The Corlears Hook Fencibles played a game of the 1808 battle of Bailen Thursday night, using our home-brew "Bonaparte Waltz" rules. I recently increased the movement of all units by 1 hex to see what effect it would have. The last few times we played Bailen I was umpire and I wanted to play the French. Dice determined Tom was on my side. He opted to be chief of staff and manage the French cards. Rick played Spanish general Reding, Ken was Venegas and Bill was Coupigny. I had 9 turns to get 6 units off the Spanish edge of the table behind their center or break their army.
The decisive element had nothing to do with the rules. Bill traveled to India some months back and brought me a statue of the Hindu war-goddess Durga. I rubbed my dice-rolling hand on Durga before starting the game. It turned out this was all I needed.
On my second turn I bombarded the Spanish right, scoring a hit and then launched a brigade up the hill. The attack drove the Spanish back and I drew another card.
All noticed that my dice were sizzling. Our rules have units roll a number of 6-sided dice per stand with a few modifiers for number of dice rolled. 5's and 6's are re-rolled, with further 5's or 6's scored as hits and anything else a retreat result. Elite morale, hard cover and certain cards allow units to ignore one retreat result. Hits always take effect. By the end of the game Tom guessed that half of my combat rolls had been re-rolls. I think half my re-rolls were hits. Sometimes you prefer to make the enemy retreat instead of scoring hits. But if you score hits consistently (and above the odds) the enemy will fold later in the game. That's where Durga took me.
As fast as the French troops arrived they were thrown into the fight. Not only were my combat dice hot but I was rolling well for Activation Points. My card draws were good too, lots of "On the Double' (free move) cards and every "Bombardment" (extra dice for artillery) card in the deck.
Even when my attacks were driven back, the Spanish took a lot of hits and retreats, which disorder units.
I got both French foot artillery batteries up on the hill and began working over the Spanish line.
One time I got so excited I threw the infantry supporting the guns into the fray. My chief of staff nearly had a fit – unsupported guns forced to retreat in close combat also take hits. But the Spanish were too mauled or intimidated to throw in a counter-attack. Also, the weakest part of the Spanish army is their cavalry. I got away with a mistake.
As we headed into the last turn of the game I realized there was no way I could exit any units off the table, so I decided to concentrate on routing some shot-up Spanish units and break the army. My chief of staff pointed out that I could move my foot artillery with Activation Points and then use an "On the Double" card to have them fire from their new position. Not only hot dice, but timely advice too. I did this and threw three cavalry units and the horse artillery at another part of the Spanish line.
My smoking dice blew away a Spanish unit in front of the guns and sent another running, while the Cavalry attack rode down a unit and chased another off. The Spanish army broke and the French were able to escape off the east edge of the table. I assume that Castanos coming up behind captured our baggage train (and all the loot from Cordoba).
A close look at the remains of the Spanish army shows them all exhausted, incapable of further resistance. They needed a long rest, preferably far away from the French.
It was a small game – 14 French vs. 15 Spanish units – and played quickly. Nine turns took about 95 minutes to play. French losses were just under 1,000 while Spanish losses (including a lot of stragglers/deserters) were about 4,700.
The Spanish team wanted me burned as a witch due to unnatural die rolling. I escaped their design and we had dinner. After, we played a short version of the board game "Struggle of Empires". There I blew a chance to tie for first with a last turn error. It would only have been tied for second if Bill had not blown his shot at first with a similar mistake. But that's another story.
Anyway, it's good to have the Hindu war goddess on your side. I can't recall having rolled so many 5's and 6's in a game before. I've been playing these games since 1963.
Durga!