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...?

2 comments:

  1. Excellent looking game my friend- very impressed!
    Mike B
    despertaferres!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was a very nice game, and it looked far better in reality than my lousy pictures here can show. Looking forward to add bunch of artillery to both sides as well for some all inclusive action =)

      Delete