A themed game, somewhere near Ulm, 1805 on a 4’ x 4’ table with just a few units per side and home brew rules.
The French objective is to seize the village of Bühl from the Austrians. They have an infantry brigade of four units and a cavalry brigade with hussars and cuirassiers. Their artillery will support the infantry attack on the village, while the cavalry, on their right, will attempt to silence the Austrian artillery.
The Austrians have sent a Hussar regiment to protect the guns.
The French infantry brigade advances on the village in supported assault columns, while their artillery starts to pound the defenders of Bühl.
Their infantry gets raked by accurate Austrian artillery fire and over the course of play, the assault columns nearest the Austrian artillery start taking heavy loses and they become more than a little hesitant!
It is essential for the French cavalry brigade to deal with the guns, but the Austrian hussars counter strike first and hold off the French hussars. The cavalry get drawn in to further fighting and eventually the French horsemen overwhelm the Austrian hussars and their retreat turns into a rout.
The Austrian artillery is now somewhat exposed, worse - they go low on ammunition (maximum fire is one die - as per a random event ….. unlucky!)
French cuirassiers, supported by their hussars line up, ready to charge the unfortunate guns, but the gunners keep up the pressure on the horsemen and eventually, the mauled French cavalry are deterred from making any further attacks, though the Austrian Hussars (top right) have already suffered too much and they are retiring from the battlefield.
The advance of the French infantry brigade towards Bühl, has become disjointed. The right that has been suffering from the Austrian guns, ends up falling back, but the battalions on the left reach Bühl and attack. The first assault is repulsed, but the second takes the village and the Austrians have no way of regaining the initiative. The game is called as a French victory.
Losses French - 9th Infantry
Losses Austrian - the hussars, an infantry battalion, plus those ejected from the village are left wavering.
As is usually the case, the home brew rules did throw up something that was ambiguous and needed a rules tweak, but they are getting tighter now.
As always the smaller table with just a few units gave a very entertaining game with a few twists. Here, the centre of gravity was the infantry assault against the village. On a larger table, say six foot, this would have been the centre and we would have had space to include a left wing, bringing another aspect to the scenario, but this was played with that imagined and it just gave a pleasant Sunday afternoons game.
At the moment, I am posting more frequently to my COMMANDERS web page than I do here. Here is the link if you ever have a coffee moment! :-)
LINK to Commanders;
https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html
