GARDEN WARS - Deux



My eldest had so much fun as the attacking French force last time that he decided to have a go at the slower defensive battle from the Russian side.

We re-set all the troops to the same organizations as last time. The difference this time was the use of an idea I saw from Too Fat Lardies in their Le Feu Sacre rules. The formations of troops would be 'represented' by boards that I have, with an ID tag on them that only the player controlling knows what is really standing in the location. Then once the forces get within 1.5 times the artillery range then the minis get put out in the correct formation.

So now neither of us had this data when we started, you, dear reader will get the info about what troops started where...




This time round I commanded the French from Murat's Headquarters the plan looked great ... now if only the Russians would go slowly as they usually did.

The French led with Dragoons that raced ahead of the infantry columns and setup their horse battery just in range of the Russian lead formation that turned out to be composed of the Grenadiers!

Out gunned at 2-1 the French horse battery was soon losing gunners ...

A short advance by the French dragoons showed that there were more Russian dragoons and cossacks in a line behind the town and covering the lake area.


Thankfully, for the French, there were heavy formations of Infantry with foot batteries coming with them.

The next period was marked by artillery exchanges with the French gunners coming out on the bad end of the deal, while some damage was delivered to the Russian Grenadier Horsemen, then into the foot.

Still more French infantry formed into line with the allied formations.


The Russians continued to deliver damage and drew forward the French Hussars who prevailed over the Russian Horse Grenadiers, admittedly they had been badly shot up by the now active French batteries.

Those Hussars that had strayed too close to the lake now were targets of the Russian dragoons horse batteries.


Thunder from the flank came in the form of French chasseur squadrons. Now the Russian Grenadier formation was under pressure on three sides.


The French poured fire into the Russian grenadiers with two horse and two foot batteries, now in good range with the infantry to support the gun line.


Waiting behind these French lines were dragoons looking for an opening to exploit.



Similarly the Russian dragoons and Cossack formations waited for the opening to charge home ...

It was at this moment that the Russian grenadiers could no longer hold against the pounding they were taking from the French gunners. One battery was out of action from lack of crew when they lost both a Horse and foot formation, leaving only 25% of the division remaining. Those foot grenadiers fled the field abandoning the remaining horse battery...

Thus at 'halftime' (we had to pack up for the day so that dinner could be made in time to go out to a show) the forces were arranged thus ... with the French leading 4 to the Russian score of 0.

My eldest son still thought he could overcome the positions so we recorded everything and prepared to go again when weather and time permitted.