The Battle of Wolvenstadt

Earlier in the week, Jon and I got together in GHQ for a SYW game, which we entitled 'The Battle of Wolvenstadt'. The sharp eyed, and/or the awake, amongst you will notice that the table layout is pretty much the same as last week's Wars of the French Revolution game Phil and I played. Well, as I said in an earlier Blog post, I need more terrain tiles now I have a bigger playing surface. That will be attended to later in the summer, real life issues are more pressing for us all at the moment and I feel lucky if we can fit a game in each week at present. I'm still learning to adapt to my new room and one aspect I need to pay more attention to is taking photos during the game. I'm afraid having looked over the pictures I took I can only give a very vague outline of how the game went, rather than a full blown after action report. Never mind, here goes anyway! The French occupy the village of Wolvenstadt, situated near a strategic crossroads which the British need to control. The calm before the storm breaks, as some Frenchmen fraternise with the local women ~

The French position on the right flank is anchored in the village of Wolvenstadt itself, taking advantage of the many buildings, hedges and fields to make a formidable position. Infantry and artillery will surely be too strong for the enemy ~

The British have marched on and deployed into line for the attack, each regiment supporting its neighbour with withering volleys as the advance grinds slowly forward against the French defenders of Wolvenstadt ~

The view from the British lines ~

The French commander, the Compte de Merde, orders his cavalry into the attack on his left flank. The heavy cavalry of the line surges forward, its flank shielded by the Hussards de Bykli, while the household regiments await the order to move forward ~

The Horse clash in a magnificent but bloody action ~

The French charge heroically but are beaten back by the cold steel of their British foe ~

The French Gendarmes and the Mestre de Campe regiments are broken, but the British loose men too, the Horse Guards being also routed ~

The situation stabilised on his left flank, the Compte de Merde orders his reserves forward to flank the British attack on Wolvenstadt which has slowly gained the upper hand. The Grenadiers de France lead the way, followed by the Garde Francais and the Garde Swisse ~

The British advance remorselessly on Wolvenstadt having driven off two regiments of French from the outskirts ~

Finally, while holding the advantage on his left, the Compte de Merde is forced to concede that the British will occupy Wolvenstadt, his men finally having given way after a stubborn and gallant defence {and being Disordered in almost every turn!}

The game ended in a draw, but with the British poised to occupy Wolvenstadt and thus dominate the strategic crossroads, the objective of the game after all, so we awarded them a winning draw. The buildings are all by Conflix and the trees and the like from The Last Valley. The figures are all Foundry from my collection and the rules we used were Black Powder with the modifications from The Last Argument of Kings.
That's two games now in the new GHQ and two draws. Next week should see a four hander, with John and Jon joining Phil and I for a day ACW game. I hope to get all, or most, of my Dixon Miniatures collection out on the table for this game, so with that in mind I spent a happy hour clearing everything off the table top this afternoon so I can see how to lay out the game to best achieve that objective.