Skirmish at Andover

Following the French Victory at Salisbury Napoleon decided to bring up his own heavy cavalry whilst allowing Massena’s shattered force to retire. The plan was to push on to Andover with Murat, Ney and D’Hilliers. Upon scouting the town, I found that only Moore’s Division was in residence so declared a ‘contact’.

Under the campaign rules the defending player may decide to refuse battle and withdraw to the next town and this was what I expected Rob to do given the imbalance of forces. However, he declared that Moore’s (or what had been Moore’s) Division would fight a delaying action to cause attrition amongst the pursuers. The resulting table action was therefore small scale but turned out to be interesting and fun to play.

The initial table set-up.

The French force consisted of the Lancers, one unit of Cuirassiers and a Guard Horse Battery against the British Naval Battalion (in square), Dutch Foot Battery and a Company of Rifles. The square could move 3” per turn and the artillery could fire by prolong which meant moving 3” and firing at half effect. The game would end after 8 turns (when the main French body arrived) or if the Naval Battalion square managed to retire to the table edge.

The French cavalry immediately pushed forward and the 5th Lancers were the first to come under fire from the Dutch Foot Artillery.

Turn 2 and the Guard Horse Artillery had a very successful roll of the dice.

That completely levelled the crew of the Dutch Battery!

In retaliation the Rifles emerged from a small wood where they had been concealed to take pot shots at the enemy gunners but with little effect.

Egged on by the success of the gunners the 5th decided to try their luck against the Naval Battalion square. All went well until they received a point-blank volley that brought down 3 troopers and left them disordered.

As the Lancers withdrew to reform the Cuirassiers trotted up showing the sort of discipline that would prevent them from making the same mistake. But then...

Forward they came with the same result! I decided to give them a 1 in 6 chance of launching a charge and somehow they managed to do just that.

With the wind knocked out of the cavalry, the Naval Battalion slowly withdrew from the field.

These French losses could have serious implications later in the campaign.

The situation at the end of turn 8. The Naval Battalion have so far borne the brunt of the French invasion - where is Wellington?

The Naval Battalion and Rifles ended the game (after casualty recovery) with no losses, but the destruction of the Dutch Foot Battery will make a dent in the British OOB. For the French, the Lancers ended up with 9 figures and the Cuirassiers with 8 which is enough to make a difference to their effectiveness in any further battles.