Recently played at New Buckenham was a fictitious encounter set during the Peninsular War using the Shako II rules.
The premise was that a small French force had seized a large village with the aim of drawing nearby Spanish forces into a trap, the French having additional forces ready nearby.
The Spanish, ignoring Anglo/Portuguese intelligence, planned to attack the "isolated" French force, destroy it and capture supplies to distribute to local guerrilla bands.
The Anglo/Portuguese, having had their intelligence dismissed, reluctantly decide to send a relief force to try and rescue their allies from being trapped by the larger French force awaiting them.
With the exception of the French force in the village and the Anglo/Portuguese rescue column the other French and Spanish commands rolled dice for random entry points. As it happened both the French and Spanish entered at the far end of the table, in the picture above, the Spanish from the right the French from the left.
The Anglo/Portuguese would arrive along the road over the hill at the near end.
The Spanish arrived and duly drove straight for the village, to their flank the first French reserves appeared including a cavalry brigade. This cavalry threw caution to the wind and charged pell-mell across the field at the infantry to their front.
The line battalions calmly formed square and received the charge of the dragoons and chasseurs, while Spanish cavalry arrived and charged the french horse in their rear.
With the French cavalry sent packing the Spanish horsemen now turned their attention to the French and Polish infantry. Meanwhile the infantry continued to advance on the village.
The remaining French cavalry unit tried to threaten the flank of this advance but was met by more Spanish squares. With the Spanish assault forming up and the final French reserves arriving behind the village the Anglo/Portuguese relief column appeared.
Not that the Spanish needed rescuing. The last french infantry on the right, trapped in squares by the cavalry, were soon dispatched by artillery fire, while Spanish squares protected their left the centre started their assaults on the village.
The British light dragoons soon saw off the last french cavalry allowing the Spanish to assault the other half of the village freely. The Anglo/Portuguese infantry meanwhile advanced towards the french reserves to prevent them supporting their comrades in the village.
After some stout defence from the French the Spanish finally captured both halves of the village while the British and Portuguese watched in admiration.
The French trap had spectacularly failed and the game was called as a Spanish victory.
A fun game and great to get some of my Anglo/Portuguese on the table again.
More on my blog at Jabba's Wargaming
Tony.
ponders nirvana.
