Friday 7 August 2015

The big meeting engagement - part 2

This post is an AAR of the meeting engagement scenario featuring the whole of my SYW Russian and Prussian collection. Both forces are arriving piecemeal, marching to the sound of the guns.

At the end of the second night much of the forces have arrived. Each side only has another dozen units to arrive. The action has been sporadic, flaring up in different parts of the field before dying down again.

 Most of the action during the evening's play took place around the village on the Russian left. Much of the effort has been concentrated here, and more troops are still arriving into the 'cauldron'.
In the centre, after the action around the mill was resolved - the speculative Prussian attack was repulsed - the action has been confined to long range artillery fire.
Somehow, the Prussian cuirassier were held at the stream by some very feisty cossacks - they persistently beat D10 and D12 rolls with their D4s, even succeeding in forcing the Garde du Corps from the field - losing heart the Prussians withdrew. 

Having done so, Russian infantry advanced unopposed. The Cossacks,just in shot on the distant right, have pinned the Prussian cuirassier in position - avery morale victory to the Russians.
 As the evening came to a close, the Russian cavalry, that had been somewhat pinned to the hill on which they had initially deployed, were forced to advance by the entry of the Observation Corps. 

Will they charge the Prussian heavy gun line?
 The OC have arrived just in time. The Russians are running out of infantry on their left.
 The action around the left most village has denuded both forces. The Russians have held, but are now outnumbered 2:1 here.
They have taken plenty of Prussians with them, including IR 15 the Garde. 

Both units of newly painted Garde have been routed in their first action without making any significant impact: isn't that always the way of new war game troops!
In the centre, the Prussians have plenty of infantry. They have not pressed their numerical advantage on the lightly held Russian centre. Perhaps it was the mere presence of the Russian cavalry.

The Russians and Prussians still have two more commands to arrive.

More action  next week.

8 comments:

fireymonkeyboy said...

Lovely looking game.

FMB

Rodger said...

Beautiful game!

Gonsalvo said...

Eye candy defined! :-)

Unknown said...

Magnificent and very inspiring (particularly as I'm currently painting a Prussian army - although in 10mm this time). I must admit that the pics on your web site have the same effect on me as the cover of the first ever issue of Miniature Wargames so many years ago. I've lost track of how long I spent looking at that image of charging Napoleonic cavalry. Thank you for taking the time to do this.

Phil

Scheck said...

After the seeing the parade of the Prussian army the last posts, it´s great to see them in action this time! Exiting battle and a joy to see this magnificent colors on your tabletop! Wonderful!
Peter

John Ray said...

Interested to see how you integrate firing pose regiments with the other regiments during the movement process across the table. The reason being I am currently making a Prussian fusilier regiment figure firing.

Lovely painted figures and terrain. Really like those buildings.

Great Set-Up.

John



JAMES ROACH said...

Thanks guys,

I must confess, except for a couple of Front Rank SYW Austrian units I bought purposely in firing line, the others were all bought in charging poses and firing line by 'ebay fluke' and because that was all Foundry had left when I went down to the sale at their factory (when they were selling off all their individual castings on the cheap prior to switching to blisters).

Over a period of about six years I bought unpainted Foundry Russian and Prussian figures as they became available on ebay without regard to pose or numbers (providing they cost about £1 a figure inc. postage) then put them into units as units were made up. They were quite a mountain at one point. At least half of the collection was purchased that way. It cut the overall cost by over a third. It was a game of patience that I lost in the end - to finish off I went direct, using 3 or 4 Foundry army deal discounts (22 packs for the price of 16) which almost brought the figures down to my ebay rate.

Keith Flint said...

Most impressive James - a fine piece of gaming.

Funny how those newly painted prize units always do badly first time out - it's quite a wargaming tradition.

Cheers, Keith.