptly a 3 was rolled for the French break test and the unit disappeared.

Next the Casseurs didn't receive any order and got stranded in the front of some rather angry Austrians, and was shot to bits.

Overall the french didn't get much done and failed everything.

On the last turn the Chasseurs got charged by a unit of Austrian Hussars, sealing the deal.

In the centre the Austrian Kürassiere got hold of a Dragoon unit, and destroyed it instantly, the firing also got a few of the French unit down to shaken and we could see no point in continuing and gave the Austrian army a great victory.


Overall it was a great game, and I hope to get my Austrians on the table soon again. There is also some Prussian units marching in the horizon, from my opponent of the day, but will they be on the allies side or the French...?