First battle with DBN

To give the DBN rules their initial outing, the napoleonic 28mm French and Austrians were ordered to the table. These figures are based on 80mm bases and here, 1 base represents 1 unit.

The view from the Austrian commanders position

For the starter game, I went for the standard 12 points army per side, which roughly equates to 12 units per side and used the scale of 40mm equalling 100 Paces.

A table 4' by just over 3' was easily enough to allow the armies to breathe.

From the Austrian perspective

The French army included a Cuirassier unit and one of their artillery batteries was horse artillery. The Austrians had jägers that can operate in 'bad going', plus they got 2 hussar units that count as Superior.

The French left, cuirassiers up front

French columns advance over the bridge, crashing into the Austrian muskets on the other side, pushing them back, but there was a nuanced problem in the French getting off the bridge. 

There were Austrian hussars in the immediate area and the first unit off the bridge couldn't turn to face that threat, because they were operating in the Zone of Control of enemy muskets and they couldn't just attack the muskets, because they would then expose their flank to the hussars .... so, they pulled back to within the confines of the bridge!

A shooting match started there, which just started to rack up casualties on both sides. The bridge had become a stalemate.

In the centre, the French slowly advanced, inconvenienced by the fordable river. They did manage to engage the Austrians on the other side, but not in time for anything to be resolved there.

It was on the French left that the drama unfolded. French Horse Artillery engaged the enemy jäger, while the cavalry, led by the Cuirassiers, struck at the Austrian Grenzers. 

It was close, but both the jäger and one unit of Grenzers were seen off, bringing the total Austrian losses to 4, which brought the game to an end with a French victory (the French had only suffered 1 loss).

Austrian Hussars

Actually, over on the Austrian left, their hussars had positioned themselves ready to strike the French right flank. For fun, I played this part of the action out, just to see whether another turn would have helped the Austrians ..... it didn't, the hussars charged and were (just about) seen off by determined French line!

Overall that was an enjoyable first game with DBN. I will take the rules away for a re-read, helped by this playing.

The 28's looked magnificent on this compact table and the randomised number of Command Points generated each turn for each side, helped keep things fluent. This small game that would end when one side had inflicted 1/3 losses on the other (4 units) took 6 turns to play, probably taking no more than a couple of hours for a first game. 

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