And as we reached the welcome end of another working week, it was John, Paul and I who turned up at mate Julian's place for a game of SP using our hosts collection of Perry plastic Napoleonic figures.
John might have played the rules once, Paul never (although he revealed he had watched a good few YouTube reviews of them) and Julian and I on several occasions previously - but not for quite some time - soooo - we were all a bit rusty and doubtless some mistakes were made - but it was fun nonetheless!
It is a ruleset where often, not a lot happens in terms of figure movement, so there are a limited number of images because...well, it's not very interesting to have 6 pictures of the same redcoats in the same wood shooting at the same Frenchmen in a similar wood opposite!
The table prior to battle commencing Brits on the bottom edge (me to the left, John to the right) with Paul opposite me and Julian opposing John. Dismounted French Dragoons are already in possession of the BUA top centre. By a dice rolling fluke, both forces started with a force morale of 11 points.
Les Francais avancent!
Les dragons a la ferme.
"The scum of the earth", copyright courtesy of the Duke of Wellington! (my force of 6 LI and corporal, 2 x 8 line infantry with NCO's and 2 officers)
The backbone of the British Army (according to the sergeants' mess, anyway!)
Johns force advances - 2 x 8 Line and Mr. Sharpe plus 6 riflemen!
The dragoons somewhat rashly left the BUA and entered the woods to confront John's advance.
My LI take aim at the French in the opposite woods
The main action was to take place between Julian and John - a bit like last week's TtS game!
And get in the first volley! Fortunately, being cavalrymen, they had less effective carbines, and, well, they were pretty lousy shots (bad dice rolling by Jules LOL!)
Richard brings his merry band up on the flank of the Frogs!
The riflemen were the only "good shots" on the field, although on this occasion, I think the effect of their volley was somewhat underwhelming...
The Dragoons exchanged fire with John's line infantrymen for a couple of rounds
Meanwhile, on our flank, Paul moved his two units of light infantry up to the edge of the wood and fired a volley at me - I think he may have scored two shock....meh! My NCO will have a quiet word and steady lads (NCO's and officers can use their command points to rally off shock)
Having won the fire fight - note the absence of two dragoons PLUS a bit of shock, AND the smoke indicating the dragoons are not loaded, John's boys put in a spirited bayonet charge!
We counted the dragoons as having no bayonets (shum mishtake, possibly?!) AND unloaded, so 2 x -2 dice - they were outnumbered so only started on 3 x D6! By the time we added on the NCO command strengths, we generously gave Julian two dice to roll. John started with 6 x D6, and added 2 command cards, plus the commanding officer's grade 3 for a total of 11 x D6 - fortunately, we had no statistically exceptional results and the dragoons were hammered and sent reeling back out of the woods!
I can't remember exactly how this went, but for a couple of turns, the "Tiffin" card that ends that turn came out quite early and there was always a couple of British command cards, allowing us to activate unactivated units before the turn finished - John used these to great effect to reload then volley fire into the hapless dragoons, driving them back again and piling on damage - a couple of casualties and around 18 points of shock, which exceeded the total number of remaining figures by some way, forcing them to fall back again!
I should also mention that both dragoon NCO's were by now hors de combat and rolling on the "Bad Things Happen" chart, the French Force Morale had dropped from 11 to 8!
Albion Ascendant in the centre of the field!
On my flank, less had happened, but my LI and line had put a few hits on Paul's LI, despite the double advantage of being LI in woods, and their normally aggressive commander was forced to pull his men back into the shelter of the trees. I advanced my LI and had them at PRESENT, ready for a withering volley if the Frogs decided to have another go! The line infantry were poised to follow up in support but were not required, as it turned out.
Final shot as the French threw in the towel - the dragoons are a completely spent force and that isolated unit of line infantry were about to go under the hammer - the riflemen had already put 8 shock on them with one round of firing (4 hits but you get double shock if firing from the flank!)
We could have carried on as the French force morale was only at 6 (we still had 11) but it was 10pm and writing was very obviously on the wall, so we agreed to call it here as a British victory - although Julian claimed, at this very late stage, that possession of the BUA was the raison d'etre of the skirmish, and as the Brits had failed to take it, the French had won - yeah, right, nice try Jules :)
As is usual with SP, we had a great game with a lot of laughs and not too many problems with the rules although we probably missed a few bits out or got the odd thing wrong - we decided afterwards that as the dragoons have bayonet scabbards sculpted on them, they probably should not have had the -2 in the melee - ALTHOUGH I would still argue cavalry fighting on foot against regular infantrymen should be at quite a disadvantage?!
Thanks for dropping by and I hope you enjoyed the brief battle report!
