Napoleonic: Battle of the villages

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Sally
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Napoleonic: Battle of the villages

Post by Sally »

In this scenario the French and Russian forces were set the task of capturing a village defended by the opposition. With each side holding one of the two villages at the start of the game, the challenge was to split each force into both an assault group and a defensive group. Victory would go to the side that successfully captured and held their opponent’s village by the end of the game.
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Tony and I won the dice roll which enabled us to choose what we thought would be the easiest village to defend relative to its surrounding terrain and location on the table. First move, however went to Chris and Dave who took the initiative and pushed a combined Russian infantry, cavalry, and artillery force on a wide flanking manoeuvre. They positioned their gun batteries in front of their own village and advanced the cavalry into the open ground in the centre of the table.
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The Russian guns were an effective deterrent to Tony’s French cavalry which were massed ready to charge across the open ground in front of the Russian held village, and so instead, the French infantry advanced through and around the large wood. Russian Cossacks formed a cavalry screen which the French infantry and skirmishers nibbled away at with musketry fire.
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As the Russian flanking force approached the French held village, I had plenty of time to organise its defence, positioning the light gun batteries and filling the buildings with infantry units. There was still a danger of being out-flanked around the left by Russian cavalry and so I positioned an infantry battalion which quickly formed square as the cavalry approached.
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Tony’s French cavalry squadrons moved across in support as the Russian cavalry assaulted the square and soon an epic cavalry engagement ensued. As the cavalry of both sides charged and counter-charged knocking seven bells out of each other the French infantry used the time to fully occupy the central woodland and when threatened by the other Russian cavalry force beyond the wood form square in the remaining open ground.
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The French infantry square defending the village was soon overwhelmed and destroyed by the Russian cavalry, but by then Tony’s cavalry had arrived in sufficient numbers to push them back and in doing so protect our left flank and shore-up the defence of village.
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With the cavalry of each side gradually being worn down it was by this stage of the game becoming obvious that it would be the closing infantry battalions that would prove decisive. Unfortunately, the French (Tony and I), had conceded so much territory to the Russians – approximately 75% of the board, through our stubborn defence of our village, that our infantry and what remained of our cavalry squadrons had no chance of even threatening the Russian held village.
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Game time was beginning to run down and although the French still firmly held their village and woodland, the Russians could claim victory from both the territorial perspective and the fact that their village had never seen a French unit within cannon range at any point in the game!

Written by Paul K.
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