Battle of Montmirail : February 1814

Looking for an opportunity to get the Napoleonics back on the table Martins came up with the Battle of Montmirail, apparently based loosely on a Blucher scenario on the battle but without the Prussians as we don’t have them (yet)

Our battle is focussed on the Russian attack against the French, who have an isolated Brigade of poor quality troops needing urgent support. This comes in the form of the Old Guard and potentially later the Middle guard. Napoleon and Ney are both on the table. V&F would provide the rules.

The French are holding the two small villages, the nearest held by a brigade of ‘Marie Louise’ infantry the second held by some heavy cavalry who are not ideal for holding a defensible feature in V&F the Russians come on in force all along the edge.

Heavily out numbered the French send out some skirmishers and open up but they are poorly trained and have limited shots. The stream does slow the Russian advance.

Having abandoned the village the french heavy attempt to throw the Russian Dragoons back but despite having the advantage the french are knocked back.

As the Russian infantry develop their attack and now holding the second of the villages Napoleon arrives with the Old Guard !

The battered french heavy cavalry tries to rally whilst Ney arrives leading a unit of Heavy cavalry

The first assault by the guard goes in on the village now being held by Russian grenadiers a tough fight !

Heavily out number by the advancing Russians !

The Guard have brought some heavy artillery which with Napoleons special rules is effective at slowing the Russian infantry 

The first of the Marie Louise units has been driven off but the remaining two are holding on despite being shaken. Using a fate card the unit in the village is boosted to improve their resilience and tenacity. But can they hold ?

The two villages become the focus of the battle. With the french holding on by the skin of their teeth.

On the right wing, the french cavalry having now rallied charges back in and throws the Russian cavalry back

Still the Russians are holding the second village

But after several rounds of combat and two or three assaults the old guard finally break into the village

Against the odds, the French are still holding on despite still being shaken for much of the battle

The french cavalry have broken through and are threatening to overrun the Russian artillery and at this point the Russian general halts the attack and decides to wait for the Prussians

The hero’s of the battle are without doubt the Marie Louise infantry who despite repeated attacks and against the odds have held the village for the whole battle. A splendid battle with lots of close run combats, when the french initially lost the cavalry battle it didn’t look good at all but the stubborn infantry saved the day for Napoleon.

The weather has return to a heat wave but thankfully we are now up north which is considerably cooler and perfect cycling weather

We haven’t had a bike picture for some time

And with mountains in the background

In a slight change of plan today George hosted me for another run out with his lovely Italian wars collection. I played with the French who seemed to have a lot of advantages both in numbers and quality of troops over the Spanish.

Given the advantages it seemed rude not to just advance all out, my Elite Swiss got excited as did some of my heavy cavalry.

As the two lines advance to combat……

Crash the fight begins……

Wonderful stuff and I will leave George to recount the details of the battle, of course what no scenario can allow for is a ridiculously, no crazy, above average dice rolling by one side, enough said 😀 but it may take some years for the Spanish to rebuild their army ?

That’s it for now, another Napoleonic game planned in for Saturday if it doesn’t get too hot

Thanks as always Matt ❤️