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