AAR: The Napoleonic French takes to the Field

With Andreas' Napoleonic French collection growing fast it was time to test them on the field of battle.

Visiting old gaming buddies in Scania, the southern parts of Sweden, was the perfect opportunity. The rules used were General de Brigade. The scenario had the French defend a hill and the Prussians had to break all close order infantry within ten turns. 

The French were hard pressed on their right with a line battalion becoming dispersed. But the newly painted 2nd dragoons, also on that flank, did take some preasure off. They managed to chase two squadrons of Prussian hussars off the table as the latter tried to evade the dragoon's charge. The French left did really well standing up to the Prussian advance. The center including the foot artillery gave the Prussians a real pounding. The Prussians conceded the battle after losing two battalions and not being able to dislodge the French from their positions on the battlefield. The French were victorious!

The French 1st Battalion, 1st Light Regiment advance in line...

...with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Light Regiment in support.

Overview of the French left.

The French foot battery in the center.

The French 2nd Dragoons try to stabilise the French right.

French skirmishers try to slow down the Prussian advance.

Battle is joined.

French dragoons fails to break a Prussian square.
The Prussian advance had stalled however and victory was in the end with the French!

Napoleonic French 2nd Dragoons in 28mm

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Lining up for battle

Its been a while since our last post but we haven't been idle. Especially one of us, Andreas, has been busy painting French for his Waterloo Campaign project. As shown samples of earlier some infantry is done (the battalion in these photos have have now been given 1815 pattern colours for the 100 Days campaign).

Time for some cavalry then. Andreas' main focus is the fighting in the area of Hougoumont (and some of the same regiments present at Quatre Bras). These are the 2nd Dragoons, in the 1st brigade, 11th cavalry division, 3rd cavalry corps. With them is General de Brigade Cyrille Simon Picquet, commander of the 1st brigade. 

The other regiment of the 1st brigade, the 7th dragoons, is still to come but work is already under way.

Charge!

GdB Cyrille Simon Picquet

Aide de Camp

The next cavalry regiment coming up - the 7th Dragoons.