Borodino - a bit of a fleche

This weeks game at the SESWC was a long delayed Napoleonic game using the Black Powder Rules for Dave Imrie who had only used the rules in an AWI game previously.  It allowed Dave to put his impressive Russian Grenadier Division onto the table top.

Russian grenadiers...URRAH!

The Setup
The game was fought across a 8ft by 6ft table. We used the 66% movement and range version of the rules.  The table represented part of Borodino near the Bagration fleches which we represented with 2 redoubts.

The terrain on the table was open ground except for woods lining the southern edge of the table.  The Russians had 2 brigades each of 4 battalions of grenadiers and a cavalry brigade with a large cuirassier regiment and a Don cossack regiment.   Dave deployed a grenadier brigade around each of the fleches/redoubts with the cavalry split between the flanks.  A battalion and a gun occupied each of the redoubts

Garrison of a fleche - we counted them as 1 gun and a battalion

My French force comprised two 5 battalion infantry brigades each with a gun on the table with a chasseur brigade and a mixed curassier and lancer brigade in reserve of the table.

I made all the commanders 8s for this game. 

How the game played
Dave stood on the defensive and I threw an infantry brigade against each of the redoubts.  My initial attack on the redoubts proved a disaster as the first 2 battalions to charge in broke when suffering artillery hits.  Eventually I got a battalion to charge into the left hand redoubt but after 2 rounds of combat it broke and a supporting unit followed it from the field. 

Attack on a fleche - right hand unit broke to the artillery fire...

Dave had moved his cuirassiers to support his centre and I decided to attack them using my more numerous cavalry who had arrived on the table.  I ordered the chassuer brigade to charge and they blundered and retired from the table.  I immediately ordered the cuirassier lancer brigade to move to fill the gap left by the chasseurs.  They blundered and also retired from the table!  My dice were 6, 6, 2, 6, 6, 2.

The unfortunate dice - its a blunder of the table

This left me with 5 infantry battalions and 4 guns on the table.  Dave then decided to go over to the attack and charged 2 of my guns with his cuirassier regiment.  My guns scored 3 hits and the cuirassiers broke when they tested for the artillery hits.  That single success was the last action of the game……

It was a good game and took 2 hours to play.  The game was characterised by amazingly poor break tests dice rolls, truly appalling musketry fire, very good artillery fire and  excessive blunder rolls!  Dave is away to build some more realistic fleches for a bigger version of the game....