French Revolution Period Game

I decided the other day to try out an early Revolutionary encounter between a
French Republican force and an Old Regime Austrian army. I also wanted a big
game so I doubled the size of forces giving me 16 French v 12 Austrian. The
latter were governed by the small is beautiful rule which limits these forces to
six units. By the way they did look rather nice with neat lines of deployed
infantry and cavalry.

The French in contrast had four masses of brooding hordes. This was the first
time I'd played with hordes and was looking forward to see how they would fare
in the game.

The battle moved fast with both the French and Austrians advancing to gain some
positional advantage. The French then drove heavily on the left flank and used
their skirmishers in a massed cloud to mask their advancing hordes and
interspersed regular regiments.

The advance really felt quite authentic as the cavalry worked around the
Austrian flank and the hordes unleashed themselves on the weakened Austrian
lines. Hordes have quite a punch when they get to grips. At full strength that
is a minimum of 16 dice for hits. They managed to blow away a couple of lines
which seemed quite realistic. The counter to Hordes was pretty limited and
seemed to hinge on getting as many morale instances pre-contact to invoke the
double morale test which on a couple of occassions really hurt. Overall I did
like the Hordes unit type and how it was simulated.

Back to the battle and the French managed to constrict the Austrians around
their central position. With the left flank being rolled up the centre pinned
and the right threatened by fresh French troops the valiant Austrian General put
up a brave rearguard action but seemed doomed to defeat which finally occurred
after some 16 turns of intensive fighting. The end result was 9 v 2, however,
the French were pretty depleted regarding their remaining units.

On reflection a great game, plenty of period flavour which the simulation
brought out. Hordes look good en masse and with four of these 8 stand beasts I
had quite an aesthetic effect and pleasant contrast to the neat and ordered
Austrian lines.

I did find that maneovre of lines was a real headache, as I would imagine the
real battle commanders would have found. This particularly hindered the
Austrians who were unable to deploy all their muskets to best effect in their
firing lines.

Vive la Révolution!

Brian