I had a good game of Lasalle this week with the lads at Oldemeldrum - my French vs Alistair and Mike using the Russians.
We played on my snowy terrain cloth, a good old fashioned felt piece a terrain mat. It had been up int he loft since we played Mollwitz 3 years ago abut looked perfect.
The game kicked off over on my left with what can only be a described as a direct assault by one of the Russian horse batteries. It rode up and unlimbered getting ready to sweep away my own smaller battery in a hail of canister. However due to the turn sequence it was my guns that fired first and forced the Russians to limber back up. Later that turn I sent my Lancers after it and they caught it before before it could react and destroyed it.
Lancers ready to pounce as the guns fire into the Dragoons
The same unit of Lancers were then charged by then a big 6 base dragoon unit and lost the melee but it was inconsequential and they were driven back with few losses. I was soon able to recover their status and, after giving his cavalry several turns of artillery fire which saw the loss of the original Russian dragoon rgt, all three regiments of French Lancers attacked and drove back another unit of dragoons and a regiment of Cossacks.
On the right I lost an artillery battery on the first turn, knocked out by his heavy battery. My second battery was also forced to limber up and I took hits on my infantry. Not a good start. However I got my infantry moving in assault columns, covered them with a regiment in line to soak up some hits and started to cross the ground quite quickly. My remaining foot battery was soon in action again and kept a lively fire on his infantry. My troops were closing and as expected the leading line regiment was soon broken by the fire from the Russian guns. However the columns behind were effectively fresh and so attached the battery which was destroyed.
French advancing to close on Russian right.
Back on the left Alistair infantry had at last reached the point when they could wheel onto the flank of my position, although they were still too far to fire on my men.
The threat to my left.
The French attack develops.
Russian gunners getting nervous and under fire as the as the French close on them
With my cavalry out of the way clearing the Russians, I was able to being my horse batteries to bear on this threat.
On the right I had 5 battalions, all of them fresh, converging on the Russians, plus my supporting battery.
The French attack develops.
The Russian cavalry were worn and on the back foot. However there wasn't time to finish as it was now after 1030. A bloody nose for the Russians and some winter cheer for the French.
Russian gunners getting nervous and under fire as the as the French close on them
There were not many obstacles other than two woods, which freed things up and the slightly narrower table made for a quick engagement. It was a good game and it looked great on the snowy terrain too!
That's probably it from me in terms of games til new year sadly! But I have almost finished painting and building up my Crimean War armies and will be basing them soon and I have some French Horse Artillery crew to paint too. I should have those done by the end of the year.
