Yes, I played a Solo Game: Vilgertshofen - 1808

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Yes, I cracked.  Lockdown got to me eventually.  It is not as if I'm completely alone, me and the good lady have played a fair few boardgames, and she's become quite a fan of Magic: The Gathering; but by mid-May I was Jonesing for a miniatures game.  

So I buckled and set up a simple 15mm Napoleonics game, to christen my Bavarians, and give my Austrians only their second run out.

Well I didn't want to fuss much so these old bones settled on the ground, and I laid out a 5x3 foot gaming cloth I made a while back.  Onto this I set up two roughly equal forces, though with different compositions.

 

4 Regiments of Austrians in 8 Battalions with 4 regiments of Cavalry and two batteries of Artillery, faced 5 smaller regiments of Bavarions deployed en-masse with similar support to the Austrians.  The Bavarians were tasked with holding the line.

 

I've never had a problem with being 'both sides' in a game, though it of course tends to mean each side plays equally smart/dumb, unless you go in with some form of written orders to work to.  But that sort of thing is easy to do.  Any way, I don't want to get too embroiled in that.  Lets get to the action.  

  

The Bavarians rashly led their cavalry against the Austrian left as it advanced on the village of Vilgertshofen.  One Austrian Cavalry Regiment was quickly broken after a sharp fight.

  

The Austrian advance struggled to get going, and soon advance elements were becoming isolated.

 

Meanwhile the Bavarians had to do little, the onus being on the Austrians to attack.. Already however the Austrian left was turned by the Bavarian cavalry.  Oddly the Austrians found themselves with the interior lines early in the battle.

 

On the Austrian right, some confusion led to Austrian cavalry attempting to charge the Bavarian Guns, without any real support.  It went as badly as one might imagine.  In the centre, Bavarian Light Infantry had advanced through the woodland in the centre, but savage fire from several Austrian battalions met them.  They soon broke.

 

The Austrians began to form a more ordered line, and were able to repel the Bavarian threat to their Left.

 

With support moving through the woods, the Austrians advanced on the Bavarian choke point.

 

Here the battle came to a head, with a smaller but determined force of Austrians facing the Bavarian foe.

 

With initial success.

 

But the Austrians were suffering losses too and sustaining the momentum was becoming difficult.

 

Bavarian Artillery was able to smash the centre of the Austrian attack saving the rest of its line from the pressure.  And by this point the Austrian forces were exhausted.

 

They had held off counters from the Bavarian cavalry attacks on each flank, and did their utmost to force the centre but with two Brigades spent they admitted defeat and began an orderly withdrawal.

A nice little game; not only solo, but with a set of one-page rules I wrote on the day as well.  Essentially a stripped down blend of Black Powder and Rebels and Patriots, based on treating base elements as the core of operations.  When I get round to it I'll write them up properly and put them out in the ether.

A pleasure to shove some models around, but if I can minimise the need for solo games, that's alright by me.

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