Waterloo, Ney's attack - After Action Report

Scenario

This scenario modelled the French massed cavalry attack and the later Guards attack. Partly we wanted to get all the cavalry we owned onto the table and partly we thought it would be a good test of the Muskets and Marshalls rules in a slightly unusual scenario. The latest version of the M&M rules are at the Hinton Hunt blog.
http://hintonhunt.blogspot.co.uk/p/muskets-marshals.html



Ney's attack scenario

Under the scenario rules the cavalry were compelled to attack but the infantry could not move for 6 turns, or until a 6 is rolled.

Battle Report

This was clearly an usual battle pitting mostly mounted against infantry defending a crest.
We managed to field 9 regiments of 28mm cavalry - pretty impressive looking



Massed French horse

Cavalry close-up

The French left 

  The British formed a famous thin-red-line along the crest, although the Germans were green..


The Germans



The Guard

British line

As per the scenario the French attacked boldly all along the front, with 7 of the 9 regiments crashing headlong into the British squares 



Allied left



Allied right



Close-up of the British centre

The lights attack

Clearly the whole crux of the battle was how well the French would fair against the British squares. Five of the seven attacked were able to repulse the cavalry attacks after a round or two of melee. Two succumbed though; one German and shockingly one Guards.



The squares under attack

With the line penetrated at two points French reinforcements were able to pour-in behind the squares.

The line is breached

With two Allied units routing and the French Guards not yet in the action we concluded that the Allies were going to loose and so shook hands at that point.

Reflections

It was an odd scenario using the cavalry to assault the squares rather than pinning them for artillery / infantry attack. Most of the attacks were dismal failures with 50%+ casualties for very little impact on the squares. The British Guards were hit by two units of elite French heavies and with some good rolling Roy was able to win. I attacked a German square with some elite light cavalry and again with good rolling was able to win.

Given the troops quality and excellent rolling we did nt feel it was a problem. Unusual yes, but unacceptable no.

Some additional rules occurred to us as we got lots of practise with squares:

1. Squares beaten by cavalry should NOT rout if beaten but should instead fall back.
2. Squares pushed-back in combat should revert to column.

We did wonder (but did nt implement) a +1 morale for being in square. We mused that once in square fleeing was less likely and you might enjoy increased morale from being closed-packed