Naps 19.3.11 (Part1)

Saturday past we managed to rustle up six players for another game of Naps. I've been reading the John Gill book 'With Eagles to Glory' recently and had planned an 1809 game with Robert bringing along his Austrians and Wurtembergers. As usual life had other plans and we ended up with Russians against French. I didn't bring any troops with me so thankfully Robert had plenty of Russians to go around! A sad little side note: The Motherwell Wargames Club has closed its doors. It was held on a Tuesday night and my brother David, nephew David and myself started wargaming there. Unfortunately being a week night made attendance very difficult and over time the numbers dropped. Hopefully some of the guys will make it down to Carluke the odd Saturday.

In the foreground part of my little railway village I knocked together for the day and newly donated bridge. JP produced an old snooker table cloth and out came his blue chalk for water (I prefer the GW mats as the emerald green baize messes with my camera shots but what the heck).


So on the Russian side (continuing to clear the dastardly French from brother German soil) was Robert T, Jon B and myself and on the side of the Evil French aggressors JP, David P and David P jnr.

So we went our separate ways to discuss our plans for the day and it was decided that Robert would refuse the flank (whatever that would mean?) and would try and hold off whatever came at him with a reduced force while Jon B and myself made a large push in the centre and right of centre while I would attempt to hold the French left off with my Russian cuirassier brigade.

There will probably be a good few more pictures than necessary so I do apologies!

The Russian advance begins: This is another little item I picked up on ebay. A little church that will hopefully eventually be detailed, airbrushed and placed on a little base with a wall surround. I have read so many accounts of fighting around church yards in the Napoleonic period and I thought this had some potential?

I held back a couple of battalions from the main advance as we already had six going in for the kill. My thinking was if the 1st lot did the damage they would come through and clean up and hopefully deal with any interference from the fresh French battalions to the right.

Our Russian battalions all positioned ready for the fight. I should point out that we are still using GdB 2nd edition for our battles as some of the guys haven't picked up the deluxe edition yet.

While Jon and I were getting ourselves shuffling our troops into their attack formations David jnr put their own attack plan into effect. The heavies protecting their right as the infantry concentrated on denting Roberts little force.

Robert decides to shift his light cavalry to protect his centre covered as they go by his Old Glory jagers. Sweet figures I have a few battalions of these to finish off and I have a soft spot for them.

Robert put his jager into skirmish order to try and pick off the odd figure as the French advanced.

A close up of what was facing David's French force.

As I mentioned earlier the figures are all from Roberts collection.
Robert has built up a pretty huge collection of 15mm Napoleonic figures over the years. A lot of them are painted by himself although he was saying he has also picked up figures from ebay and also a friend painted a good number too. His Russians are made up of AB, Battle Honours and Old Glory castings and as an army look ace.

Everything was in position, the presence of my cavalry had forced David's 2 spare infantry battalions into square and my horse battery was able to take some casualties off them and the nearest infantry in line. Things were looking promising!

No turning back now, a cheer went along the front for mother russia and our troops went into full charge .

to be continued . . .