A last minute trip to Oxford enabled me to visit the OWS club and take part in one of Dr Mark Smith's BBB Peninsular games. I had played this before, about 4-5 years ago, but Mark had tweaked the scenario and it needed play testing!
The scenario is that the French army, under Dupont, is moving towards supporting forces whilst ensuring that it's baggage train, laden with Spanish treasure, makes it back to the Louvre...
The Spanish are not in favour of this, so have blocked the way forward and are coming up on the French rear as well.
For the game, Crispin and I were the French, Dave W & Phil were the Spanish.
Here's the map.
The French are heading north, with their 2nd wave coming on in turn 2 and the Spanish followers arriving turn 5 or 6. In my previous game, I elected for a left hook, got bogged down in the forest and chopped to bits. This time I decided to just punch through, keeping the baggage as near, but not too near, to the front line as possible.
Initial deployment - the wagons are on the road, The French are lined up to the right. The green cube denotes Guard Marines - aggressive, veteran, skirmishers - but only two stands. The pink cube units are Swiss, having recently swapped from fighting for the Spanish against the French and of doubtful loyalty. In the real battle they swapped sides again!
Move 2 - French push North - the baggage train and my advance guard heads north into the Spanish troops defending the valley. Crispin's rear guard makes it across the bridge and his cavalry + horse artillery are on the French right.
Move 4 - the French advance slows as David and Phil send the Spaniards in to slow the French down.
Move 6 - the French made progress through the valley (of death) but at the cost of units going fragile. Meanwhile the southern Spaniards caught up with Crispin and started to erode the rearguard.
Move 6 - other view. The Spanish are sitting in Bailen, but the French third wave has arrived from the North, so it's not over yet!
Final position - the French did assault Bailen but failed to breakthrough. The Spaniards caught the baggage train. Whilst the French had a number of good combats it took too long to break the Spanish and cost too many Frenchmen doing so. It was, in the end, a draw.
Reflections - once again BBB delivered the HQGE fix we wanted for the evening - all four players were in action most of the time and it was a lot of fun!
Mark's scenario makes life difficult for both sides - baggage trains to guard, uncertain re-inforcement arrival times, flaky troops that are liable to scarper!
My thanks go to Mark for laying on the game at short notice and to Crispin, Dave W and Phil for being excellent colleagues/opponents!
