Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Lasalle- Russians vs French 1812

A close game of Lasalle tonight. My Grenadiers supported by a brigade of Jagers (who on their first outing managed to have woeful vigour and tactics- typical) and a brigade of Cuirassiers vs Kent's Young Guard supported by a brigade of elite infantry and one of veteran infantry.

I deployed my jagers on my left flank, grenadiers and most artillery covering the centre and right. Kent's elites were opposite my jagers and the rest of his force massed vs my centre and right.

The French advance begins.




The French advance vs my right flank- I've read the refuge rules for artillery so deploy to take advantage of them!




The first clashes in the centre- my grenadiers managed to hold off the French attack and eventually dominated the centre.


On the right flank much needed reinforcements- Cuiriassiers- arrive to bolster the defence.




The clash in the centre from the French lines.


And from my side- my infantry managed to hold off the attacks- just.


On my left the jagers came under pressure- the French use their commanders poor tactics against them and slowly grind down the jagers.




Meanwhile on the right the cuirassiers manage to break a French square!


Is Kent asleep or simply studying the rules? A shot of the last turn or two.


Outcome:
The game ended on turn 17 and as the Young Guard had not decisively defeated the Russians the game was a Russian victory. Going into the last couple of turns I thought I had Kent on the ropes and he was one unit shy of his army being broken. However in those two turns he really started chewing up my units on the left and in the centre. At the end of the game he was one unit away from being on army morale checks, I was two away.

We have finally got a decent handle on the rules, and were using officer tactics & vigour properly.

The table (8ft x 6 ft) was a good size for the number of commands employed- 2 support brigades each for a total of 16 French infantry battalions vs 10 Russian + 2 heavy cavalry regiments. I must admit to starting to really like the way the game plays, especially on the bigger tables.

Next Battle?
Kent has his Romans ready for battle- and they are looking fantastic (as always!) so it will be time to bring out the Cataphract + elephant boys (Sassanid Persians) to take them on at Impetus.

6 comments:

  1. Nice report. Tight action at points. The miniatures worthy of the fight too.
    Learning rules is always fun.....opps..."we forgot that rule" makes the games individual and a memory for the future.

    Cheers for 2012 action.
    Michael aka WR

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  2. Great Batrep as always Craig,

    The larger table, and two supports really makes the game look grandiose.

    I guess from the photo that the "refuge" rule for artillery is deploying them behind a ridge crest?

    Cheers
    Jason

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  3. Hi Jason

    The refuge rule is having an infantry battalion within a base width of the artillery so the artillery only needs to pass one discipline test to fallback. My tactic was to have an infantry battalion deployed behind each battery on my righht so that when the artillery fell back the infantry stepped up to the plate.

    As for the grandoise nature- it is getting there. Kent did mention adding one more support choice and another table! That would look good, might have to be some of the new plastic infantry though to do it on the cheap.

    re: rules. Re-reading the morale rules last night we got that wrong, should have been testing at 1/3 losses not 1/2. Oh well.

    Regards

    Craig

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  4. Great report Craig. That is my kind of game, lots of troops and colour.

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  5. A terrific looking game! Am keen to try Lasalle, myself. Cheers, Simon

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  6. Craig,

    Any chance of some obs for this game?

    Raglan

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