French and Austrian Valour and Fortitude AAR Napoleonic 84

 Second game of the year, in December! Well, hopefully get a few games in over the Christmas holidays. Still , we had a go at a meeting engagement with two brigades each, in Des's case his army list was written by AI, seemed to get the numbers wrong a bit and needed tweaking but an interesting excercise, for the French I just adapted a pre existing army list to get to the 250 points. Two French brigades, brigade one had three line regiments, an artillery battery and a hussar unit. Brigade two had three line regiments, an artillery battery, my new French dragoon unit and a unit of cuirassiers. Opposing them were in the first brigade a unit of combined Grenadiers (their first outing also) two units of landwehr, an artillery battery and the dragoons that were the subject of the last post . In the second brigade was the other combined Grenadier battalion, an artillery battery, the Hessen Homburg hussars ,in their first outing, and three battalions of Austrian infantry. We decided to put two built up areas as objectives and put a  river in as a decorative element, rough terrain that cavalry could ignore, in spite of this I ended up crowding the bridges as the attacker?

So that was the set up, my German church Built up area and one of my old half timbered British built up area that I hope to replace with a more Germanic built up area shortly. I sent my left hand brigade infantry across the bridge with the artillery in tow and the hussars careered off in a frankly British manner towards the Austrian dragoons. The other brigade infantry similarily set off for the other bridge and the cavalry led inexpicably by the dragoons headed across the river in the direction of the Hessen Homburg hussars.

Des moved to occupy the church and yard but couldn't reach the other built up area. He moved up his hussars and dragoons but wasn't able to get in charge range. In my turn I managed to occupy the other built up area and charged the Austrian dragoons this didn't end well as the dragoons were supported and unlike other rulesets there is no bonus for initiating charges, so the hussars  had to retreat shaken I failed my activation for my other brigade. My dragoons took casualties from the grenadiers in the church,his hussars defeated my dragoons who interpenetrated my cuirassiers in retreat and were shaken. I got my first brigade across the bridge and the first unit charged the Austrian grenadiers and although they inflicted casualties they were defeated and failed a valour test and were gone, the brigade passed the fortitude test at least but it all seemed to be going rather well for the Austrians,less so for the French.

I'd managed to unlimber an artillery battery to one side of the bridge to target the weakened Austian grenadier unit, prior to launching another assault unfortunately with no result, however the fire from the unit occupying the built up area caused a casuality that meant they were shaken and then proceded to fail a valour test and routed, my assault column then charged the landwehr unit behnd, which was won and the landwehr unit was shaken. With the other brigade I charged the hussars with my cuirassiers supported by my dragoons and this time the unsupported hussars faired less well and were routed. The supported infantry of the brigade made it over the river and into the unsupported Landwehr unit which also lost and was routed. The brigade with the hussars passed their fortitude test, the brigade that had lost two units fared less well and failed, which meant it also lost the other landwehr unit as it was shaken when the brigade became wavering, causing the army to get a defeat counter. A better turn for the French but now it was the Austrians laat go and the last go of the game due to time restraints. The exposed Austian artillery unleashed cannister on the now somewhat isolated French assault column and caused them to be shaken, they were then charged by the newly painted dragoons and even though the results were close, because the infantry unit was shaken it needed a higher score,otherwise it would have been a draw, so with the loss of another unit two more fortitude tests were needed and a fail meant the French also acquired a defeat marker and as we each had an objective each I called a draw, Des said it felt more like a loss as he'd lost four units to my two but it was great fun and just nice to get lots of newly painted units on the table!

Next up? Probably more Napoleonic Austrian cavalry I think?

All the best

Iain

Austrian dragoon regiment no 6 Reisch Napoleonic 83

 Well, my sisters moved out and put an offer on a flat, so normal service is resumed, except for all the time consuming Christmas socialising, I do want to try and clear the decks for the Analouge Painting challenge so here's another Austrian dragoon regiment, same formula as before, all Perry plastic, Austrian torso's, arms, crest less helmets, sword sheaths and carbines, overall legs from French and Austrian Hussars, except for the trumpeter, who as in all these units started out as either a French dragoon or French cuirassier trumpeter before changing sides! Horses from British light dragoons with their heads swapped for heavy cavalry bridles and greenstuff tail extentions. This is regiment no 6 Reisch with light blue facings, the flag is from the Perry set.

One more Austrian dragoon unit to come, with a rather more disparate set of  mounts but that's some way off, running total of Napoleonic figures this year is 432, I'm hoping to at least get to 450, so more Napoleonics on the way or more terrain or both?!

All the best 

Iain 

Dark age scatter terrain Terrain 31

 Here are some Dark age terrain pieces, a circle of standing stones that started off on a redundant CD but was too much of a squash and a squeeze so I migrated to one of the 150mm x 150mm squares I have knocking around,  6' x 6' in old money,  which seemed to work better, I chopped the corners off to make it less square, then pieces of old foamboard as the basis of the stones and then bits of slate I dug up in the garden of my old home in Barnet, most London gardens have building waste, broken bricks and bits of slate, I've got a load of Spanish slate from the outbuilding of my current house that was demolished for our extension that I've kept for terrain use, dispariged by my roofer as not being up to Welsh quality, but still better than French! Then some filler pva , sand and green masonary paint ,            ( except on the slate ),which I still have almost five litres of, even after 30 years, then  a wash of raw umber emulsion, further emulsion paint all round, black and stone colour on the standing stones and then a dry brush with the stone colour, bit of flock and that's your lot.

 

Next up is a plastic Celtic cross from the Rendra grave set that didn't get used in the central European cemetery, as a marker on a small hill made from the underlay I use as thatch on a CD and some more slate. 

A fun collection of terrain,  Dark Ages , ancients , medieval and beyond ,  dressing or objectives in games like Lion rampant somewhere on the Celtic fringe, be quite nice in a pulp game I guess with various cultists? Not that I have any but you never know! 

I thought the standing stones would also be good as a camp/HQ for the Celtic army  I've had in a box for over a year if I was playing To the Strongest!

 Of course if I have one of those I'll need something similar but different for my Romans,I've got something in mind but what do you think I should do?

All the best 

Iain