Third Black Powder Game

I was over at Lee's again last Friday playing our third game of SYW Blackpowder and it was another fun game. We have increased the number of units available, me by painting them, Lee not so much. He has bought yet more figures so will have a rather nice collection of Russians and Austrians. The Russians I think are up to 20 battalions of infantry but Lee has had little time to get behind a paint brush so I am safe for the time being.

Neither of us have enough cavalry to have more than one big brigade or two small fragile ones so we both set up our cavalry on the one flank, a clash is in the making.

My right flank is protected by a woods and a cornfield. Both of us would make a play for that field though in retrospect it would have been better for me to position myself behind it.

A view showing both forces, mine is on the right. Lee has one division of Grenadiers, this is the first game we are using the special abilities of the troops, though not all of them were called into play.

I moved first but critically my cavalry refused to budge, after the previous game where my cavalry had a torrid time this did not give me much confidence.

However on my right flank I started with three moves that saw me take the wheat field and make use of the woods to secure my flank. One battalion is still in march column whilst Lee is running two battalions around the woods.

Lee charges in with his cavalry whilst I counter charge. I win the battle between the hussars even though Lee got to re-roll all missed dice. He took three casualties to my one and becomes shaken. Obviously painting the figures helps. The clash of our heavies leaves a couple of casualties each but Lee is considered the winner as he has support.

Lee then attacks two of my battalions of my right most brigade getting a bit of a thumping on the left hand one. Lee was more trying to break the rules to see what happens more than win the game. Here he had the supports  but not the dice.

On the extreme right the melee is a draw even though I had the support, though the fault was my dice rolling this time!

Just to the left of this melee we were both enjoying hot work with a battalion each shaken but my advantage is being supported by artillery.

The melee kept on going for a number of rounds but I was slowly taking advantage of not being shaken or disordered. My one supporting unit remained supporting my right hand battalion so that I was now winning both melee's. Lee was failing to manage to get a third battalion in to plug the gap.

However Lee was making his presence felt as he brought the two battalions around the woods. I was just not making a dint in them whilst I was slowly taking casualties.

Then a bad roll and I was down a battalion, that hurt, yes I could plug the gap but it was a very poor roll and such things often come back to hurt you.

Lee managed to bring my right hand battalion into shaken status to join his. By now this melee should have been finished but I could not quite finish him off.

On the other side of the line I remained in the driving seat and was finally rewarded with the destruction of the Austrian Battalion.

The cavalry battle was far more one sided with his hussars broken and his dragoons all shaken. Only one of my Cuirassier regiments was shaken, otherwise I was almost untouched.

On my right flank Lee shakes out his two battalions and failing to inflict a single casualty in return my flank protecting battalion breaks leaving my right flank hanging in the air.

It just got worse, after finally forcing the attacking battalion to retreat Lee's artillery broke my battalion before I had a chance to reduce their loss level. Again I rolled really low so it was disappointing turn of events.

Another view from my left flank, the grey white line behind the wheat fields is Austrian and clearly shows I have a problem.

At this point my right hand brigade was broken and Lee just needs to swing round to attack my centre. I need to do something fast. Lee still has his Grenadier brigade so I know I have a tough fight ahead.

Fortunately I broke Lee's cavalry brigade and started to move them over to protect my centre. Thinking about it I would have been better to have thrown all I had against Lee's centre sweeping my cavalry behind the Grenadier line and thus attacking them from front and rear at the same time.

The last two regiments that are to move to the centre took a bit more time to organise forcing the front two regiments to halt (retiring infantry also got in the way). One cuirassier regiment stayed to threaten the grenadiers flank.

The cavalry and one battalion cover my centre, these would have fell back giving Lee the field. It looked so much to be going my way. But on the bright side from the minor loss I have a idea I think will work well. Just need to try it out tonight, wish me luck.