Since my campaign opponent Anthony is still too afraid to take me on, and as one of my allies was trounced last time he played and needed more practice as an attacker, I took on DaveB in a friendly (non-campaign) game. Because he wanted to attack, I played defence, and since he has quite a few irregulars in his force, we ended up with a lot of terrain on the table – I would have chosen fewer pieces myself, but my terrain rolls were 5 and 6, so I chose 5. Dave rolled three dice, since he has Skirmishers, and picked a 5 and 6, so even if I’d rolled a 1, we’d have had 12 pieces on the table. After we set up the table and deployed, it looked like this:
The lines are prepared.
My forces are at the bottom, Dave’s at the top. I knew he was likely to be coming down the flanks, probably with regulars and horses on my right, and with irregulars in my left, so I left a fair gap between my left flank and the woods there – his skirmishers have longer range than my regulars, and I didn’t want to get stuck in a position where he could take shots at me from cover while I couldn’t reply. If only I’d remembered that later in the game…
Here’s my initial set up, with units on the flanks, a few in front with my artillery, and my cavalry reserve at the back ready to move to the right.
My initial set up
Dave set up in column mostly, his cavalry on my right, and mixed groups of irregulars and regulars on my left and centre.
Dave’s initial position
On the far left, there are four units of irregulars, followed by four units of regulars, two more units of irregulars, 2 units of artillery,three more units of regulars and finally five units of cavalry. That’s a lot of units, but his morale was only better than mine by 1 thanks to all those irregulars, and more than a few of his troops were low quality compared to mine.
On my right flank, I set up three units of trained regulars in two lines. I thought he’d set up his cavalry on that side, and he did, and I wanted enough troops there to shatter any cavalry charges with my lethal volleys as well as take care of any infantry that marched down with them. Dave’s cavalry was mostly conscript, but he had more units than I did. I thought I’d be ok there though, so didn’t worry too much about that flank.
My right flank
In the centre of my defences I placed my two artillery batteries behind a wall next to my conscripts – I figured the extra protection of the wall would make up for their low quality. Next to them I placed a unit of trained regulars on the hill, and had another unit of trained regulars forming a second line in case the conscripts and/or artillery fell.
My centre
On my left, I had my two units of elite grenadiers waiting for his irregulars to march down.
My left flank
I only had two units here on the left flank, but I was expecting him to send irregulars down into those trees, and thought my grenadiers would be able to cope with them by themselves. The little flag you see there is the objective that I was defending by the way – another good reason to have my grenadiers over on that side.
As a reserve, I had my cavalry ready to charge to the right.
Cavalry reserve
Since I only have three cavalry, which are currently all trained, I’ve found that if I have them on a flank, they tend to get munched pretty quickly by my opponent’s cavalry, which tends to be better quality than mine and more numerous. I can usually take a unit or two with me, but it’s basically a road bump and a 3-9 morale point loss for me. This game, I decided to have them inside my infantry lines and ready them as a reserve. That way, I could charge them into the enemy if he broke through my infantry, hopefully fresh against his worn troops. I positioned them facing right, thinking that’s where the major assault from combined regular infantry and cavalry would come, but they would be able to turn and move if the left was looking insecure.
I set up first, and my suspicions were mostly realised – irregulars on my left to go down through the woods, cavalry on my right. I was surprised that Dave mixed forces – it meant that he’d be only moving a few units each time – and in one case, formations (column and line), which I think he did by mistake, as he soon realised his error when we was moving up his regulars to support his irregular flank attack. I thought I would be ready for his attack, and the game started. Predictably, Dave sent his irregulars down the left flank, using Cadence to ensure that when he arrived, he turned to face my troops rather than offer me a nice column to shoot at.
Dave advances on my left
Initial shooting should have been my forte, my men being elites and having Lethal Volleys, but Dave surprisingly held their own. It didn’t help matters that for several turns I was treating my Elites as Trained (making them easier to disrupt), but to be honest, I think Dave was rolling 5s and 6s anyway, so the end result wouldn’t have been that much different if I’d been paying better attention. The first turn of shooting, Dave was in range for his skirmishing irregulars (6 BW) while I wasn’t (4 BW), so I took some casualties (knocking a couple of my units to disrupted, which meant a -1 on their own shooting). It also meant that I had to choose between moving forward and rallying – I decided to move in so I was in range and hopefully do some damage by shooting, then assault and wipe him out.
Closing on the irregulars
By moving, however, and then having more volley fire (which Dave managed to get his shooting in first thanks to the use of the First Fire card, which he did several times on this flank), it meant that my elites were both looking dodgy, and I’d had to move my regulars on the hill because Dave was shooting at them in the flank, so they were also looking a bit leery. I’d decided a while back that Lethal Volleys is a very effective card, perhaps too much, and so I have made the decision to only use the benefit of the card in my own volley phase, not on my opponent’s volley phase. It might cost me a game every now and then, but it’s the gentlemanly thing to do, and losing a game honourably is far, far better than winning by using an overly powerful advantage. It’s also more fun, and I encourage others facing armies without that advantage to follow my lead.
Anyway, I was forced to rally for a couple of turns, which gave Dave the opportunity to move by retrograde into the woods, giving him cover. That and the seemingly endless array of cards affecting my shooting he played meant that I was often rolling at worse odds than he was in the volley phase, and spending my actions rallying to clear the damage he’d inflicted on me rather than charging in to finish him off.
Dave brings up his regulars
Dave then really started to make a difference with his troops, bringing up two units of regulars to support his irregulars, one of them being his elite infantry. My hill unit was soon lost to fire from irregulars from one side and regulars from the other, and stood little chance, leaving only my conscripts near enough to defend the objective – not a great position. On the left, I finally decided that with both our forces being on a number of disruption, to charge and take him out.
The aftermath of the charge
Not a lot was accomplished here. One unit evaded all the way out of the woods, one unit of irregulars was destroyed and the other unit’s charge was inconclusive. A round or two of further shooting took place, until on my turn I had a unit of grenadiers on 4 disruption facing a unit of irregulars on 4 disruption. Since it was my volley phase, I’d be shooting first, so I had a good chance to destroy Dave’s skirmishers (four dice, hitting on 5, killing on 3, and I could re-roll the kill roll) before he shot back ( four dice, hitting on 5s, needing a 5 to kill me). Of course, Dave had the First Fire card, and manged to roll a 6 then a 5, destroying my grenadiers.
With only one unit on that side, and down by the bottom of the table at that, which would take me a good two or three turns to move them back into position, I decided to bring my cavalry and infantry reserves up to the left. That’s when Dave played Markus’ favourite card on me, Not on the Map, and all of a sudden I had a nice swamp in the centre of my position. Great.
Here comes the reserve! Wait, where’d that swamp come from?
This wasn’t that bad though – I also had Rally to the Colours, so I could more easily rally off disruptions I gained by passing through the swamp, and I had a card which allowed me a turn’s worth of moving through rough terrain without taking any disruption too.
Meanwhile, as I was manoeuvering my reserve, Dave had quickly taken out my conscripts and was ready to pounce on the objective.
Dave presses the advantage
At this point, though I’d lost quite a few morale (my Notable, the Rev. Howard Whitehouse, had wandered back to his tent after the first time I’d used him, and I was in the habit of rolling 5s and 6s for morale loss), I still thought I was in a decent enough position – my reserve was coming to save the day, after all. With the heat of the moment, I forgot to take any more photos, but basically, I brought my cavalry up, destroyed one of his irregulars at the other side of the woods, and took out his elites, but the rest of my cavalry fell victim to volley fire from his irregulars after taking casualties in the battle, which put me down to a couple of morale points. Dave then sent his other irregulars through the fields, taking out one of my artillery stands, but I’d brought my right flank to bear, and was looking forward to finishing off his irregulars in the centre with my superior troops. My plan was to take them out in one round, play the Rogues card to give myself another 1-2 morale points, then use my remaining cavalry unit and grenadiers to finish off those pesky irregulars in the woods and wait for his conscript cavalry and trained infantry to try to dislodge me from the wall – a victory was still within my grasp, especially since my plan was to shoot (using Lethal Volleys to my advantage) and Rally (using rally to the Colours to my advantage) while making Dave use up all his cards and allowing me to counter attack. It would probably have worked too, but before I had a chance to increase my morale by a point or two, Dave played that card’s opposite – in which a well-placed shot kills off one of my officers, and which does 1-2 morale damage to me. Having two morale left, all I needed was for Dave to roll an odd number, and I could still have survived.
He rolled a 6.
It was an ignominious end, and much closer than it seemed when comparing final morale totals given my plans, but Dave’s tactics were sound and well-played. The game was set up so that he could practice attacking with his irregulars in a non-campaign game without worrying too much about his army falling to pieces if it was a disastrous idea in the campaign, and so for that, it was very successful. I was hampered by some silly mistakes I made (forgetting to play bonus cards that I’d intended to do on at least three occasions – the problem with having too much fun playing is that you forget stuff like that) and by a general lack of decent cards, but I don’t think they’d have swung the game, and Dave certainly owes his victory over me to his tactics rather than to luck or to my own errors. It was a well-deserved victory, and a fun defeat for me.
Next week, Anthony is yet again chickening out of getting his arse kicked, so I’ll either do a show and tell of some more of my Maurice army, or if I get the basing done, some of my Longstreet Zouaves. The week after that, I should finally be able to report on my great victory over Anthony’s horsemen, unless he comes up with another poor excuse for his craven refusal to face me in battle. 
