Nagy-Sallo 1849 redux

We reprised the Hungarian-Austrian battle of Nagy-Sallo again since I didn’t have time to take it down from last week. I switched sides and played the Austrians, with help from Rick who played Austrian last week. Bill switched to Hungarian, aided by Ken who missed last week’s session. The rules are Bloody Big Battles as usual.

The Hungarians (in italics hereafter and in photos) must push through the Austrians to raise the siege of a fortress. Both sides can receive reinforcements based on die rolls from turn 3 on. The field is muddy; this counts as difficult terrain for horse and guns, and cuts artillery fire by half.

Uniform heresy alert: figures used are either from my Austrian Napoleonic force or my 1866 Austrians. There’s also a ridge on the field cut from cardboard. If that doesn’t throw you, please continue.

Strasdil’s Austrians are holding the village of Nagy-Sallo, one of the five objectives. The Hungarians need 3 for a tie, more for a win. They hold one at start. Nagy-Sallo has an additional feature: whoever holds it from turn 3 on gets a bonus to their die roll for reinforcements.

Turn1 saw bayonet charges. My anemic fire dice failed to stop any charges but the troops saw off both charges anyway. The bayonet is a good boy. Most of the game saw lousy fire dice by the Austrians but sturdy assault dice.

Hungarian fire was more effective, but not murderous.

Then the Hungarians captured Nagy-Sallo.

Both Austrian units rallied and attacked with success.

This set up another hard blow, flanking the lead Hungarian unit and then exploiting into their guns.

A counter-stroke made some trouble.

But the Hungarian brigade was weak and isolated.

We had a brigade arrive behind the enemy right flank. This would prove critical.

Herzinger’s brigade had been moving up slowly when moving at all (lousy movement dice). It suddenly moved at full speed and caught the enemy artillery from behind while the reinforcements struck the supporting infantry in front. The artillery rolled a six against Herzinger’s measly one. The artillery was in such a bad situation that only produced a tie. The artillery evaporated while Herzinger lost a base. The reinforcements routed Leiningen’s shot-up brigade. It was a disaster for the Hungarians.

Hungarian reinforcements arrived from the east and fired into the battle around Nagy-Sallo.  

Adding to their woes, Hungarian fire dice went cold.

It’s not clear from this photo, but Herzinger and Teuchert (the reinforcing brigade) heavily defeated the shot-up Hungarians in front of them and exploited into the artillery, which limbered up and galloped down the road. It didn’t affect any objectives but was a final slap to the Hungarians. 

The game ended with the Hungarians holding two objectives for a defeat. We had played 8 turns in a little under 3 hours. It was time for dinner.

Austrian losses were 3 stands of infantry and 1 artillery. Hungarian losses were 7 stands of infantry with 2 more run off and 2 artillery. There were a lot of assaults. One enemy loss was caused by distant fire as far as I recall. It was an interesting game. Had the artillery been at full force I’m sure the story would have been different.

Next week we're hoping to play an ACW battle. Stay tuned.