Title

Title
Tally Ho!

Saturday 7 November 2015

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   

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting game and a good test of the rules. I'm quite surprised that any of the squares broke at all but it's good that this outcome is possible. I think it would have played quite differently if both sides had artillery. Are you still going to try an attack by the Guard? I really appreciate the great job you guys are doing play testing the rules!

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    Replies
    1. We allowed the defender some artillery but they hid pretty quick to avoid the marauding cavalry.

      Next battle is Plancenoit so will feature dodgy Prussians against the Guards

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  2. One other thing - we're you allowing two or more cavalry units to attack a single square (multiple unit melees) and if so did that favour the cavalry?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. One of the squares that broke was hit by two units guard heavy cav. Against A class you pretty much need 3*6's in the first round to have a chance, plus some bad rolling

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