General d'Armee ~ Game 2

Greetings Folks, we tried another game of GdA today at NWA. This time it was a simple 1 on 1 with my Prussians facing Robin's French.

We set up on a fairly crowded 6' x 4' table which didn't leave much room for maneuver. But it was good in that our forces were close and we could get stuck in pretty quickly.

My Prussians have grown to 3 small infantry brigades each consisting of 1 regiment, each of 3 battalions with an artillery battery attached to the Reserve regiment. I also had a cavalry brigade with two units (part regiments). With the cav we decided that two squadrons would make a unit and each squadron would have 4 figures. This made things easy for the time being.

Robin pretty much equaled my forces although he did have more skirmishers, which ended up making a considerable difference.

The French take up positions amongst the wheat fields.

 My new Landwehr make their first apperance and make up my reserve.

My remounted Jaeger companies take up positions before the Leib Regiment.

The first turn and I got the initiative. All we did was move around a bit and try to jostle for position. By the end of the 2nd turn the French dragoons on my left flank had made a bold move forward to threaten my flank battalion. This is going to me messy, I thought to myself.

By turn 3 we rolled for ADC's and I only got 1 (for the second time). As predicted, the French Dragoons charged. They were within 9" so I didn't get the chance to form square. But my Reservists held their nerve and gave the Dragoons a decent volley. The charge procedure resulted in the dragoons retiring. My unit being in column and the casualties inflicted making the difference that saved them.

I the center there was some skirmish fire and my lads came off second best, although they did inflict some casualties on the Robin's chaps. We have to come to grips with the fact that the musket ranges are longer than the previous rules we played. As you can see, our skirmishers are very close to each other because we're use to it being that way. Fear not! We'll get use to things.

Robin learned that blazing away at skirmishers makes it easy to lose Fire Discipline.

The Frenchies move out of the fields and get ready to start trading volleys.

In the center I was trying to get my best troops the Leib Regiment into position to charge. But then an opportunity made itself available and my cavalry made the most of it. My Reserve regiment charged one of the French battalions supported the uhlans. The French infantry failed their Discipline Test and retired leaving the battery on their flank vulnerable. So I continued the charge into the guns (next available target).

The battery fire was deadly, causing 3 casualties and a discipline test. This time it was the my cavalry that failed and they reeled back to their starting positions.

The Leib getting into position.

On the left a firefight was developing. At first I came out worse with the skirmishers inflicting nasty casualties on my battery and my troops in column only doing half casualties. The battery was hitting the battalion behind but part of the full effect was being absorbed by the French skirmish line.

Eventually I got my infantry into position and launched an Infantry Assault. I learned from the last game to give them a ADC for a reroll AND Infantry Assault. And I needed that ADC  re-roll too!

I think we mucked up some of the Charge procedure but we ended up in Melee anyway. I wasn't sure if the battalion in the rear of the pic should also have gone into the fight. We'll have to work that out.

Anyway, Robin rolled 4 dice and I rolled about 9 and, would you believe it, we both only inflicted 2 hits. The fight was a draw and my chaps retired 3" and became Unformed. 

My guys were now in a bad position. The battalion on my left became unformed during the charge so in the next turn they had the choice to stand or make a voluntary retire move. Retire became the only option when the French moved up after I lost the initiative. So a voluntary retire to regroup was my cunning plan. Unfortunately the battalion on the right were in god order so could only Step Back. This left them in the open and vulnerable.

As you can see in the pic below, those advancing French made a tasty target for my cavalry but... Would you believe it? They failed their command roll. I had an ACD attached for a re-roll. They failed that too and became Hesitant!

Landwehr to the rescue! I made the decision to pull my reserve out and try to bolster the center.

Things only got worse.

The lead battalion got pummeled from all sides by shooting from skirmishers, a volley and artillery and ended up with 9 casualties. But they passed a Discipline Test with flying colours (double 6's) and held on. Then they shot and lost Fire Discipline as did the center battalion (by this time reformed). The French had formed square and any cavalry charge would be useless.

In the next turn I gave the brigade a Command Order to try and save them but some relentless fire just added more casualties to their total and it was a single Casualty Die that tipped them over the edge and the battalion dispersed.

This made the brigade Falter.

Next turn, a roll on the Faltering Brigade Table saw the brave men of the Leib Regiment retire and leave a big hole in the center that I could only fill with the Landwehr.

To add to this, the firefight on the left was going badly against me in some places and okay in others. But I my battery was looking shakey and so was one of the battalions.

So, a withdrawal was in order for the Prussians and the French claimed the victory.

"Vorvarts men. Zere is eine big hole in ze line!"

My assessment...

Well we played the game to a conclusion. It was only our second try and we got into the rhythm of things pretty easily. I think we played 11 turns. We had to refer to the rules a few times and I'm sure we mucked up the infantry assault somehow but those are things to work on.

My troops will grow by a couple of battalions and maybe a hussar regiment by the time we play our next game so I think a larger playing area will be in order (8'x6'). We were pretty cramped. Robin also needs to get out of the habit of crowding his battalions together. It's a throw-back to previous rules. I'm gonna make him pay the butcher's bill next time!

All in all, it was a really great game. a few times both of us thought we were in dire straights but got ourselves out of it. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't recover after the failed infantry assault.

One thing I did was count the Leib Regt as Elite. I don't think that was right. They are one of the premier Prussian regiments but I think they should be classed as Veteran. Elite rating makes them too good.