This game was the battle of Weissenfels from the 1813 “The Battles in Germany” scenario book by Dave Brown.
This gave us the opportunity to ndo two things:
- For Dave A to get his Russian forces on the table
- The first game using the General de Armee V2 rules.
The scenario had the French attacking over the Rippach stream with the objective of getting a unit into the village of Rocken on the Russian baseline, they had 14 turns to achieve this objective.
The Russian forces were commanded by Dave A and “Uncle Albert” Julian while the French forces were commanded by Alan, Nigel and Paul. I provided the umpiring services.
Initially the French had two infantry brigades on table, and these were both deployed on the left flank. A brigade of line infantry assaulting through Rippach. While the Light Infantry brigade supported by artillery prepared to attack the village of Gohren.
The Russians only had two infantry brigades at their disposal and assigned the line infantry to defend Rippach and Gohren while the Jager brigade protected the ford at Strosswitz. They did however have three cavalry brigades (well two cavalry and a Cossack brigade) which were deployed towards the rear of the board to support the infantry.
Early engagement with skirmishers across the two attacking brigades and the artillery firing on the Russian garrison deployed in Gohren dominated the early moves in the game.
The French (Nigel) then launched a charge with a supported column into the Russian lines at the other side of the bridge. The rolls for the initial charge results rolled and the result would have meant a melee but the Russians decided to reroll using the support rules. However the gamble failed with the roll of a 1 and the Russian line retreated.
This provided the French with a bridgehead on the other side of the river and although the combat would go back and forth for several turns the French managed to maintain it.
During this time the Russian garrison in Gohren had continued to be pounded by artillery and picked off by skirmisher fire. In the end the casualties mounted enough and the garrison dispersed.
The French now started moving more forces into the attack and slowly driving the Russian Line Infantry back.
To prevent the French gaining another foothold across the stream the Russians moved the horse artillery battery up to slow any advance through Gohren and take revenge on the garrison the French had installed.
But what was happening on the French right flank I hear you ask. Well a brigade of “Marie Louise’s” had advanced onto the board on turn three and were engaging the Russian Jager brigade and also occupying the Russian cavalry on that flank. They had advanced to the stream and started a musketry dual. After destroying the garrison in Gohran the French artillery had also joined in and was bombarding the Russian Jagers.
Back on the left the last French Infantry brigade was marching across the bridge to support the Line Infantry and prepare for the final assaults in the game.
Now the French made a gamble and gave the “forwards” command to the Line Infantry brigade. This meant that one of the columns advanced rapidly around the wood and made a dash for the village of Riocken to try and win the game however they ended up a couple of inches short of the objective. The Russians swiftly countered and moved a cavalry brigade onto their flank and things did not look good for the French. However the Russian Line Infantry brigade lost a unit and chose this moment to “falter”.
At the start of the next turn the Russian through their command dice and only managed to get two of the possible five ADC’s. One ADC had to be deployed to the faltering brigade which left one to be deployed elsewhere. This meant that the Russians had a decision – they decided to make use of one of their C-in-C commands “Stand with me” which meant that they used both available ADC’s to deploy the C-in-C with the Faltering brigade and ensure that is would rally and gamble that the Cavalry brigade passed its “command roll”.
Guess what, the gamble didn’t pay off and cavalry brigade went hesitant and refused to charge which allowed the French to wander into the village and win the game. So one Victory Point to the French in the campaign.
So how did the new rules work? In my opinion they worked fine, and the changes made in version 2 do seem to speed things up. Another game is required to confirm this and everyone seemed to enjoy the game in the end.
Looking at the rules after the game I believe that the Russians would have been better using the “Chief of Staff” C-in-C command that would have provided them with additional ADC’s and allowed the C-in-C to join the cavalry brigade instead and watch it ride the French column down but we live and learn.
The Uncivil Servant 