Napoleon in Italy Campaign
Battle # 2
Background
After the French victory at Mortadella, Austrian commander Wurmser retreats towards Milan. Leaving a blocking force at Turin, Napoleon pursues. Near the town of San Pietro, Napoleon catches up with the Austrian rearguard.
Set Up
Napoleon leads the attack with 2 divisions of line and 1 of light infantry against a Austrian line division and a battery of artillery.
For this battle, I'm using scenario 4 - Take the High Ground from One Hour Wargames. In this scenario, the Blue forces (in this case, the French) are supposed to start with all 6 units on the board. However, my rules add activation and Napoleon was only able to bring on 3 units at first.
The Austrians will get reinforcements in later turns.
Napoleon launches an attack on the Austrian right. The Austrian line begins to waver. But reinforcements are heading down the road.
As more Austrians arrive, disaster nearly strikes. The Austrians repulse the French attack. While rallying his troops, Napoleon is wounded!
Meanwhile, the Austrian cavalry catches another French infantry division marching up the road. The Austrians rout their foe.
Wurmser brings up his army.
And launches an attack on the French center, overrunning the French guns.
Massena tries to salvage the situation by assaulting the hill.
To no avail. The light infantry routs.
With this, the rest of the army loses heart. Massena calls for the retreat.
Lesson learned. Keep Napoleon out of harm's way!
I had him accompanying the infantry attack. After the French were repulsed, I rolled to see if anything happened to him. A 1 - definitely bad. I decided that another 1 would spell his death. But the roll came up a 2 so I decided he was out for the rest of the battle instead.
General Massena takes over. He presses the attack on the hill, wiping out the Austrian infantry. Unfortunately, a cannonade routs a division of French infantry.
Aftermath
The French retire, allowing Wurmser a chance to reorganize his army.
Napoleon recovers from his wounds, and is determined to make the Austrians pay!
What happens next? Stay tuned to find out!
GAME NOTES
I made one enhancement to the MicroBattle rules. Units that are more than 3 spaces from an enemy can route march for double movement. That worked out well.
I have been investigating various Napoleonic rules. I'll make a separate post about it.
Nice battle report - and it’s always good to see the Frenchies getting a bloody nose. 😉
ReplyDeleteIf troops “route march” then it may be worthwhile considering some negatives - to represent, say, them being tired/exhausted by the efforts of marching speedily.
Cheers,
Geoff
I thought about requiring a turn to deploy before entering combat but I figured I would forget so I decided against it. I figure that a turn represents an hour of real time so time to rest, deploy, etc. is kind of built in.
DeleteBy 'route march' do you simply mean marching in column of route for speed along roads/tracks, which would then require the formation to deploy for battle on arrival? I wonder whether doubling the move without any time penalty for deploying may not be too generous.
ReplyDeleteOn the grand tactical/operational level, what about 'forced marching' as in marching to the sound of the guns, without taking so many rests and marching for more hours in the day to cover a greater distance?
I figure it could be either. The key is that I want units that are out of combat range to move quickly into battle. Having them in a march column or forced march provides a good excuse.
Delete