It was the last game before the summer break at the club the other Sunday, I've missed a load as I was working on the flat and John has been pretty ill but as he was out of hospital and fancied a game I was only too happy to dig out the Austrians and French plus some terrain and head down to the club.
As the Austrians I had one brigade of two line infantry units, two units of cuirassier and a unit of Landwehr on my left and on my right a brigade with two units of line infantry, a unit of Landwehr, some Chevaulegers and an artillery piece. All the Austrian line infantry were in their first game. Opposing them on the French right wing was an entirely mounted brigade of three units of cuirassiers, a unit of dragoons and a unit of horse artillery. On the French left three units of line infantry a unit of hussars and some foot artillery. The two built up areas and the hill were objectives. We were a little rusty so went for a straightforward encounter battle, the French got the first go , occupied the built up area on their left, the central hill and advanced their cavalry on their right wing, when it came to the Austrian go I occupied the built up area on my left wing charged my cuirassiers at the intimidating mass of heavy French cavalry, advanced my infantry on the right flank and charged the infantry unit on the hill with my Chevaulegers the cuirassier melee ended in a draw so we would need to carry on, the attack column on the hill lost the melee and because they'd lost to cavalry they routed. In the next French turn after some desultory shooting from them, assault column and occupying built up areas cuts down your dice throws the heavy cavalry battle ended with defeat and retreat for my cuirassiers Shooting continued next go with my troops in line doing rather better than their French counterparts, my cuirassiers were lost my Chevaulegers were running away ,having eliminated the French foot artillery so it all looked rather bleak. I did manage to destroy another infantry unit with firepower from infantry and artillery but was then forced to form square in the face of heavy cavalry storm. The French cavalry came on and took out my artillery but I was able to take out first one unit of cavalry on the last roll of the game which also caused the companion unit to rout. We both occupied a built up area, I'd destroyed one more unit but John's general was sitting on the other objective and while not a unit it would have been churlish to claim a victory that way and I was happy with a relearning draw! The club is quite until September, I'm working in Wales until then anyway which is disrupting my painting although I am preping lots of plastic figures!
All the best
Iain
