Campaign turn 4 (early cards): The French Army of Catalonia, under MacDonald (Mark, pictured below wearing something he tailored out of a deckchair) was marching south when it was confronted by Spanish 2nd Army under O'Donnell (Peter) after it crossed the mountainous (Pyrenees) frontier into Catalonia just south of Vich (modern Vic). The Spanish attacked.
Spain fielded 59 UI in five infantry divisions, plus 10 UI of cavalry and four batteries.
France fielded 51 UI in four infantry divisions plus 7 UI of cavalry and three batteries.
The French chose the side of table and deployed first. They deployed centrally on the reverse slopes of 'the mountain' to await the arrival of 4th Division which had become lost in the mountains whilst rushing to concentrate (delayed until 2nd appearance of the Stratagem card).
Peter (left), ably supported by Graham (the British player in the campaign), deployed second.
The Spanish deployed for a full frontal attack with a heavy cavalry presence on their right.
The cavalry went right and the infantry came forward, skirting around the steeper sides (2nd contour) of 'the mountain' in front of them.
As the infantry went forward they were assailed by the accurate shooting of the French artillery to which the Spanish artillery, coming forward limbered, could not respond. Indeed, the incompetence of the Spanish commissariat would spell disaster - the guns came forward but their caissons were stacked up on the roads somewhere far to the rear (this is a fictional narrative: the Spanish failed to turn one of the two cards in their sequence deck which would allow guns to unlimber - the cards were always right at the bottom of the Spanish sequence deck and the French kept ending the turn before they could get to them).
It was the Spanish cavalry that opened the attack. Advancing quickly, they were countered by the French cavalry. As the light cavalry clashed it was the French who initially had the better of it, throwing both units of Spanish light cavalry back in disorder (shaken); then they were caught reforming by the Spanish heavy cavalry and the French chasseurs went helter-skelter in rout; unfortunately, elated by their victory the Spanish heavies pursued. The discomfiture of the French cavalry was compounded by heavy musketry fire from the advancing Spanish infantry - the French cavalry were no longer a credible force and withdrew to the rear.
Meanwhile, artillery be damned, the Spanish infantry continued to come gallantly forward - surely the caissons would come up at some point.
Alas, they didn't and without effective artillery support their infantry, though fighting bravely and with some little success, were suffering much under the withering fire of the French.
In the centre, Spanish brigades were scuttling to the rear. (The same card that allows guns to unlimber also allows rallies - double whammy).
With no chance to rally, even the Spanish cavalry, which had shown signs of success earlier in the affair, and now outnumbering the French cavalry by 2:1 were also milling around without purpose in the rear. (Note: following pursuit cavalry are immediately reduced to 0 UI and need to rally UI back before they can do anything again - the unit doesn't physically go off in pursuit in my rules - instead, the unit is used to mark the rally point. The broken wheel markers denote 'shaken status' for having been pushed back in melee, or for being at 0 UI: Shaken units are penalised for everything and can't charge).
On their extreme left, the Spanish attack was looking promising.
Hibernia (in the red coats ordered but possibly never delivered to Spain), supported by the Voluntarios de Asturias (Cazadores) to their right, have 1 Btn. 50th Ligne at a distinct disadvantage.
On the right, without artillery or cavalry support, things were looking uncertain. The French reserves had arrived and were quickly reinforcing the French defence - the cards of the French sequence deck were falling kindly.
I feel a French counter attack is imminent.
4 comments:
I don't know about the Gods but the cards are certainly not looking with favour upon the Spanish - looks like a put up job to me.
Come on Spain!
Looks good, and the Spanish have two out of three arms preforming well, but that 3rd (the Artillery). Is the quality of the Spanish Command influencing that difficulty?
Not outside of the Spanish sequence deck only having two 'command / officer check' cards, whereas the British and the French get three. But, as you know only too well, that is a big difference when it comes to the probabilities of blindly drawing useful cards, at useful times, from a 25 card deck.
P.S. The Spanish actually rolled up quite well. I've done away with D20 quality rolls for units in this campaign. I'm using D6 on a simplified national troop type quality table.
E.g. Spanish Line
1 Raw (Down 1 for everything & militia reload only)
2-3 Poor (Down 1 for everything)
4-5 Reliable (No change)
6 Reliable (No Change, Up 1 for morale challenge).
Command for this army was also done on D6.
O'Donnell & staff: Average 4+ otherwise poor.
Divisional Command & staff: Average 4+ otherwise poor.
BTW. I've also changed the factors in my combat tables so that every modifiable dice stars on D8 - no matter what - and no dice is larger than D12+. (E.g. Line gets an Up 1 for fire to give the more usual D10, rather than have a base D10 for musketry. E.g. Officer check never rolls D20).
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