Peninsular War, Battle for the Border Bridge (Black Powder)

[Jabba]

Last Sunday afternoon at New Buckenham Historical Wargamers I ran a game of Black Powder Napoleonic using a scenario that I had created and evolved since it's first outing in 2015.

The Scenario is fictitious and loosely based on some of the actions fought along the Portuguese Spanish border around 1810 and 1811.

The British have a division watching a portion of the Portuguese/Spanish border, one picquet watching a bridge in a small town, that is the only known crossing point of a river for miles, observes a French Division approaching from the direction of Fuente de Oñoro. After feeding this information back to Viscount Wellington the British commander is ordered to concentrate his division and prevent the French from seizing this vital river crossing.

The French have a division probing allied defences along the border prior to a planned invasion of Portugal. They are tasked with advancing on the town and capturing the bridge and if possible driving the British picquet off. If successful they are to report to the Marshall so that he may utilise the crossing to continue the advance on Almeida.

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Jabba's Wargaming

Tony.

[Larry R]

Very nice, really like your river too!

[PAULSPENCE]

Bonjour,

Great looking game.

Thanks for sharing.

I Must have another BP game one day.

Cheers,

Paul

[vodkafan]

This looks great fun

[Colonel Tubby]

Great report and a wonderful looking table (your river is really effective) and great collection of figures.

[Jabba]

Great report and a wonderful looking table (your river is really effective) and great collection of figures.

Thanks, can't claim credit for the river or other scenery, club assets, and the French belong to another player but the British  are all mine. 

[noigrim]

Did the french have more units or superior quality?

[Jabba]

Did the french have more units or superior quality?

All units had standard Black Powder attributes, no tweaks, as I had planned this as a teaching game for some new/infrequent BP players. As it happened it didn't turn out this way but that's the way things sometimes happen.

The British had:
6 Standard size regular infantry battalions
1 Small unit of rifles
2 Tiny units of rifles
1 Standard unit of Light Dragoons
1 Battery of Foot artillery

The French had:
7 Standard size regular infantry battalions
3 Standard size regular light infantry battalions
1 Standard unit of Dragoons
1 Battery of Foot artillery
1/2 Battery of Horse artillery

[vodkafan]

It is a really interesting scenario. Nice report and photos!

[noigrim]

seems pretty balanced, more french but the brits have the objective in the beginning

[Jabba]

seems pretty balanced, more french but the brits have the objective in the beginning

The British had too many rifles, will be removing them from the brigades next time and making the picquet three tiny "Rifle Company" units rather than one small "Rifle Companies" will also remove "First Fire" from the rifles. Also moving the bridge closer to the French side of the board.

[noigrim]

Well but in blackpowder units move really fast, you can get into combat with the rifles in no time Unless you get disordered) the small and tiny units are also worse at shooting (less dice) so that should have nerfed the rifles too.
The french could have formed mixed order to go full à la baionette tho 

[Unlucky General]

Nice wee game you had there.