Al Garveza - May 1810

Myself, Neil and James attempted to finish a small game of Napoleon in an evening; something we traditionally struggle with! We limited ourselves to 200 points each; which still allowed me to deploy 7 foot Battalions, 2 Rifle Detachments and a regiment of Light Cavalry.

In opposition Neil fielded 6 Battalions of Line infantry and two Regiments of Cuirassiers. The massed columns of French infantry were a fearsome sight:

The Battle opened with the British Light Dragoons making a dash into the centre to unnerve the French infantry. This allowed me the luxury of being able to move my infantry freely on the next turn whilst all of his had to try to issue commands. Being French though, his command structure was more than able to handle this; though his centre still failed to produce square, and was duly charged.

Disastrously though, the Light Dragoons made a meal of the attack and panicked completely routing from the field after a brief tussle with the French centre.

This gave the French plenty of time to move up their own Cavalry to threaten the Portuguese brigade on the left and the Elite elements of the British right.

At the same time the French centre pushed forward en-masse, whilst the British Riflemen retired in the face of their advance. My flanks hurriedly attempted to form squares, but poor command left some of the regiments, including the new 2/10th Portuguese, unprepared.

And the consequences were not a surprise...

Cuirassiers broke the Portuguese and forced the rest of the brigade on to the defensive. The French centre suffered one reverse when one Line Regimen broke, and the other Cuirassier regiment was beaten back by the Guard Battalion it attacked.

Nevertheless, despite time beating us, once again, we were satisfied to consider this another French victory. Clearly Wellington was not in charge of this southern battle.

However this game really brought home an issue we have, either with the rules, or as a group of players, and I think it is more the former than the latter. Again we ran out of time before really reaching a conclusion; particularly the infantry had not got stuck in. Part of the problem is the amount of time you spend looking for counters to give units order; this slows the game no end, mainly due to my having really the wrong ratio's of counters (too many artillery counters too few shooting counters).

Part of the problem though is how easily we get distracted by chat, and admirers of the games. I can blame myself (and a string of texts) for some of this. In short I don't think Napoleon is a set of rules for a three and a half hour club night. Better tried on Sundays I think.

But it looks soo pretty...