Battle in Bavaria

Somewhere in Bavaria the Austrian army clashes with some of Napoleon's allied troops. Here the Bavarian massed columns bend but cannot break the Austrian line.

We used the General d'Armee rules by Dave Brown and available from the Too Fat Lardies.

They give a good game and are simple enough to allow for the massed formations my club mates have collected.

In this game a mixed corps of Bavarians, Poles, Hessians and Nassauers fight out an encounter battle with an Austrian Corps.  

On the Austrian right a Light Division contested close country with the Hessians and Nassauers.  In the centre the Bavarians held the mill against a lacklustre Austrian counter attack.  The main action however, was on the left where an aggressive Bavarian assault tried to take a defended ridgeline with the Poles in support.

The Bavarians came on in very aggressive style, storming over the field towards the whitecoats with fixed bayonets.  The Austrians suffered from some severe artillery fire but a half dozen assaults were thrown back mainly due to some awesome volleys from the Austrian infantry.  The centre of the position and lynchpin of the defence was a brigade battery of six pounders. 

  

 

Firing virtually everything they had at the oncoming columns the poor gunners were dropping from fatigue but held their position against counter battery fire, skirmish fire and direct assault.  In the rules they made some impressive firing rolls, especially the additional casulaty dice you get for firing at massed columns or using artillery assault.  In the end they were forced to retire, low on ammo and with just one casaulty remainiong before their break point.  

The brave but doomed Bavarian columns charged into walls of fire and despite pushing the Austrians back from part of the ridge and the rose garden could not take the position.  With Austrian Grenadiers maching to the sound of the guns the Confederation generals called off the assault.  This was the Bavarian high water mark.  

  

 

A great game with a great set of rules.  Lots of fun and a pretty decent historical representation.