Take the cross road! A Crimean Action

 

For club game night I hosted a "Charge of The Light Brigade" game.  A Russian infantry and cavalry division attempted to capture a cross road to disrupt the Allies supply line.  A British Infantry and cavalry division with a French reinforced brigade attempted to hold that same cross road.  Victory conditions were capture and hold two of three buildings by end of game and/or reduced other side to less then 50%.

The battlefield.  The Allies are set up on the right of the picture and the Russians are set up on the left.
The three buildings represent the village.  

The battlefield from the opposite side.

The Russians (John and Warren) brought their entire Cavalry division, all four batteries and eight infantry battalions onto the table.  Another eight battalions were held in reserve.  The cavalry set up on their left flank and was to turn the allied flank while the infantry marched against the village.  All infantry was in march column formation for the race to the village criss roads.

The Allies (Phil and Kevin)  set up on their side with French on the right and the British in the center and left.  While the French commander choose to guard his flank with the cavalry the British commander placed his guns and cavalry in his center.  A most unorthodox formation!  But, it enabled them to get into two of the three buildings first so perhaps it was not so unorthodox after all!  The Allies were first into the village and quickly meet up defensive positions.  Artillery batteries were quickly in lumbered.   

  One unusual aspect of the rules I use, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is the turn sequence and command points.  The game is a "I Go U Go" but with a twist.  Each infantry battalion, cavalry Regiment and artillery battery has a certain amount of command points (CP).  Better units have more;  sluggish or poor units have less.  Thus a Guards battalion could have 12 CP;  A Russia battalion 8 CP and poor Johnny Turk has 4 CP.  When it is your sides turn each unit may do one operation.  Move, change formation, fire, etc. Its free!  After that, each unit may do a second operation but it costs 1 CP.  So you could move again or fire again or close into close combat.   BUT if you do this the other side gets to react to it.  They can shot back at that unit.  If a battery is limbered it can unlimber.  Then, if you want you can do a third thing but it now costs 2 CP.  And the other side can react to it.  This can go on indefinitely, with each extra move costing more CP.   But once you run out of CP they are gone forever.  BTW if your battalion commander is killed you loose what CP he has.   So use them wisely and be careful! 

The Russians quickened their pace and moved forward.  They also brought their reinforcements onto the table.  But the British countered with very effective long range rifle and artillery fire against the massed columns.

On the Russian right, a column closed on the Highland Brigade.  The Highland commander cooly  directed their fire and decimated first one then a second Russian battalion.  The survivors routed back causing a chain reaction not morale checks.  

Another unusual part of the rules is moral and morale markers.  Due to casualties or other bad things happening your regiment may get a moral marker.  You can use a free move to remove it or just drag it around the board with you.  But for every marker you get, you subtract 1 from every dice roll you have to make.  And since you roll dice to move, fire,  check moral, etc this can quickly cause headaches!  As the Russian quickly found out.

On the Russian left, the cavalry division closed in on the French cavalry.  The commander chose to place his cavalry regiments one behind the other to support the first line. 

 Outnumbered, a Zouave battalion (including Mr zigzag)  drew up to support the Chasseur d'afrique.  As the Russian cavalry charged forward they took heavy fire and ran into both the French cavalry and  battalion.  This was too much and the Russian cavalry Regiment routed back into its supports.  Again this caused a massive retreat on that flank.

Times up gentleman.

The clock on the wall rang out that time was up.  With both flanks gone and the Allies secure in the village they conceded the battle.  In the words of the Russian commander, " although we lost a lot of poor  peasent soldiers tonight, at least they are now in a better place. " How thoughtful!  

Thank you to Kevin, Phil, John and Warren for playing in my game.  All agreed it was a fun game and a good time.  And its great to once again have in person events and club game night.