Le Garde Recule !

Mike & Mark's French v. Jim's Austrians & Chris' Russians

Mike has finally finished his 28mm French Napoleonic army and brought it along for its first battle.

The Allies deployed first on the left hand side of the table.  Jim has a Landwher div on the right flank, a regular infantry div in the hamlet and his artillery and cavalry div in the centre.  The Russians have their regular infantry division on the ridge with a cavalry division on the left flank and a guard infantry division on their right.
The French have a regular infantry and a guard div on the near flank, cavalry in the centre, more infantry on the far ridge and another cavalry div on their right flank.

The French did not try to hide their intentions.  Their right advanced immediately while their right stayed put.  Clearly they intended to knock out the Austrians before the ponderous Russians could get too involved.

The Russians immediately began to advance, but their low command rating made it a slow business.  On the near flank, when the front line of regular infantry was partially disordered by some hot shooting by the Yegers the French charged past them with the guard.  But they left their right flank hanging and an unusual run of good command dice allowed the Austrians to counterattack the French in flank.  The two guard columns on their right were rolled up by the flank attack and one of the others threw such rotten dice that they were broken by the Landwehr.  With 3 of 4 battalions broke "Le Garde Recule!"   There was talk of immediate withdrawal, but Mike is made of sterner stuff than that & he ordered Mark to counterattack on the other flank as he reorganised his regular division onto the defensive.

In the centre the French cavalry charged their cuirassiers forward at the Austrian horse and tried to charge the flank of the Austrian infantry attack with their hussars.  The hussars didn't move fats enough & the Austrian horse soon broke the French cavalry in the centre.

Mike's infantry on the near flank put up stiff resistance as the Austrian command reverted to form and their counterattack stumbled forward trying to finish them off to break the French army.  On the far flank Mark's cavaly charged forward and at least gave the French some jollies by riding down a Russian square and a column behind it.  But there were plenty more Russians still coming and the Russian cavalry outnumbered the French which they now finally got to grips with.   When the second French cavalry div broke that was the army break test for the French. 

Once again a splendid newly painted force has failed ingloriously on it's first outing at Camp Cromwell.  The French Guard should have steamrolled the Landwehr, but Mike got a bit over-enthusiastic in his attack (So French!) and the Austrians got the right dice to take advantage.