Saturday afternoon I played a Napoleonic game at the Huzzah
convention in South Portland Maine. The figures were 25mm Hinton Hunt figures,
French and Austrian. I ended up on the Austrian side as the C-in-C. There were
three players per side.
The
scale was 1 figure = 20 troops, with 24 figure French battalions vs. 36 figure
Austrian units. The rules were 70s vintage "Pas de Charge" by George
Nafziger. It had all the earmarks of American rules of that era. Simultaneous
movement works if all concerned are gentlemen, which fortunately was the case
here.The
only names I recall are Joe, the game master, Chris, one of the French
commanders and Ross who led the Austrian advance guard. My memory isn’t what it
used to be.
There
were no command and control rules. Instead French units all moved a bit faster
than lesser breeds. This didn't affect us Habsburg minions since we were on the
defense, tasked with preventing the French from exiting a road on our baseline
in the 4 hour window. The Austrians had 3 "brigades", each of 2
battalions, 1 battery and 1 cavalry regiment. The French outnumbered us some. I
didn't get a count of their units, perhaps 10 battalions or more, slightly more
cavalry and as many guns as we had.
Fire
was deadly. Small arms and canister fire were resolved by rolling 2D6,
multiplying the modified total by the number of figures and dividing by 10 - or
was it 100? 10% casualties or more forced a morale check using percentage dice,
low numbers needed to pass. Charge procedure: 2D6 to see how well the involved
units were up for the fight. Then a fire range check, followed by fire
calculation. If the chargers weren't stopped or routed by a fire morale check,
roll 2D6 to see the response of each to the continuing charge. Last, roll 2D6
for each side, multiply by figures, divide by 200 to get the number of losses
inflicted. Both sides then roll 1D6 each and add losses inflicted to see the outcome
of the fight.
On
the first turn our other to brigades marched onto the field. My reserve brigade
lined up behind the advance guard, since there wasn’t enough room for all our
units to deploy in line.
Two
French cavalry units charged our right flank. I feared our infantry would not
be able to deploy in time and sent my large reserve cavalry unit in that
direction.
One
of the French units sent our Uhlans off the table, but the other cavalry unit
was decimated by lucky shots from our howitzer battery and then rolled 100 on
the morale roll (which rewards low rolls). Our right having survived the
immediate crisis, the reserve cavalry went towards the other flank.
Our
hussars were routed, mainly due to a dreadful morale roll.
My reserve
artillery battery deployed in our center ad was promptly masked by our deploying
infantry. In time, the infantry closed up on the center and unmasked the
battery. It fired canister into a Legere battalion and helped rout it. The French
howitzer battery scored a hit on the crew. I rolled a 94 on the morale test and
was surprised when my gunners only had to retreat for 3 turns. I thought they
would rout. They still had one turn left to retreat when the game ended.
The reserve
cavalry were the victims of lousy dice, worst being the 90+ rolled for their
morale. They fled the field. The Advance Guard Grenzers buckled under attack by
3 French columns but nailed the enemy brigade commander before going under.
The artillery
battery was attacked by the last standing French battalion on our left. The
battery wheeled to face and blew the French unit away. All this while they had
50% losses from the enemy howitzers. No question as to what the most valuable unit
in the Austrian army was.
The label
below is wrong: this is the Austrian right flank.
It
looked quite lovely with well over 200 infantry on each side. We played about
12 turns in under 4 hours. The climactic and complex 4 unit melee on the last
turn was on the other flank so I went for a walk at the vendor tables around
the room. By the time I returned it had been resolved. The Austrian right flank
held and we had kept the French from exiting. Victory was due to the stalwart
fighting qualities of our rank and file (the dice) and the brave stand of our
advanced guard. I do think "Charge" would have given us a similar
result faster. I had a slight headache from the multiplying and dividing. It
had me secretly wishing we were playing BBB.
To atone
for my end game promenade, I assisted Ross in helping Joe organize his figures
to be put away. This is the first game convention I've been to since 1979 or
so.
