Napoleonic battle : Russians vs French

After a brief hiatus we managed to get the Napoleonics back on the table this week pitching Martin’s Russians against my French for a second battle. The Russian commander had been busily painting fresh troops and Uhlan lancers, whilst the French had slightly more heavy cavalry, which meant I left out the Hussars from the previous encounter (did anybody notice they were actually British ?) anyway this means the Russians now outnumber the French so our scenario (not historical) made the Russians the attackers. We would be using V&F again but unfortunately we had both forgotten most of it so there was quite a bit of rulebook referral (by the end and after some searching the internet for FaQ’s I think we have it sorted out, mainly). 

The battlefield, split by a couple of smaller streams, these are crossable but will hinder movement and  as difficult terrain when fighting takes place in them ? In our scenario the French have stolen a march and already pushed two brigades forward towards the two crossings. The Russians have the option of bringing everything on along their baseline, anything in reserve May or may not enter along the road in the distance. In the end they didn’t arrive but the Russians had pretty much put everything on the table for a frontal assault. The French have predetermined their arrival points but these will remain unknown to the Russians.

The Russians sweep onto the battlefield and promptly play a delaying ‘fate’ card on the french Ouch ! No reserves for the french this turn the battle could be over very quickly

Quaking in thier boots the French shake into line to cover the bridge and open up with their sole cannon

On the opposite high ground the Russian cavalry makes the mistake of arriving in March column and they pay a price from the enemy artillery, this stalls their advance as they try to reform and rally one regiment.

By the other bridge the French unlimber their horse artillery but it fails to hit any of the vast numbers of Russian infantry advancing towards them !

The Russians are advancing all along the front

And soon start to push across the stream

Phew………French the French reserves all arrive next turn, Dragoons in the foreground

Two more infantry brigades in the centre supported by Heavy Cavalry and artillery, looks like we will be having a fight after all !

The Russian cavalry advances down to the stream but halts before making any charge across

Russian grenadiers are already pushing across the stream into the light woods, the Horse artillery is able to pull away in time opening up the Grenadiers for a devastating charge from the french heavy cavalry. What ! The order fails to get through and I roll a 1 the heavy cavalry brigade stands still NOOOOOOOOO

Russian Uhlans get across the river but they also fail to get any orders and stand still !

We agreed the stone bridge being narrow would only allow movement in March column, the caused the Russians some headaches as they are a bit inflexible unable to move and reform in the same turn.

The French dragoons decide to get on with it and charge across the stream, they force some of the enemy back but are then thrown back them selves

Russian attack columns moving across the wooden bridge

The french second line is rushing to deploy but the Russians must no face the french artillery set up in the centre

Whilst the cavalry tussle the Russian columns have charged into the french in front of the village, they break the first Regiment of infantry but then are forced to form square when the french Chasseurs threaten their flank

At the far right of the battlefield the french are formed into square against the Uhlans

Rather than wait to be assault the french  surge forward towards the stream, at last the french heavies are moving but now they don’t have a target to charge

The Dragoons finally force away across the stream and outnumbering the Russians now they are able to break the French cavalry brigade

Around the Stone bridge the Russians have thrown everything in to the assault the french defence holds just with some lucky Valour rolls especially the light infantry agains the grenadiers in the woods. Nice to see the new wound markers working 👍

The Russian flank is turned !

As a ruleset V&F is designed to be brutal and after several very close combats rounds and loads of hand to hand fighting especially in the centre the French suddenly got the better of it the Russian ‘valour’ failing with two brigades effectively wiped out. This came as a bit of a shock to both commanders ! I should say the French Curassiers did manage to get a charge against the enemy to ‘blood’ them wiping out a Russian infantry regiment

A final shot of the combat around the stone bridge, the Russians are definitely getting the better of it here and the french wouldn’t  be able to hold much longer. But the rest of the Russian army is broken and pulling back, so they will have to disengage when the orders come through.

Once again a splendid run out for the Napoleonics. Really fun, the French were on the ropes from the start and looked very wobbly early on. The thin blue line held remarkably well and proved tougher than expected. The Russian valour crumbled very quickly with a couple of unfortunate rolls, but fun all the same. The rules work well although I don’t think they are written in the rule sheets terribly well, they certainly gave us a decisive battle. We now can’t really fit any more troops onto my indoor table, although I have a frightening number of unpainted french. We are looking forward to a game on a slightly larger table in the summer.

Perhaps I need to get the British vs French on the table for the next Napoleonic battle ?

Thanks as always for checking in….battles stacking up as today we dropped back to the dark ages for a nail biting encounter in the welsh borders !

Matt