1809 - The Battle of Razyn - My Austro - Napoleonic Premiere

This Thursday it had to be Napoleonics (28mm, BP2) and nothing less than the battle of Razyn! That was when Ferdinand I tried to get over a swampy and through snow-melt flooded river named Utrata to get his greasy hands on good old Warsaw, which was what Bart came up with.

For years now I heard almost the repetitive gunfire-plea, please Michael, now get into Napoleonics! And resisted up until now. But today in a somewhat surprise premiere, I dished all my plastics (mostly Perrys) that I painted since xmas. And you know what they say about first timers on the battle field!!!

Bart stipulated the scenario victory conditions that the Austrians would win the battle, IF they get at least ONE unit over the river. Sounds tremendously irresistible, but sadly all the Polish and Saxons were already there behind an uncrossable river (apart from 3 bridges guarded by guns) and a complete cavalry brigade already deploved in attack mode in the middle of the battlefield, while my Austrians would have to march into their lances in column brigade by brigade. Ah, and yes, the river bushes and low trees counted as soft cover, but only on the Polish side... just incase some mad Austrians would actually come so far.

And soon after some failed command rolls, I finally had ONE brigade on the field, just when  the Polish lancers started their skewering, while I was of course still in column. Somehow though my cavalry units were too big and were just repulsed from the field, but not destroyed and came back later for more. Alisdair IS quite a fierce cavalry officer had a damn good dice roll that night!

Around turn 7 all my units had finally arrived on the table, when I started counter-charging the Saxons and the rest of the Polish lancers. In total I managed to kill 2 units, one of them the Polish lancers. As Alisdair didn‘t manage to kill a single unit, the kill count would be in my favour ...

... BUT I lost the battle as, at the end of our time, I hadn‘t even begun to approach the river, due to the tough victory conditions. My guess even if NO Poles AT ALL would be behind the river, my Austrians wouldn‘t had the time to even set a foot on the grass on the Austrian side of the rivers or bridges. The time was just too short.

All in all a nice pre-start for a real battle, but undoable in just a club night. Just when I was getting warm and had my troops half way in formation on the table ... we had only 15 minutes left to play.

After my first turn of movement

The Saxon-Polish Brigade pointing their spikes against the Imperial targets

While the river and all the rest is heavily guarded

The Polish lancers charge, while the Austrians just take it on the chin.

But my Infantry is already forming into a Divisional mass

My Chevaux-Legers and my Hussars left the field, but just to return later

Then my cuirassiers arrived and also the next infantry brigade.

all had to be in march column

My Hussars and the Chevauxs came back...

And my grenadiers came in last of  the 5 brigades all queuing on the road to get on the board.

Then the lancers did the same "trick" again and charged my cuirassiers off the field

While the grenadiers just moved forward one move...

My Hussars finally reached the centre of the battle field

The two Divisional masses from the first brigade enfilade the cavalry

And the cuirassiers came back

Then they charge the Saxon dragoons ... and destroyed them

That was where the battle ended.

Around 425BC - Athen and Sparta at each other again ...

 ... and everybody likes it so much that we decided for me and Mike to come up with our own classical Greek collection (28mm), Hail Caesar plus some home rules adjustments for flavour of the time!!!

Campbell, Peter and Mike were feeling rather Spartan that day so Bart, Angus and Alisdair were defending the Delian Empire and its Athenian allies as per lesser die roll.

The rather spartan set up consisted of dry grass, in the middle of the table a dry road just flanked by some hellenic hills. In between a straight line of hoplites flanked by peltasts, slingers and errr ... men on horses. The trained hoplites had a somewhat like the"first fire" token of a 1d6" of an extra run (hoplidromos) OR a sweeping advance (if victorious in combat of course), which of course would even if unused be gone after the first combat. And additional to the phalanx rule, (extracurricular from the other command rolls), one had to roll for the unit to be able to keep the phalanx at the end of the movement.

Both parties moved and then inched towards each other. In the meantime they had various skirmishing fights with the smaller irregulars, inconclusive but bloody at the fringes, until Alisdair did the first heroic charge and lost almost his entire units of hoplites! But his Thessalian riders were murderous ... against Spartan riders!!

Then finally the hoplites seem to clash one by the other and it started to look grim for the Athenians. Campbell imagined himself already on the throne of Athens, as Bart finally overcame his command block/blunder and engaged Mike in a cluster fight. Now Hail Caesar can be very unforgiven if a unit breaks  - all its support does as well. That was happened in the last turn, when Barts Athenians destroyed Mikes Peloponnesian units - ouch!

The end of this massacre was so brutal that we lost count of the fallen and both sides limped back home leaving a trail of blood - so I had to declare it a draw. 

But be reassured that there will be another time when once again the war cry goes out and when once again I will ask everybody: Who wants to play Spartan?  ... and the crowd roars, me, me, me, me ...

The first moves

Its not easy to keep a line...

same goes for the Delians

and even Spartans ... ups?

While lesser cladded men fight on the mountain ranges

Greek cavalry clash

as it could take longer with the hoplites

the spartan king intervenes!

To attack Spartan hoplite phalanges is just brave!

Thessalians advance

View from the Spartan centre

More and more hoplite phalanges clash

The Spartan seem to get the upperhand

What are the Athenians waiting for?

There is where you have to attack!

Mikes wonderful minis

To be charged by Barts hoplites

Alisdairs left Athenian flank disintegrates

And the Spartan King rolls up the line

Even a phalanx has a rear ...

Then the centre clashed and it got too brutal to make photos!