A Napoleonic bash - General D'Armee

Last Saturday Scrivs hosted a pretty spectacular 100 days game of General D'Armee.. all of the 28mm figures and terrain were from his collection and he acted as GM/host for the day, taking Tom and I through the game as neither of us had played before.

I took charge of the British, facing Tom's French.

You can see a good account of the game on Scrivs blog .

My movement was limited to pushing out skirmishers and swinging out the right wing of my infantry (both forces held their cavalry in reserve off table).

Tom advanced his French in columns, bring up a battery on to a central hill. Lucky for me, some crucial failures to retain command caused Toms left Brigade to halt and delay their advance to contact, giving me a chance to fire and eventually drive off that battery.

In the centre, Tom spotted a weak spot and pushed hard against the Hanoverians who held on grimly, seeing off repeated assaults and replenishing their line with fresh troops. Meanwhile, my guns kept up a steady barrage on the advancing columns.

On my left the French made steady progress, whilst Toms most rearward battery failed to score any real hits (apart from on themselves!)

Sensing a chance to break through as a couple of British units on the right softened up, Tom's cavalry arrived. I anticipated that and brought my own dragoons on to see if they could counter that threat.

By this point, our time was up.. both Tom and I having to take our leave, so we called it a 'winning draw' for the French (although of course, like any good gamer, I could argue that it could have gone either way!)

All in all, good fun and spectacular game. The rules emphasise command friction and choices, and although there were a few more lookups / modifiers than we're used to these days, it didn't feel like one of those old rulesets from the gold old card cover days :-)

Do I regret selling my Prussian army? maybe.

The armies deployed

British right wing advance

British centre and left wing

The French advance

French columns close on the British left

British guns did sharp work all day

Infantry close and exchange fire on the British right

View from the French left

View of the French right

A view across the table as the forces closed

The British centre under some pressure

The Hanoverians give a good account

Clash on the left

Across the table the smoke thickens

British dragoons arrive to counter the arrival of French cavalry

As we left the day, French bruised but still pushing