Peninsular 1809 - Corunna

 Date: Weds 17th Jan 2024

Table Size: 8x6

Context: January 1809. Spain has risen and is in revolutionary fervour against the French. Sir John Moore has led the British army through a dismal march to the coast, following the departure of the British generals and Sir Arthur Wellesley back to England to face an enquiry into the Convention of Cintra. 

Napoleon is in Spain, marching hardened veterans to face the British, which has forced the decision to retreat in haste. By the time the British army reaches Corunna everything is exhausted - men, clothes, animals, everything, with some men having had to march through winter in their bare feet. The port providing much needed rest, supplies and rescue.

The French are some distance behind, but it takes days for the fleet to arrive, the evacuation to be organised and boarding to begin, at which point the French arrive to begin engaging with the British forces................

Battlefield Map:

Objectives - British: Deploy in a defensive line, hold the French to buy time for the main forces to embark onto the waiting ships, then withdraw in good order.

Order of Battle - British: 

CIC - Moore

Brigade 1 (Paget) 2 Light Dragoons

Brigade 2 (Bentinck) 3 Highlanders.

Brigade 3 (Warde) 2 Foot Guards

Brigade 4 (Manningham) 3 Line Infantry, 2 cannons

Brigade 5 (Leith) - 3 Line Infantry, 1 rocket 

Brigade 6 (Craufurd) - 2 Light Infantry, 1 95th Rifles

Objectives - French: Having finally caught and cornered the British, you will engage and destroy this line, pushing forward into the main port to complete the victory.

Order of Battle - French: 

CIC - Junot

Brigade 1 (Houssaye) - 3 Regiments Dragoons

Brigade 2 (Lorges) - 2 Regiments Chasseurs a Cheval

Brigade 3 (Mermet) - 4 Line Regiments, 2 Cannon

Brigade 4 (Merle) - 5 Line Regiments, 2 Cannon

Brigade 5 (Delaborde) - 5 Line Regiments, 2 Cannon

Deployments:  

French will deploy amongst the hills to the Southern table edge and get the first turn.

The British must deploy at least three brigades at least 24" onto the table from the Northern edge. Other Brigades can choose whether to deploy as deep.

2023 Review and 2024 Thoughts and Plans

 Herein lies the annual plan for the year, which I promptly forget and then get on with other things before retuning 12 months later with a LOL WOT? when reading.

So, first thing. Blog. What happened? Not been posting a whole lot and just about maintaining it as a record for scenarios.

In a word. The dread word WORK. Got v busy with a move of studio locations, which soaked up 80% of my time between Jan and July, leaving me with little time to do much else. So, even though painting, gaming and doing all the usual stuff, the blog was the one that was suffered. I'm honest enough to not make a grand BUT NOT THIS YEAR statement, so lets see. This is combined with my playing and gaming more (the blog saw its highest activity when the babies were younger and I wasn't doing much accordingly), not being on the computer a whole lot to find but, but lets see......

Right last years pledges. I literally will be looking at these for the first time since the post before!

https://themosquitoonthetenthfloor.blogspot.com/2023/01/2022-review-and-2023-thoughts-and-plans.html

1. Painting

The fuck am I waffling about there? No idea. Still, painting continued (continues) apace, albeit sllightly slower than previously. I'm fighting predations of buying yet more armies, but really this constant pursuing of new projects isn't really sustainable in terms of actually using them, space, time and money, so I've been progressing through what I have.

To be fair to myself, I did get a lot of stuff done and finished last year, it just wasn't recorded.

2. No New Major Projects

Hmmm, I think I stuck to this one. I can't think of anything that I really started. What I did get over the year has mainly been for existing things or supplementary to campaigns (terrain, for example). Yeah, think I managed this.

3. FINISH THE FOLLOWING (related to #1)

1870 Prussians

1879 British

Epic Iron Warriors

Uruk Hai

Mordor

Medieval stuff (yep, all of it!)

SO......

Prussians - nope. Built them and undercoated, but mainly to get rid of the boxes and save space.

British - nope. Think I might have undercoated some. Zulu def my least loved of projects

Epic Iron Warriors - YES! All done, then I dropped the fuckin' box and shattered them as 3d prints. We even had a big multiplayer epic campaign over the summer which was good.

Uruk Hai - Underway right now. Literally, I'll be basing some this lunchtime today. Loads of progress

Mordor - Yes! I've painted what I have and thats all done

Medieval Stuff - nope, still some left to do,. Not a whole lot, but enough to be work.

NEW PLEDGES

Without being brutal, there isn't any really. I've lots of ideas and projects ticking around, but I'm also trying to not engage them as live projects for reasons mentioned above. With that in mind.

1. Fantasy Stuff.

Been really enjoying Oathmark, what I've played of it, so thats likely to be a focus for a bit. So, I'll catalogue my fantasy armies as part of the grand cataloguing work thats underway and fill the gaps in units etc, then get those all painted to completion.

2. Dark Ages

The holdout from periods. There will be some dark ages gaming in Spring, once the Peninsular runs out of steam, so we're all doing a "buy a box of Victrix, build, paint, thats the whole force. So, get that all built and painted, then played. Plus scenery, naturally.

3. Napoleonics. 

So close to finishing. Oh so close to being completely finished. I will be very happy if this is done this year, as I really don't need anything else, so anything painted and finished is all from the backlog and a plus.

Lets leave it at those. Now, off to try and not buy a bloody castle.

Peninsular 1808 - Vimeiro - Battle Report

 So..........Vimeiro. Wellington faces off against the French properly. How do they get the measure of one another in the Wandsworth refight of this event?

Scenario here: LINK

Initial layout and deployments

(that might take some shifting)

The French begin their advance across the table in good order.

Dragoons out front. Which is good now, but they decided to remain in this spot for quite some time to come.........

British centre advances slightly to meet the threat.

French right flank makes an advance to attack the hill

The lines begin to form and exchange fire

The initial French columns get absolutely devastated by the British firepower going into them.

Central exchange of fire continues, with the French still getting the worst of it.

Columns begin to attack on the French right attempting to force a flank and take the hill, so as to roll up the British.

Bloody cavalry getting in the way. Stubbornly refusing to charge and missed their moment of glory!

French advance on the town begins, but its held and has artillery, so they can't advance in force until the centre has been consolidated.

French reserves arrive, sorely needed. Everyones wondering where the British reserves are.

British reserves finally begin coming in, but seem reluctant to move any further than the edge of the town.

Dragoons have finally decided to earn their pay and go in for a charge......only to receive their P45 and take a kicking, before retreating in ignominy. Thanks for turning up, lads.

Here we go, the reserves start appearing to bolster that centre, which had really taken a hammering from the British.

British moves in the town to strengthen the shooting.

Ah yes, the plucky and v well deployed French artillery, which had been causing hassle to anything on that side of the table.

Reserves start giving the bayonet.

French central brigade collapses and flees the table. It really was a textbook destruction of them

French reserves shore up the centre, but have to take the town into account too, so need to be wary of exposing their own flanks.

British reserves finally make their move to envelope the French lines.

Some light cav on light cav action. Both came on as a reserve. Both saw each other. Both went hell for leather straight into a charge.

The British cav lost, Hussars turn and begin hitting the British lines

Central firefight still going. Meatgrinder, really.

Not much in the town, but not a whole lot let to storm it either!

British advance on their right begins, now that the French artillery is suppressed.

French Hussars having a field day. Bit late, but better late than never!

And with that, the British close the door and force a French retreat from the field.

British comprehensive win! That one had a bit of everything really. Had the French managed to punch through, onto the hill, as planned, then it would have changed everything..............but again, the British lines blew the living shit out of the centre, turning it into the not living shit, and put paid to that idea. 

British reserve on their left were v unlucky to not move a lot at first, but this played advantage when they came in for the late game and the battered French had nothing that could deal with it.