Friday Night At Julians - Sharpe Practice Again

John was unable to attend this week, so Julian and I took the British against Chris with the French. The scenario was three groups of French voltigeurs had seized a strategic point to secure the advance of their army. Some reinforcements were coming up to support them, but the British had also arrived to drive them out

We had about 6-8 units per side and only 4 commanders, as Julian wanted to speed things up a bit 

Here is my force - three units of line infantry with a leader, two units of light dragoons with a leader and a C in C leader 

The voltigeurs occupy a rather nice 3d house from Temu that Julian has recently acquired! 

The British cavalry leader 

The Brits advance

The enemy - two units of French dragoons, who proved to be quite troublesome!

The voltigeurs open fire at long range on my light dragoons, scaring them off

The ubiquitous Richard Sharpe was in Julians command this week

Close up of nicely painted British light dragoon (on his own cos he was killed by the voltigeurs initial volley!)

My light dragoons headed off to the flank where Julian was advancing - or are they just hiding behind the woods from the nasty French?

 

The situation after a few turns, my Brits deployed into line as a single unit under the C in C. Chris moved his dragoons up and looked like he would charge my line - this could get bloody!

But he didn't roll quite enough, so wheeled into Julians riflemen at the edge of the wood instead, forcing them to voluntarily fall back

A dangerous situation developed for Julians three units in the woods...the dragoons eventually pursued one unit of light infantrymen right off the table edge!

Meanwhile, the British line, using "Present" to enhance their firing, gradually wiped out the unit of voltigeurs in the open between the house and the trees

With the riflemen unloaded, the French grenadiers attempted to charge them

And Julian rolled this when he decided to fall back again - you add the dice together for the distance you retire - EXCEPT if you are in woods, you deduct one inch for each dice.... sigh

Needless to say, you are at all sorts of disadvantages if caught in the flank or rear, plus unloaded! Julian is pointing out some of them!

5 or 6 to kill I believe - this was what Chris rolled

And Julian reprised his earlier efforts - even Mr Sharpe shuffled off his mortal coil in this one!

I think I stopped taking photos because not an awful lot more changed - mostly we just blazed away at each other. The French dragoons ended up back adjacent to the voltigeurs, their infantry were advancing steadily through the woods, and the British were nowhere near taking the house, so it ended as a French victory.

A nice bit of easy going fun at the end of the week - today I am off to Barrys with a British Napoleonic force of twelve battalions of foot, three heavy and one light cavalry plus three guns - so a report on this scenario by Paul will follow here in a day or two.