Joy of Six and the Demo

Got back last night and was cream crackered so no report was a coming. Well I had to be up for 6.30 with my poor son. Well I was up at five as I had failed my sleep task check due to forgetting to take my night meds with me and so was fighting a losing battle come time I went to bed. I was so very tired when it was time to leave for the show. 

We did the usual stop for breakfast at the Golden Arches and still rolled up outside the workstation to set up and be ready more than thirty minutes before kick off so we simply started the game. I explained to my son he would need to attack the woods hard and try and clear them of the defenders. He then amazed me with his plan that included sending reserves to attack the second line whilst using other troops he had spare to attack into the flank of Lee's centre! Actually this would be a great plan and he really did seem to be thinking many moves ahead. My boy :-)

The view from Lee's rear area, he starts with less than ideal forces and as such a strong attack would leave him with no reserves to plug the holes. However with only two commands on the table at the start he should activate all his formations leaving us with one division unable to move.

We were in the doorway so it was really nice with a cool breeze the only issue was taking photo's from my end could be fooled by the light coming through the massive door way.

View from the side with Quatre Bras in the distance (top right of photo). The boards went down very well with Lee getting the much deserved praise. Mind you the figures (especially the basing) also got the thumbs up which was a great feeling.

Bossu Woods was again the scene of the hardest fighting with sunbeam driving Lee's first line of defenders from the woods routing one Battalion and forcing withdrawal of two others. Two of his own battalions were close to forced retire but he halted these trying to bring them back to order whilst bringing up two more battalions on their flank to join the two battalions he still had in good order. Also bringing up a further two battalions that could either replace the worn battalions on his left flank or support them if required. It does need to be noted that he had diced Lee royally.

I meantime had caused a cohesion check on another Brunswick battalion which routed off on a double six so Lee was somewhat up against it. In fact apart from initiative rolls Lee was rolling quite bad all along. My son then attacked the less powerful second line in the woods but here his dice rolling started to fail him and after two rounds of close quarter firing and chargers was beaten back but not without causing almost as much damage to Lee as he took. The difference was that Lee was now out of reserves in the woods and failing to halt his retreating right flank whilst the boy was getting his two battered battalions back in order and had made up a third wave able to attack the weakened last defenders of the woods. 

Lee had just prior charged two battalions of my forward infantry and brought those close to breaking. The cavalry doing the damage then returned to their lines in good order. However I brought up four regiments of light cavalry to screen the infantry and moved back the mauled infantry and replaced them with fresh troops.

I then charged his cavalry in the following turn routing one and forcing the other to retire. Lee was now in the dangerous position that he may soon loose the Division if he had a few more units routed or under retire orders in the Brunswick formations. Help was on the way but if he wanted to keep the Brunswick's in the battle long term he would have to surrender Bossu Woods and fall back on Quatre Bras and that was far to early for this to be anything but a big worry. 

Doing so would give Lee the time to get Battalions of infantry back into a much better fighting condition and even return the retreating cavalry into the threat he would need to slow my infantry down. I was at the point of attacking the join between the Brunswick's and the other Division and had six fresh cavalry regiments including a lancer, two dragoons and two cuirassiers a mass of infantry. 

It would have been a totally different game to the previous one with the fight carrying to Quatre Bras itself. However we had spent a LOT of time talking to other attendees and as such we really could not get it played out. However I hope the three of us can get together again and play it out from the start. 

It was certainly a success from all points of view, and a great game and display, hopefully all who wanted to talk to us got the chance and a number of blog followers turned up on the day so talking to these guys was one of the highlights for me.

In fact the game and the chatting was so much fun I failed utterly to take any more pictures, however I still have enough to talk about to do a follow on post tomorrow regarding the other aspects of the day.