Black Powder Napoleonics - Prussians vs French

Mog performs his Blucher impression complete with coloured matchsticks

It was rather a Black Powder evening yesterday at Mansfield Wargames Club. Three games were being played and all of them were using Black Powder. James and Trev were playing a Napoleonic encounter between the French and British, Quint, Paul, Adie and Ian were playing an American Civil War game and Martin and I would be playing another Napoleonic game pitting French against Prussians. Martin (mog) has not played Black Powder before, but has painted up a rather splendid Prussian force. Using Adies latest opus, Albion Triumphant II we met up at the Rifle Volunteer and both picked about 500 points and set to.

Martin used something like:

Prussian Grenadiers to the fore

• Brigade Commander Staff Rating 8
• Sub Commander (or whatever it's called), Two Line battalions, three Landwehr battalions, one Foot battery
• Regimental Commander SR8, One Fusilier battalion, two Line battalions  one Grenadier battalion  one Foot battery
• Regimental Commander SR8, one Hussar regiment, one Dragoon regiment

I picked a French force from the same book

The Glory of France

• Divisional Commander SR8
• Brigade Commander SR7, four Line battalions, one Foot battery
• Brigade Commander SR7, four Line battalions, one Foot battery
• Brigade Commander SR8, one Veteran Hussar regiment, one Line battery
• Brigade Commander SR7, one Dragoon regiment

We settled down to play a game that was over in about 45 minutes, of the first eight break tests seven of them failed to roll above a four! The French army was soon nursing three broken brigades.

What an introduction for Martin!

Prussian Landwehr and Line advance on the French 

With the evening still young we decided to go back to our start lines and have another go at it. The second game was much more balanced. I soon saw off the Prussian cavalry and then concentrated on Martins Landwehr brigade, which although outnumbered by the French battalions was giving better than it got. We eventually wrapped up at ten thirty calling it a draw, Martin had lost his Cavalry, I had lost one of my cavalry brigades and neither of us were making headway against the opponents infantry. It was time to wrap up.

Here are some more images from the game, Martin painted all the Prussians and I did all the French.

French columns crash into the Prussian line

On come the Landwehr

The French respond

View along the battlefield

More action shots

Drive them off

This is where all the action was in game 2

Close up of the French attack

What did I say about the coloured matchsticks

Two hours later and still no headway.