Talavera Campaign – Day 4

Campaign Map

In the north 1^st Anglo-Spanish army regroup at Avila

10^th French army secure their lines of supply and advance towards Avila

 

In the centre 11^th French army occupy Maqueda

2^nd Anglo-Spanish army retreat to Talavera

 

In the south 12^th French army attack Torrecilla

 

No guerrilla activity today, after two days of extensive attacks on French lines of supply.   All groups retreat to their safe areas to resupply, regroup and replenish casualties

Battle of Torrecilla

General Picton has been tasked to hold the town of Torrecilla.   To do so he has one Spanish and two British corps.   All three have suffered heavy casualties during the fighting at San Martin.  The Spanish hold the town, and the British the hills either side.   Picton has taken command of the two best British infantry brigades and formed a reserve behind the town.

Marshal Marmont has orders to attack the town.  He has two French and one Polish corps.  They have also suffered casualties at San Martin, but much less than the Anglo-Spanish.   Their artillery are also much more effective than the enemy.   They have however had to detach one infantry brigade to garrison San Martin.    They will arrive on the table at the start of move 1.

End of battle

Marmont has concentrated the artillery of 35^th and 36^th corps in the centre, and used them to weaken the town garrison.  However this has taken longer than expected.   When he does storm the town the Spanish garrison rout.  Picton counter attacks with his reserve of elite British infantry.   They rout the French attackers, but come under fire from the French artillery.  Despite casualties they both hold at nightfall.

Confused fighting on the left between the Vistula and 6^th British corps ends in a draw.   At nightfall a Polish square holds the British dragoons at bay.   The remaining infantry brigade is still exchanging fire with the last British brigade.

The French have more success on their right, where they outnumber 5^th British corps.   By nightfall they have occupied the British held hill.

Comment

This was an action packed game, with plenty of surprises.  

Both sides had their share of lucky and unlucky dice.   With my new rules a roll of 1 or 6 can destroy the most careful plans.   This was particularly so with the superior French artillery.   Once in range they needed 6 for a hit on artillery, or 5 or 6 to hit the town garrison.   For the first 10 moves they had very little success.   However on move 11 they hit both brigades in the town, and one on the left.  

The new morale rules had an even greater influence.   A roll of 5 or 6 (adjusted by a table reflecting morale, casualties, supports etc) is required to pass.   Any other result will mean a fail, and anything from disordered to retreat to rout.   However it also means that a routed brigade can rally if they roll a 5 or 6.  

With our previous rules most combat resulted in low casualties, both sides passing their morale tests and continued rounds of melee or firefight.   Once a brigade routed it was almost impossible to rally them.   Consequently once one side started to gain an advantage it was very unlikely that the other side would recover.

With our new rules a brigade will often retreat either disordered or shaken.  But they will often quickly rally and advance again.  However they may well have caused serious problems for their commander by this unexpected loss of morale.   On the other hand a routed brigade can rally and return late in the game to add unexpected strength to a weakened corps.

We are still struggling when we are on the end of a bad dice roll, but quite happy when it happens to the other player.  Fortunately this type of unexpected result has been evenly spread between both of us.   On balance I think we prefer it, because it removes the previous chess like predictability of our games.

Talavera Campaign – Day 3

Last week’s blog entry contained a typing error.  

The title of the first photograph was Battle of Villacastin, it should have been Battle of Maqueda.   The rest of the text was correct.   Most of you will, no doubt, have missed this error.   However Bob Cordery (Wargaming Miscellany) did notice, and was kind enough to point it out.  Bob also reads my 1813 Campaign Diary blog, which is updated the week before this blog.   Both blogs covered Day 3 of the Talavera campaign phase, and Bob noticed that the battles were different.

Thanks for pointing out the error Bob; I have now emended last week’s blog.