First game of Valour and Fortitude Napoleonics 42

 Here's a  Napoleonic AAR, as requested by Matt! Des and I tried out the scenario in the ruleset given away with the current edition of Wargames illustrated. It's available as a free download from the Perry site but I wanted a hard copy.

As it's a points built game we both set up with 200 points armies divided into two brigades each, mine is shown below                ( including the two limber units fulfilling their vow to Isildurs heir, they've since been pushed up the painting queue!) One brigade with three line infantry units , a limbered artillery piece of field artillery ( all artillery are limbered!) and a unit of hussars. The second brigade had two units of line infantry, a limbered artillery piece of field artillery and a unit of dragoons. 

Des had four line units and a limbered gun   ( oxen, seemed appropriate for the Penisular!) In one brigade , rifles, light dragoons and a line unit in the other. We set up with two towns, and a couple of woods as per the scenario, interestingly you start up , up to18" in so it became a race to see who occupied the towns/ woods. Perfidious Albion benefit from shooting in line and The French from melee if in assault column. 

Perfidious Albion won the race to occupy at least one of the built up areas and the two woods. Activation is a thing but you automatically activate one brigade and you only need to get a 2 or more to activate a brigade, so there is some peril but not as much as Blackpowder plus movement is more straightforward, if you have the inches you can do it. Des charged my dragoons with his light dragoons, we both dished out the same casualties but compared to Blackpowder you don't have a saving throw, once you're hit that's it! 

The sequence is different as you fire before moving and either shoot or move, unless you have the skirmisher skill in which case you can shoot with half your shooting dice and then move, this gets rid of the dash followed by a volley which can be found in some Blackpowder games.

There are also fate cards which we only used one of, although they do give an additional layer that I liked, I almost used one in the last turn, more on that later.

Faced with British occupation of the woods and built up area I decided to assault them, as much as anything to test the rules as in Blackpowder I knew I would have got a bloody nose but thought I'd find out what the  difference if any was.

I assaulted the rifles in the woods with a unit of line infantry supported by another, they were pretty lucky to survive, in the cavalry tussle, we made a mistake and didn't penalise the light dragoons for being shaken just the French dragoons as the attacker, which seemed odd, some time after the dragoons routed , we found that they sensibly should have, hey ho, live and learn although not in this case!

I assaulted with one unit the built up area , gave and took casualties and stayed in combat, a line unit supported by the hussars assaulted the enemy in the wood and destroyed them occupying the wood the final unit of infantry occupied the other built up area and the artillery piece unlimbered.

The rifles ran away and the British shot at the French, I found out being in woods isn't terribly helpful when shot at by artillery and infantry so the unit that was in the woods routed! Des charged my limbered artillery in the flank, ouch but surprisingly they held.

In my turn I failed my activation on my left flank but was able to automatically activate the other brigade , I had to send a messenger to the unit in the town as they were beyond 12" from their command, I know, it's a dice roll but obviously Des and I are planning ADC/messenger figures! I assaulted the other town with a single unit carrying casualties and surprisingly routed the foe! We were now even steven and mine was  the last go, if I could just charge the light dragoons with my fresh hussars, it was out of range but were I to play the king of hearts card I had, I would be 1" short!

So an entertaining draw, working on the limbers now, another game on Wednesday, you could say were interested and enjoying it!

Excuse the work in progress but I mentioned to Norm about spraying his epic civil war figures halfords khaki, I just thought I'd show him what it's like and then wih a wash, you'd only need flesh white and a bit of colour and you would be good enough, the Foundry figure is going to be my general Montrose to start that army, it'll take a while!

Next up? Pike and shot AAR, Napoleonic chasseurs, bolt action terrain or another V&F AAR? Not sure!

All the best 

Iain