AAR: Battle for the crossroads

We had another game of Black Powder today at our gaming club. Pitted against each other for the control of a crossroads area and it's buildings were a combined French & Austrian force versus British and Prussian armies.

The French forces waiting to be deployed

Combined British and Prussian forces.

The Brits managed to surge towards the crossroads and take control of the buildings early in the game.

Dastardly French Voltigeurs sneaked into the woods on the left flank harassing one British battalion.

The last British units also managed to arrive on the table enabling the British and Prussian forces to further advance and secure their position. 

On the British right flank a battalion of the Old Guard decides to charge the farm only to be beaten back and destroyed by the defending British line.

On the left flank two battalions of French line attack a british unit already battered by the Voltigeurs deployed in the woods. After a quick fight the Brits were wiped out.

To end the Voltigeur threat a detachment of the 95th Rifles charged the Voltigeurs starting a fight that would last a couple of turns.

French fortunes turned quick with the remaining British artillery promptly forcing one battalion to fall back and the other having to form a square to fend of cavalry.

  

On the right flank the Prussian brigade was getting ready to advance against the French flank only to be charged themselves.

Miraculously the lone Prussian units survived the assault and managed to mount a counterassault, which would ultimately lead to the destruction of the opposing Austrian brigade. Apparently the dice gods favor Prussians or then we had some nicely weighted dice on our hands :)

On the left flank the 95th Rifles were finally driven back, but otherwise the French situation looked bad as most of their units were beaten of without any significant casualties to the British forces.

In a desperate last attempt to salvage some glory from the battle the French and Austrian artillery batteries opened up on the farmstead trying to force the occupants away.

In the end most of the combined French-Austrian army was destroyed with the Brits and Prussians left to celebrate their victory. The Man-of-the-match price has to go to the small unit of French Voltigeurs who managed to cause quite a lot of damage while being holed up in the small woods on the British left flank. A nice little game that played through surprisingly fast. Maybe we are finally starting to learn the rules.

We also came to the conclusion that reducing the basing to 4 bases per battalion worked a lot better than our old style of 6 bases. So that's cutting down my painting requirements a bit.