Saturday 23 October 2010

Small Spanish Game (1): The Spanish Ulcer (again)

Exhausted by the size of the Salamanca (campaign) battle a relatively small Spanish versus French campaign encounter was chosen for a rules-test for "Age of Eagles".

The major change being a transition from average unit sizes of six (this being found to be too small for a AoE unit) to doubling the factors so that an average sized unit became twelve to see how this played out.

Of note: The defending Spanish force was slightly larger than the attacking French force, but given the superior French combat factors the game seemed interesting as it was balanced on a knife edge, perhaps depending on a few choice combat rolls.

Early manoeuvring saw the Spanish ejected out of good defensive wooded terrain by vigorous French bayonets, but this only meant that they formed up in a formidable continuous line making good use of a "hill". This line would have to be breached. 

The Spanish defensive position (Left Flank holding "The Church", with seemingly with ample reserves in the background):


The Spanish Centre and the crux of the Spanish defensive position "The Hill" (once the woods had been lost, as per the French infantry streaming out of them):


Right Flank (seen top above) holds a "body" of Spanish horse of doubtful quality that served to attract doubtful (as in poor) dice rolling.

Next: The crux of the battle

4 comments:

Paul said...

Nicely painted armies in battle there Geordie!

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

They are a friends (or rather group of) collection that spans a good thirty years of communal collecting, with some very nice stuff being added in the last ten years or so.

My Napoleonics runs to a modest/nay tiny (and mainly unpainted) collection of Prussian and French 15mm and "box of" Airfix/Esci bundle (again unpainted) plastics
:)

Paul said...

Never mind, still time to build up a ultimate force!

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

No worries there as I still find Napoleonic painting a tad time consuming and daunting from a research point of view

In WWII greens and grey and you don't go much wrong ;)