Wednesday 12 August 2020

Set Battle: Austrian vs Russian

A game between my Austrians and Matt's Russian Empire today in a tournament style game.  Historically Austria and Russia only fought in 1812 of course, but I can see this being a repeated contest...


Here's the Austrian list I used, which was made using the random army generator on page 5 of the 321 Fast Play Napoleonic Rules.  

Matt's Russian and Prussian Army was the following.


The Game

The randomly generated Set Battle scenario sees both armies deployed opposing each other, with only limited numbers of reserves still to arrive. The randomly generated terrain ended up in my favour, with two hamlets to help secure the Austrian line, and a hill on the right flank.

Light Cavalry on Austrian left.

Massed guns in Austrian centre.

Prussians opposing the Austrian right.

Guard Cuirassiers and infantry facing the Austrian left.

My left flank and centre, heavily reinforced with Grenadiers in reserve.

On the right flank though...  just the Austrian Cuirassiers, aiming to slow the enemy wing so victory can be achieved elsewhere. Perhaps not the best use of reserve heavy cavalry...

On the left, horse artillery batteries exchange fire, with neither side wanting to commit to an attack. An Austrian regiment takes heavy casualties and is withdrawn.  The Austrian grand battery in the centre eventually silences an enemy battery and starts to take a toll on the Russian infantry.

A newly painted Russian Cuirassier unit charges and gets lucky against an Austrian unit, breaking it.

The Russian Cuirassiers are spent but remain in control and retire safely to reform.

On the right my own Cuirassier charge is thrown back by Prussian squares.


In the centre, the Austrian heavy guns have been silenced by counterbattery fire and Jaegers. Austrian Uhlans ride forward to counter this enemy but are met by Russian Hussars.

The Hussars break the Uhlans, and charge on into the guns...

Sabering this battery too before retiring.

Two Russian cavalry charges have taken a significant toll, and the Austrian skirmishers are also lost. Both sides end up losing their Horse Artillery on the Austrian left flank.

Things are not looking good for the Austrians, and I commit the Grenadier reserve.

The Russians organise for an attack to push the Austrians to breaking point.

But the Grenadiers are awaiting them in line and deliver deadly volleys.

The Russians commit their own Guard who suffer heavily against the Austrian Grenadiers.

In the distance the problem on the Austrian refused right is evident though. The Austrian Cuirassiers have been forced back by the slowly advancing wall of Prussian infantry and artillery, and one regiment eventually breaks under this pressure.

With this loss the Austrian army also breaks, having lost a third of their force.
Austrian Losses: 3 Infantry, 2 Cavalry, 3 Artillery

Russian losses: 1 Infantry, 1 Cavalry, 2 Artillery


Conclusion

An interesting contest. Several turns were spent in a cautious artillery duel, before casualties amongst these batteries gave confidence to the advance of other arms. The Russians looked to be having a tough time of it, but then the new Russian cavalry did great work - if getting a little lucky perhaps! Some errors on my part didn't help. The Austrian Cuirassiers were put in an untenable position with no horse artillery to support them against infantry and artillery. My artillery may have been too attracted to counterbattery fire, though this was not without effect. Committing my Grenadiers earlier would have helped, but Austrian command problems hampered this movement from occurring as quickly as I would have liked.  The two regiments of Russian Cuirassiers opposing my left, nullified my four regiments of light cavalry, though the points value of these two forces was roughly equal so this was not a poor trade. And most importantly of course, much fun was had! :)

For reference, the game lasted nine turns at a sociable pace, and took four hours, including all the setup and interruptions from me having to attend to some urgent work calls. 

30 comments:

  1. Impressive armies, mine pale in comparison.
    Finally some newly painted unit did something!

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    1. Ha, yes it's broken the curse! ;) Thanks Francesc!

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  2. Very impressive! Have you considered a video battle report? I would love to see your rules play.

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    1. Thanks Daniel, an interesting idea, will give some consideration to it. I note there are not a huge number of video battle reports for Napoleonics around unfortunately.

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  3. The spectacle is exciting! Wonderful battle, Mark!

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  4. Outstanding visual treat, Mark! I figured the battle was much closer than the final body count suggested. Great stuff and always a pleasure to see your massed 28mm troops on the gaming table.

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    1. Cheers Jonathan, yes a few times Russian units were pretty close to breaking but held!

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  5. A very entertaining AAR. "Austrian command problems" are very familiar to me, and I never seem to have much joy when using them on the table.

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    1. Cheers Lawrence, yes not so good when it happens, but that's the way it goes!

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  6. Great report, beautiful figs

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  7. Looks great. had Talleyrand had his way, there might have been more Austrian/Russian conflicts!

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    1. Cheers Peter, yes what might have been...! :)

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  8. Wow what fun - two handsome armies bashing heads on fine terrain.
    Amazed the "new" Russian cavalry achieved anything, my new toys never do anything...
    Thanks for sharing this write up, hope you get to play again soon old chum!
    Best wishes,
    Jeremy

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    1. Thank you Jeremy hope to see your own lads on the table soon too! :)

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  9. A splendid and colourful looking game...
    It’s nice to see so many toys on the table...

    All the best. Aly

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  10. Great looking game Mark - the Allies of our game last week - Austro/Russia - became foes a week later in your game! Lovely looking figures and looked like the Austrians were a bit unlucky, although I could be biased in their favour!

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    1. Thank you Keith, yes a few unfortunate events for Austrians! :)

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  11. As always Mark a spectacular looking game with a table full of brilliant figures and terrain. I've come back to your post at least a half a dozen times in the last few days so that lets you know it ticks off so many boxes in terms of my ideal style of wargame. Well done.

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    1. Thank you Carlo, I'm glad the action was to your liking! :)

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  12. Splendid looking game, if unfortunate outcome for the Austrians!( if I put in unfortunate outcome, predictive text is already coming up with Austrians, they're on a bad run on the web!)
    Best Iain

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  13. Hi Mark,
    Great looking game!
    Did you use your version 5? Sadly I have not yet managed to test them. I am having some trouble convincing my gaming buddies to have a go. They like GdA and like good wargamers are averse to change! :D One of their main points being the removal of the test to charge in roll. Not having tested the rules though, it is tough to see what the outcomes of the combat rolls would be to counter this argument.

    Best,
    Ed

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    1. Cheers Ed, and yes this was version 5. If your buddies like GdA fair enough, it has nice features though also takes a bit of time to work through obviously :)

      I would say effects of testing to charge and closing fire are still there in v5, just now factored into melee factors and outcomes rather than as separate dice rolls ;) Outcomes range the gamut from one side being destroyed or taking heavy casualties, through to those where neither side is affected (representing failure to charge home).

      With rules, you can have few tests that sum the overall odds, or many tests. E.g. older rules sometimes had something like (1) attacker tests to charge, (2) defender tests to hold, (3) defender tests for defensive fire, (4) attacker tests to continue charge, (5) defender tests to receive charge, (6) both test for melee, (7) tests for morale, (8) test for pursuit. Many Napoleonic rules these days favour fewer (tedious) tests, and if aiming for fast play that seems a sensible option to me!

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  14. Excellent AAR, I agree that video reports could be of value, I did a game for HMGS online - still working on the edit/transfer of that video so I can put it up. Did a video from my ECW game two months back. Not much interest other than the players in the game - its a time-lapse of the game.

    Thank you for the details about set-up and playing times for your game system - I am keen to explore it more.

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    1. Thanks Murdock, I will try and keep an eye out for your new video. Non-historical wargaming seems to be flooded with high quality game reports, historical stuff less so unfortunately. Cheers!

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  15. Wow. What a great looking game and entertaining report.

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