The Corlears Hook Fencibles played a game of the 1859 battle of Montbello last night using the Bloody Big Battles rules. Ken and Bill were both sidetracked by various summer diversions. Rick commanded the small but tough and supple French while I had the numerous and ponderous Austrians. This is a small game for BBB. We used small brown discs for disruption markers. While less obtrusive than our usual yellow ones, they were also just plain harder to spot. We'll go back to the big yellow ones next time.
The opening turns in this scenario are quite important and have more photos than usual.
Turn one starts here.
And on to the second turn.
On both turns the French assaulted, so no optional Austrian reinforcements arrived. There was no French charge on turn 3 so an optional Austrian unit arrived on the north table edge. Two Austrian units tried to take Montebello.
The French tried to follow up the repulse on turn 4.
No optional Austrian reinforcement arrived this turn. After this one will every turn as no further French assaults were launched.
I was having good movement rolls for the Austrians. There weren't any really bad traffic jams at the bridges. I was happy when they shuffled across at half speed. It beats units just sitting down and blocking the bridges, which happened once. I managed to get a lot of white coats into line facing the French. I launched two assaults.
As the game wound down the French fell back to the two objectives they held.
I had no real chance at taking one of them so I drew back too.
And that's the last July game for us. I'm off for a couple weeks of body surfing. Bill is away from town until September so the Franco-Prussian campaign is on hold until then. Sedan beckons – what a joy for the French.
We'll have some small games in August. Until then, adieu.
