Honour Forums

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1. Genl Brady
   Member

   Hi, I've been playing with a Russian infantry division, with one or two supports: a grenadier brigade and/or a curassier brigade. It's a beautiful army, what with all the artillery, but it has caused me problems when facing an army of conscript hordes.

   The last club night I played defeder vs the Spanish, who marched aaaallll the way from Madrid to Smolensk. I formed my infantry battalions around my artillery batteries with an eye toward advancing at least one move toward the center so as to leave room for units to remain on table after a fall back. Unfortunately, my opponent, who had twice as many battalions as me (12) and an organic cavalry support (5 regiments) came on in march column the very first turn, forcing me to form square with the infantry and unlimber the artillery.

   The two units of Spanish irregular cavalry slipped into my rear in march column, parking themselves right behind my infantry line so as to block any fallbacks. At the beginning of the game, I had no cavalry to shoo them away. The infantry, meanwhile, advanced to within musket range (4BW) of my artillery before coming out of march column; the columns suffer no additional penalty when within cannister range. At this point, they formed attack column, with three battalions in charge range of my guns!

   Meanwhile, in the infantry combats, I managed to bring two or three battalions to 3 disruptions, nearly breaking them, but when they fell back from combat, their friends behind were packed so close that the injured Spanish units fell well back to recover, while I had to face a fresh unit. (and yes, he did roll disc tests for the units that were passed through, but that's not the point).

   Finally, my cuirassier arrived halfway through the game (turn 8?), and dealt with one infantry unit before my army broke.

   Do any Russian players out there have any thoughts or advice on dealing with these kinds of hordes?

   Thanks :P

   Posted 1 year ago #

2. Moridan
   Member

   Hello Genl Brady,

   I have started playing Lasalle just now but I have played a lot of other games of that kind before.

   An Important question is the terain you played on.
   How may hills, woods, buildings streams an so on?
   Could you build you defensive postion around some strongpoints?

   I also assume you had a look at the possibel army compostion of you opponet bforehand?
   Seeing that the spanish have 12 Inf to begin with and a 5 cav support at there hands your choise of a 2 cav Reserve seems to me a bad choise.

   Would you gave chosen the Grenadie brigade your opponent would just have 2 Inf and the 5 Cav more then you.

   Your Reserve came at turn 8 that's quite late in the game and is a gambel what I would not dare at those supperior numbers.

   Looking at the spanish unit's I see that there are a loot 3 rate troops at best.
   1 valinat 2 reliabel and the rest is either shaky or unpred.
   Only the Grenadiers and Veterans are Exp the rest is Amateur.

   That sounds to me your oponent had a lot of luck in roling dices as well since marching into close range of guns and reforming a lot of Amateur units calls for a lot of Dis test's or did I get that wrong?.

   Would you use the Grenadier Brig your forces would not only more even in numbers but your Grenadiers are all Valinat and as such they would have in must cases at least a +2 dice against the spanish well if all unpred rolled high for the esprie that would not help.

   I would advice to replay the battle but this tiem you take the Greandier Brigade and look ate the outcome I am sure you will be surprised.

   (Sorry for my bad english it is not my native language)

   Posted 1 year ago #

3. vilcum
   Member

   Probably a reserve unit is a bad choosing defending against such numbers, light cavalry on your side could have reversed the result by itself.

   Other than that, IMHO you should keep yor infantry in attack column until the spaniards were "close to the enemy" (i.e. 4 BW) that way you earn at least one turn as they should not dare enter your charge range in march formation. And I will not mount a square with regular infantry against shaky cavalry prior being contacted or flanked, invite him to charge you : 66% 4 vs 10 dices on your favor against 33% 8 vs 6 in his.

   Posted 1 year ago #

4. Peoples_Republic
   Member

   Yes. Like the others have said. He had a lot of luck and you had bad luck with reserves. I really wouldn't read much into that game and right it off to bad luck. He did the right thing and gambled and rushed you. He doesn't want to hang around on the field with shaky troops having them shelled by artillery. When you start the game with your best units not showing up till your at break point thats a pretty decisive thing against you. Its out of your control. I seem to have bad luck with reserves and avoid them.If your reserves had of come on sooner. You would have caught his cavalry in the rear and things would have gone a whole different way. IF u take reserves your leaving luck in control of your game.

   The only advice I have is that when your outnumbered like that retreat buying time and choose rough ground or cover as a defensive line and if you go close to your edge of the table. The reserves can get into action quicker.

   And remember what Napoleon said. I would rather have a lucky commander than a brilliant Commander.
   Cheers.

   Posted 1 year ago #

5. Genl Brady
   Member

   These are all good thoughts, and I would like to respond with a little more information on the scenario. The board was "Chateau on the hill", with two patches of woods; one against the baseline (placed by me, to protect the objective against cavalry) and one by my opponent, on the leading edge of the hill in between the chateau and the center (placed by my opponent, to screen him from artillery fire).

   Whether I had chosen light cavalry or the cuirassier, they are both reserve units. Only the guard list has organic cavalry choices, I don't have light cav yet, but I plan on getting some later on. The cuirassier were quicker to paint up. I could also take grenadiers, which would indeed bring my forces closer to parity with his, but with no cavalry whatsoever. I have discovered that infantry without cav support are pretty difficult to work with (especially if your opponent has "only" 5 more cav than you). Even with the irregular cav, my infantry cannot charge them. The best I could do with them before the cav arrives would be to have one or two units behind the main line to try to shoot the cav with musketry.

   If I play this again, I will try to take the attack role, as the Spanish and my army would then each have 9 battalions. His edge would then be the cavalry alone.

   And yes, bad luck did play a role, as both my subcommanders (including the reserve) were both -1 vigor, and the infantry commander was a poor tactician.

   Cheers

   Posted 1 year ago #

6. MarkGrindlay
   Member

   If you are facing someting like this, I think an extra infantry support in place of the cavalry may be a better option, particular if defending.

   I also put infantry directly behind the guns, so the guns can fall back through the infantry, without creating a hole in the line.

   as defender, your goal is to stop him winning, to to kill him yourself.

   when you game gets this close in scale, most tactics go out of the window, and it becomes quiet brutally simplistic in what you need to do - break the line, take the target, never mind the shilly shallying about for position - or hold the line no matter what.

   Posted 1 year ago #

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