Battle Report - Waterloo Campaign Turn 1 - Hougoumont

Hello Folks,

So on Friday I went down to the Historical club to continue on with the Waterloo campaign. This time I would be borrowing a British army to face off against the hated french in hougoumont. I was given the British regular army division with a support of light cavalry to defend against the French onslaught. I was a bit lazy about putting this on up and since it's been a few days my accuracy may slip a bit but that's ok. The French had a Infantry army with an organic elite infantry support.

The terrain was based on the 'chateau' map in the lassale book, with a wood added by the French. My light cavalry is not deployed at the start as it's in reserve. My open took one look at my 6 infantry units and 4 cavalry units in reserve and decided he couldn't win the attack so decided to defend, as you can see allot of troops in line and in the woods. I figured fine be that way then the defender will attack!

I advanced across in attack columns biding my time until the cavalry would show up (you have to roll less then the turn number on 2 dice, but each player turn is a turn). Which they did on or around turn 5 I think. So the plan for me is to get some mixed charges with cavalary and infantry against single French infantry units, and some good 2 vs 1 charges. All I need to do is kill 4 or so units and they will be rolling army morale. The French don't have an objective for me to take as they are the attacker but that is the best I can do. (not my favorite feature of this game)

The set up continues for another turn or 2 while I bring up the mounted troops. The four french troops in front of the house are my target victims. My plan is to try flaking them a bit with around half my infantry, while the rest plays games with the French line. Fishing for lucky results I guess, and hoping not to loose more then 2 of them.

Here we are after a bit of action. I have 3 mounted units trying to break a French square, meanwhile 2 of my infantry are attack a French column while my last mounted unit gets them in his sights. On the other side I got a bit to in the face of the french line and they decided to charge, so one of  my units has an elite French in his face but I am planning to just fall back as the odds are not good.

I never got what I really wanted out of the 3 mounted vs the square, but was able to break through with an infantry unit to help out, so after 2 rounds of 4 units against 1!! I was able to kill that guy. A couple of more units fell to a combined infantry and cavalry charge. So I have the French at 3 which is not bad, but I have also lost a few units to flank charges.

Bit blurry sorry, battle tires you out is my excuse

In the end I lost another unit to cannon fire, so we both had 3 units lost, but sadly the we ran out of turns to play so the game was over.

Turns out it is pretty hard to win an attack as the defender, but I think I gave it a good go. I think I could have at least had them rolling morale if that one square hadn't given me such a huge amount of trouble. But a fun game none the less, I guess a draw is still ok for the allies as we keep the terrain, but I feel that in this campaign stacking up losses is more important the territories in the start, so you really want at least a minor victory so they loose half their attacking points.

Still I think Jeff's plan of defending with really small armies and playing fro draws has payed off nicely in the first turn, at least I assume that is the plan.

Thanks;
Mike