The start of the 10mm Napoleonic battle: The Battle of Edificio

Hello, everyone!

Well, I played the first seven or eight rounds of my latest 10mm Napoleonic game today!  I am using my own homegrown rules, Brigades and Bearskins... I have had a lot of fun with them in the past, and while they are still evolving a touch, they generally give a good game!

So... above is the initial plan.  The deployment actually hurt the French a bit... not only is their cavalry brigade way off on its own, but it is also going to be a bit tricky to find good fields of fire for all of that artillery!  They are going to have to clear the infantry out of the way and see what can be done.

For now, the French will generally advance, with the cavalry trying to make it back to friendly lines, while the British will also advance to the cover of the farmstead and use its large cavalry brigade to try to catch and kill the French cavalry!

Napoleon moves up to the nearby farmhouse, surveying the surrounding ground as his long columns of infantry advance up the road.

Napoleon splits his force; one Guard brigade under Colonel LeRue, breaks off and heads towards an orchard on the flank, looking to greet the cavalry brigade under the command of Marshal Ney as they come back to the lines.

Ney (seen above as a blurry smear of blue at the top left of the photo above) however, is in trouble... not only is there a larger British cavalry brigade chasing him (which includes two uber-quick light cavalry units) but he ALSO has to get his men across the river, which will slow them down quite a bit!

Ney's light cavalry unit quickly gallops away from the oncoming British, but the French cuirassiers, slowed by the rushing river, begin to lag behind... Ney himself gallops back to urge them on, but the British are getting closer and closer...

And JUST as the British commander is close enough to catch Ney and the cuirassiers, Colonel Sharpe, an EXCELLENT commander, fails his "Orders" roll, and his cautious nature takes over, causing him to pull his cavalry up... maybe he is nervous about an ambush?!  Argh! Curses!  Picton gallops over to ensure his orders are followed, but it is too late; the French cavalry takes advantage and makes it to friendly lines, leaving Sharpe to redeploy his cavalry on the hillside.

 In the meanwhile the British infantry under Colonel Thayer pushes towards the larger farmstead at the crossroads, with the intention of taking and holding it and waiting for reinforcements... they should be able to hold off the French from the larger farmhouse and its outbuildings for a while...

The main French advance, meanwhile, begins to deploy off of the road opposite the farmstead, intending to give the vast number of French guns a chance to unlimber... but the commander of the French artillery soon realizes he is in a TERRIBLE position!  He cannot deploy or fire through the orchard OR the woods, and he realizes there is barely enough ground to deploy a SINGLE battery of artillery, much less THREE!  He desperately begins to look around for another place to deploy, eventually figuring that the hilltop behind the woods will allow at least one of the batteries to hit the center of the battlefield...

Finally, on turn seven, the British 1st Division, under the command of the Sir Arthur Wellesley, arrives on the field. His two infantry brigades immediately march towards the farmstead and the hill beside it.

Meanwhile his single artillery battery goes in the other direction, up the road towards one of only two hilltops on the field, and the ONLY hilltop with a nice, clear view of everything... could a SINGLE British battery end up being as effective as THREE French batteries?!

The French artillery begins to deploy, as the French Guards advance into the cover of the walled orchard.

In a few turns the British guns deploy on the hilltop, staring down at the French in the valley below them, their flank covered by Colonel Sharpe's cavalry and their front about to be covered by...

... Colonel Del Rio's Spanish infantry.  They may be sub-par, but they SHOULD be able to hold the hill, as long as they have the heavily defended farmstead on on side and Sharpe's cavalry on the other.

Speaking of the farmstead, Colonel Thayer's men finally get into position, prepared to either defend should the French come, or possibly even attack when the British Guard brigade makes it up, and possibly they can sweep the French artillery that is beginning to deploy in front of them away...

The French artillery prepares to fire...

 And that is how things stand!  Next turn will see the first shots fired!  The French are in a rather difficult spot, all things considered, with their artillery all stacked up and unable to fire, and with heavily-defended farmstead full of Brits on one flank, a huge swarm of British cavalry on the other, and a pretty mean looking hill of fields in the center!  While at the start I thought the French commander had an easy task ahead of him, I am beginning to reconsider, as the British are almost beginning to consider an attack in certain spots of the field!

So!  Come on back for more of the Battle of the Edificio!