The Corlears Hook Fencibles played the fictitious 1813 starter scenario of Larden from the Le Feu Sacre rule book. After several weeks of lecturing other Fencibles on the errors they made during games, I now have the chance to contemplate my own numerous mistakes. Tom commanded the French, aided by Bill. I commanded the Prussians, aided by Dennis.
The scenario is a meeting engagement, with Souham's Franco-Polish corps meeting Yorck's Prussians in the fictional Larden valley. There are two villages, Gross and Uber Larden. The winner is the side holding both villages after the dust settles.
Each side would enter on 4 blinds, one each turn starting on the first turn. A die roll decided home table edge just before we started. I opted to have Steinmetz's 1st division and corps CO Yorck on the first blind, Pirch I's 2nd division on the second blind, the corps artillery reserve on the third blind and nothing on the fourth. No egregious errors were committed so far. The 1st division was ordered to attack Uber Larden. The 2nd division was ordered to attack the hills on the north side of the valley while the artillery was ordered to maneuver in support of the 2nd division.
The first division advanced and seized Uber Larden without a fight. The lead French blind did the same to Gross Larden. Both began deploying. The 2nd division blind seized the hills on my left and began deploying, while a French blind marched towards my right and began to deploy. My first division finished deploying and spotted the French blind – the French had to deploy in a tight mass of battalion columns. The same happened with our 2nd division. Both divisions had units that didn't get into proper formation before the end of the game. Our corps artillery deployed on our left, deploying and unlimbering to avoid this. It turns out we deployed beyond range of the enemy.
The French 2nd division deployed in and around Gross Larden. Their artillery began to savage Dennis' 2nd division, caught in massed columns. I decided to attack Tom's 1st division while they weren't deployed. As he came forward with attack orders, I beat him to the punch. Three reserve and landwehr battalions jumped his lead unit, aided by two other columns. It wasn't a very high odds attack because of my shaky troops but a high die roll saw his battalion driven back shaken. Another landwehr battalion attacked one of Tom's batteries and was routed with heavy loss. I now decided to order the 2nd division to attack the town. I should have let Dennis try to deploy his troops first. The orders forced him to make piecemeal attacks on the town.
Tom rallied his front line. Having learned nothing from my last attack on his battery, I sent two landwehr columns against it. My reserve regiment went in against Tom's front line again. The landwehr were duly routed by the battery – E class troops attacking B class artillery from the front is a bad idea. My reserve troops were thrown back shaken. Tom put a fresh unit into his front instead of attacking them, but low pips kept me from rallying many of them. The unit that did rally was then shaken by artillery fire and Tom threw in an attack on my only unshaken battalion in my center. It routed, and so did all the shaken units. Four battalions streamed to the rear.
Meanwhile Dennis marched through a storm of artillery fire and attacked the town. His lead unit, the crack fusilier battalion of the 1st Silesian regiment routed and was removed from the table, having suffered 50% losses. Another battalion cracked under artillery fire. But worse was to come. A French blind moved rapidly around their rear towards our left.
Yorck spotted it before it completed deploying, but it was only two light cavalry regiments who snapped into line quickly.
Meanwhile Yorck had sent one of Dennis' batteries forward but made the mistake of unlimbering it just within canister range of two Polish batteries, which began to work it over. It was eventually driven from the field with heavy loss. Tom managed to change the cavalry brigade's orders to attack. They did, rolling over one of the reserve batteries. The crew of the supporting heavy artillery abandoned their guns. One of the cavalry regiments pursued and crashed into a landwehr battalion in line. C class cavalry against E class infantry gave them the edge. They drove the infantry back with heavy losses, though their tired horses kept them from breaking it. The other regiment rested and then caught the heavy artillery crew trying to escape and scattered them.
The sole bright spot for the Prussians now appeared. The crack fusilier battalion of the 1st West Prussian regiment attacked Tom's left flank artillery battalion. High dice saw them overrun the battery. Tom then threw a line battalion at them, supported by two other battalions. It was an even odds fight, due to the Fusiliers' veteran status. Tom rolled snake eyes. My lads must have held their fire until close range and then charged. I also think the French battalion CO tripped over his own scabbard. The French battalion broke and stampeded their rear support. The flank support battalion fell back in order and in haste.
I changed the 1st division's orders to hold the town we already had – maneuver back to the town would have been better. At the end of the turn I threw in the towel. I had no interest in continuing this next week. Nine battalions of Prussians had routed, along with three batteries. The French had two battalions and one battery down. We had played 12 turns in slightly under three hours. French losses were 800 infantry and cavalry, and an 8 gun battery overrun. Prussian losses were a ghastly 2,250 infantry, with 16 guns overrun and 8 driven from the field.
Both sides discovered starting to deploy too close to the enemy is a big problem. I do think placing the units down in brigade columns and then using period deployment could ease things – if the enemy gives you the time. That's a big if.
But that's enough of errors that apply to both sides, it's time to go on to my own. Ordering the 1st division attack on Tom's semi-deployed troops wasn't necessarily a bad idea, though the corps CO should have helped move the division forward. Frontal attacks on supported veteran artillery by levy infantry is just a bad idea. Ordering Dennis to attack when his division was in confusion was a dreadful idea. My interventions with the corps reserve artillery were uniformly counter-productive. Another big hint: don't anchor your flank with unsupported artillery. There are other mistakes I made but brevity dictates that I stop here.
Despite the whipping, it was a good game. If we play this again we should dice for the arrival of each blind instead of presuming both corps are marching well-closed up. The final insult is that my lovely AB Prussians were thrashed by my stumpy 1970-era Hinchcliffe French. Perhaps the next time my Prussians go on the table it will be either at Wavre or Plancenoit, when the reserve regiments had earned their promotion to line and the landwehr weren't so raw.
returns to Flintloque to paint an Ogre.
