Tuesday 25 June 2019

Action - the conclusion

We left the action with the French having the upper hand.  The British had lost their Cavalry, one battalion of infantry and the rifles. No French unit had been reduced in strength enough to put it out if action.

Charge has very simple morale rules. Once an Infantry unit is reduced to below 50% it is no longer effective and retires 2 moves and may make no offensive action and fights with severely reduced capabilities. A light or cavalry unit must be reduced to less than a 1/3.

Anyway back to the action. Wellington turns to Mack and mutters "Give me Blucher or get me a fast horse".

He rolls a D6 needing a 2 or less for Blucher to arrive. After a few minutes of muffling disparaging comments about Prussian time keeping he rolls the dice -  a glorious 2.

Blucher leads the Prussian 9th RIR into the field.


And next turn the Lutzow Uhlans and Austro-Portuguese Legion arrive.


With the arrival of the Prussians Picton leads forward the 23rd Foot. Overrunning a French Artillery battery before driving off the already weakened 10th Legere.  The Polish battalion and 23rd exchange close range fire with sees both units reduced to 50% and effectively out of the game.


With the centre lost the French decide to push their attack with the 2 battalions on their right.


With flags flying the French advance towards the hill where all they can see is a RHA battery which looses of a few rounds before retiring.

As the French crest the hill they are hit by a close range volley from a fresh battalion of Nassuers concealed on the reverse slope.


A quiver of shock goes through the French ranks however with exhortations of Vive L' Empereur the French close with the Nassuaers who are able to get off another close range volley which lays low even more French. The melee is short and sweet. The French lose the melee and with both battalions below 50% they are forced to retire.

With the day drawing to a close there is a final act. The Prussian infantry is forced into square by the presence of the French Carabiniers and Hussars. Blucher is forced to shelter the 9th RIR square.

He gives orders to his ADC 'I am a proud soldier and I don't win battles by hiding in squares. .Tell Lutzow to drive off those French cavalry'


The 2 squadrons of the Lutzow Lancers charge the French Carabinier and Hussars. After the first round of melee they lose 2 figures and inflict no casualties on there opponents.

Lutzow rolls D6, needing a 4 or more, to see if the melee ends or if there is a second round. A 6 is throw.


With gritted teeth Lutzow brings up his second squadron and extends the line. He drives his men forward and joins the fray.


 The melee goes better for the Prussians and with Lutzow fighting the last melee he needs to win to draw the melee overall. In Charge Cavalry melees are resolved by figure to figure comvats resolved by opposed dice rolls.

The French Hussar rolls a 4. Lutzow rolls a 6 laying the unfortunate Hussar low. The 2nd round ends with a total score of 3 loses each over the 2 rounds. Each side must retire 2 moves to recover. 

With the cavalry melee decided the French concede defeat.  Ney will have a hard time explaining this to the Emperor.

Overall the Charge rules worked well. The game moved at a cracking pace and I rather liked not having to worry about complex morale rules and testing for umpteen different reasons to see if a unit had good morale. Indeed the good old 50% worked well and was quit liberating.

I will write more in my next post on my Charge Napoleonic rule amendments.

Out of interest does anyone have copy of the this Athena version of the Charge rules. I understand that they included extra Napoleonic rules.


If you do and a willing to copy the Napoleonics please drop me an email.



20 comments:

tradgardmastare said...

I will see if l can locate the copy l have.

The Good Soldier Svjek said...

I do like 'Charge' for their simplicity , think they have stood the test of time , interested in your Napoleonic adaptions .

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

Always reliable.

The game looks good!

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Some dangerous Napoleonic butterflies flitting around me after reading this and perusing the related photographs. Very dangerous!

Best Regards,

Stokes

Mark Dudley said...

Hi

Another reader has sent me a copy of the extra Napoleonics rules. There are some extra ideas I will add to my own ideas and put them on the blog.

Mark Dudley said...

The simplicity also making playing solo easier. As I have commented above I will put my rule ideas on my blog.

Mark Dudley said...

Reliable and Fun. You cannot beat individual cavalry figure melees.

Mark Dudley said...

Butterflies are dangerous fellows. My recurring Butterfly is 20mm ACW using Jacklex figures.

Wellington Man said...

That was very stirring stuff indeed, Mark. The troops are looking magnificent.

I have the awful feeling, however, that I missed the last episode. In the last thing I saw the action ended with Wellington telling Mack to put his map away. Has something been deleted, or is it just me?

Best regards
WM

Vintage Wargaming said...

Of course what he should have said was “Do you have a light Mack” to which the reply was “No but I’ve got a dark overcoat”.

mojoworking said...

It's amazing what you can cram in on a 4 x 4 foot table! I bet if you'd used a table twice the size the game would have taken at least twice as long.

Rob said...

My comment has gone astray - but then I'm finding it harder than ever to prove I'm not a robot. I was only agreeing with the effectiveness of simple rules - most add-ins I've tried end up being dropped in favour of the original systems.

Mark Dudley said...

There is indeed a second post. Can you see it now?

Mark Dudley said...

Using 1/2 scale movement distances and ranges does allow a lot to happen on a small table.

Mark Dudley said...

It is actually difficult to add on rules that don't really work and add no value to the game.

I now have copies of the Napoleonic add ons and mine are reality simple.

For instance in Infantry melee 1 allow 1 dice per 8 figures for Elites, 1 per 10 for Regulars and 1 per 12 for Militia types.

Also in figure vs figure, typically cavalry, I add one if a figure has the overall advantage. For instance light vs heavy, elite vs regular or militia.
So an heavy Cavalrymen vs Elite Light would be a no advantage.

I am going to put this all this up and post on my blog.

Wellington Man said...

Nope. You June log just shows "Action" and then "Action - Conclusion". I'll try another browser!

Cheers

WM

Rob said...

I can still only see the one comment but when I search for 'Rob' I get 5 matches, but when I click through them there are only 4! How weird is that? Anyway neither comment said anything worth reading, really just adding my appreciation of your blog.

Rob Dean said...

I love Charge!, and should get a game on the table soon...

David said...

Looking forward to looking through the Charge rules and seeing if there are additions from there I could make to the Muskets and Marshals rules, or if I should just give straight Charge! a try. Very nice looking figures and board! The 23rd Welsh Fusiliers were one of my first units ever, made up of Hinchliffe tall slender 25/28s!

David

David said...

Mark,

May I ask what figures you are using for the Prussians firing? I have some that look similar, but are somewhat bigger than Hinton Hunts. They may be early Hinchliffes. In any even I have no use for them and happy to pass them on if they could be of use.

David