I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to stay for the whole game night so I didn’t play, but with me spectating, and Todd playing the role of Game Master there were six players pushing troops on this massive 10′ x 6′ board!
Todd had the following to say about the game on a post on the ESR Napoleonics Facebook group:
“This afternoon, we played a large 1812 scenario at my place. Historically inspired by Valutino-Gora from the campaign guide. I left the terrain a bit more open than it was historically. I also didn’t have the time to lay out all of the trails between the villages.
Some changes from the book. We used off-the-shelf French stats for all of the formations. It saved some of the record referencing and we had several ‘newish’ people, so I think having all of the data for the combat card in front of them was the right decision.
See pics from the game play below.
Game ended when darkness fell in Virginia. As my buddy puts it, we entered the “Who would have won phase.”
At the end of 11 turns, neither side won, so technically a draw. It was very unlikely that the infantry divisions would have made it out of the trap the French set trapping half of the Russian divisions in the center of the table. It was possible that the Russians would be able to withdraw one of their trapped divisions, giving them three off of the table out of the five we had deployed. It was also likely that the French would have been able to trap that division before game end. We decided to call it with a ‘potential’ French victory.
Something that was a LOT of fun for this game — it was completely different from the usual wargame! We didn’t just line up troops and throw them at each other. While the French have a terrible starting location, the Russian orders are to preserve the army and exit the table. They can advance into the French and make the crossing incredibly costly, but they also have to get their equipment off of the table. That ford, while dense, does help to uncork the French deployment. If the Russians are still fighting in the suburbs, it is nearly impossible to extricate that division.”
One of the closest run things for the Russians was when one of their divisions that was almost off the board realized it was going to get caught in the rear while completely ployed and without any artillery emplaced. A desperate attempt to bring the artillery out of the formation reserves failed on the role of a 4 and things were looking bad for the Russians. A lucky roll of an 11 for deployment saw 5 units of the Russian infantry shake out and due to a combination of poor dice rolls on the side of the French and more good rolls on the side of the Russians saw the Russian divisions artillery get routed to the reformation area but by a one point swing the Russians managed to win the combat and throw the attacking French back! We all thought we were going to see a glorious charge scatter the Russian division but it was not to be!
What was to be was Todd’s Wendy’s inspired chili which inspired me to have a second bowl!
I hope to get in the next mega battle, everyone had a good time whether they were ESR veterans or novices!
-Wachtmeister
The Wachtmeister's Patrol 