Victory out of Defeat

I was in such a celebratory mood, I had a beer.

Had an absolutely brilliant game of General d'Armee last night with Scott. My year and a half of intensely focused painting of 28mm Napoleonics bore some good fruit last night. Except for one regiment of French lancers brought to even things up a bit, all of the figures on table are mine.

Game is set during the spring of 1813. The Bavarians are facing a combined force of Prussians and Russians somewhere in Central Germany. I took the Bavarians. Dice rolls determined choice of table edge and who set up first. I won the first, and lost the second.

Detaching light companies to make my skirmish screen

Prussians all together

Russians

Allied cavalry brigade. They spent a lot of the game "hesitant". Mom had to get some quarters to get their horses moving.

Russian brigade, who also spent a lot of the game "Hesitant" as well.

Allied massed artillery

Prussian brigade

Skirmishers dispute a belt of trees

Skirmishers dispute the town

My cavalry threaten the Prussian flank. It will take three charges before that battalion of musketeers is ridden down!

Moving up my artillery because limbers are cool

FR Wahl taking fire from the Russian artillery. Caissons and supply wagons are cool too. The Bavarian battery used the "Artillery Assault" orders a lot in counter battery to eventually destroy the Russian battery.

Hammering the Prussians. One Prussian battalion is routed.

Russian grenadiers push their way through the belt of trees while Allied cavalry finally start moving to envelope my right flank!

Continuing to hammer Prussians on my left though

Cavalry threatening Prussian flank

Wheel my artillery to fire on the Allied cavalry, with the "Artillery Assault" order and roll really quite well (the Tolkien graphics are '6'). The Lithuanian uhlans are within a hit or two of being dispersed.

The uhlan charge fails and they are driven back, but the grenadiers from the other side destroy the Bavarian square.

2 other Bavarian battalions are retreated or routed, so that brigade is now "Faltering" status.

Even though Scott was plagued by bad ADC and brigade rolls, when his troops finally got moving, my right was overwhelmed by weight of numbers. When my right wing went to "Faltering" it was time to concede the table and retreat before the badly mauled Allied cavalry got itself sorted out.

Although I lost the game, I consider it a victory because I had a really great time and felt I could win up until the last couple of turns, and most importantly, I finally put on the table the sort of Napoleonic battle that I think 11 year old me was dreaming about.

Scott and I also have a pretty good handle on the General d'Armee rules too, so things rolled along pretty smoothly and set up to good byes was just over 4 hours.

This gaming break has me reinvigorated to work on more Prussians and Russians.