Valour and Fortitude 1809 club game Napoleonics 46

 I had a game with John at the club, so he could try Valour and Fortitude.  Austrians against French in 1809 which meant a first outing for my Southern German Church. 

Sorry for the excessive amount of photos! They don't go all the wayvto the end as we had a chap turn up who is interested in playing 28mm Napoleonics , so with gaming, photos  took the hit ! We set the time for the end of the game and then placed two objectives each( which I'd failed to do previously, they're the pink chits, might have to make something in future? ) I was frankly lucky and managed to occupy all four objectives on my first go, although I decided not to sit on top of the hill and present myself as a target! We'd set quite an early time as the end , John attacked the farm on my right flank,and the one with the church and advanced to assault the woods in his next go, I was mainly trying to use my Landwehr as support units as they're stats are considerably lower than the Austrian line units. I defended where I was and John's French assaulted the hill , the woods and both built up areas, the woods were taken but the unsupported French took casualties, the farm on  right clung on in spite of casualties in the face of overwhelming numbers, on the hill the French were thrown back , well it was a tie but if you're on top of the hill it means you win! The church was meanwhile being resolutely defended. Next turn the farm on  right fell to the French as really the Austrians were not well enough supported, on the hill the French tried again and were pushed back, the French unit in the woods assaulted the artillery piece which had unlimbered the previous go ( I had to borrow French limbers as my Austrians are still at the build stage!) The cannister response was gratifying as the French infantry unit ceased to exist and the artillery remained! At this stage we had reached our agreed finish time and with two to one objectives and also being ahead in the butchers bill, I would have been the winner, however we decided to carry on as we were having fun! Against expectations most of the French brigade assaulting the church was destroyed , the cuirassiers charged up the hill but ended being thrown back and ultimately retreated off the table, the French hussars were held by the Austrian cuirassiers and the French left flank was too far away to influence the game in what was a comprehensive defeat for the French!

Good game, you really need to support your troops, my right flank was understrength but did the job of holding up the much larger French force so that they couldn't influence the rest of the game. I was lucky with the unit in the wood but , largely through luck rather than judgement, my units in the church and on the hill were well supported so yhat they could distribute casualties and survive for longer.  Great fun I'm looking forward to the large family game over the Christmas holidays.  The Austrians are pretty resilient in this ruleset although the Landwehr are very weak, Austrian combined grenadier battalions are making their way to the paint table, I need to address the imbalance of forces as I have been almost exclusively painting Napoleonic French for the past year so expect more Austrians but probably after the Christmas game as I will be playing French against the combined Austrian, Russian and British force.  I've only got one French unit that isn't at least primed which is nice so the end is in sight although Perry's are releasing plastic Polish at some point!

All the best 

Iain