2mm Napoleonic Battle Report

Evening everyone!  Mike, Ian and I managed to get a game of Line of Battle in yesterday, using 2mm Irregular Miniatures figures.  These are the same ones Mike painted for our massive Talavera game from December 2016.

2mm gaming is, as you'd imagine, on quite a different scale to more usual 10mm or 15mm games.  Whole regiments are killed with a casual throw of the dice, and a brigade breaking up and falling back happens a couple of times a turn.  We used the scenario generation rules in the Line of Battle rulebook to create a natural meeting engagement which built up gradually, between a French and a British army.  Let's see what happened, shall we?

This is the two intrepid gamers setting up their advanced guards.  In 2mm, these forces are over a mile away from one another - the line between 'deployment phase' and 'first turn' is blurred, so there are quite a few quiet turns at the beginning where both armies start moving into position.

Ian tried to dash across the bridge to attack the town, but was blocked by the timely arrival of French reserves.  They deployed guns on the far side of the river and forced Ian to delay his attack for several hours while he tried to deal with them.  In the end, this little side show became a key part of the battle and drew in brigade after brigade.

Where Ian's moving the models - that's the site of a mammoth cavalry charge, French cuirassiers against the old Scots Greys.  The British  took heavy casualties, but in the end they had more fresh units nearby to maintain the line.

We had to call the game early due to time there, but it was agreed that the British were ahead.  The French reserves, although well placed, were a long time in coming and Ian had some great artillery dice at crucial moments.

As I wrote this up I thought it was interesting how I was unconsciously imposing order and reason onto what was a very chaotic engagement spread over several miles.  Some decisions were instantly regretted, and some were made hastily.  In the end there was only the loosest possible 'plan', and anything which conformed to it was largely due to chance.  Battles of this scale are only aggregates of hundreds of smaller firefights, after all.  Just thought it was interesting.

Example - the town in the foreground, which was ostensibly the objective for the whole game, came out completely unscathed, with all the action happening towards the edge of the boards!

A fantastic line of British heavy cavalry.

This combat on the left dominated the battle - it was where most of the casualties were inflicted.  You can see Ian has cleverly placed a reserve unit to the right of the picture - it pays to have some fresh troops on hand when all the melee units start breaking down.

The French even managed to get a bold cavalry charge in on a Thin Red Line, although in vain - frontal charges can be devastating if they manage to connect, but the enemy usually needs softening up a bit first.

Anyway - plenty more hobby stuff in the works so stay tuned!  Hope you enjoyed our little foray back into teeny tiny soldier gaming...

Ed