Field of Battle 3 Weissenfels scenario at Ulster Wargames Society

Club meeting today (extra one in January in lieu of December session) and I put on another 15mm Napoleonic FOB3 game.

Scenario was Weissenfels 1813 (adapted from GDA scenario again) with French attacking Russians.

Four players took part with Jeremy D and David B commanding the French and 'the other' Jeremy and Paddy controlling the Russians.

French pre-game scouting totally failed (too many Cossacks about) so they set up their initial 2 Infantry Brigades on their left with little hint of Russian dispositions but with remaining Brigades waiting to enter later (2 per subsequent Move card)

Russians for their part chose to set up well back from the stream with their more numerous cavalry massed on their right and with the lowly Brigade of 3 small (3UI) Cossacks to their rear. I would have put these skirmishing out front but at least they stayed safe which may have been good idea as on D4 defence.

French commenced to advance with their Light Infantry in skirmish order (allowed them to cross the stream unhindered) with 2nd Brigade following in march column.

French pushing forward to waiting Russian lines (Ivans on left)

The Russian cavalry (under Paddy) could not resist and charged at first opportunity routing 2 French but seeing 1 Uhlan unit rout from some lucky skirmish fire.

French then had a fair period of ascendancy as they won several large initiatives and had an good run of cards and some stellar Move rolls (3 segments and Even) with their Brigades, and with their reserves appearing tout suite.

Reserve French Cavalry (under David B) crossing bridge in column, they were lucky enough to get both units across, then deploy into attack column and charge the Russian Dragoons (just at 5 o'clock from the bridge) routing them. 

Correspondingly the Russians had poor card draws and never seemed to get an Even roll to optimise options and with several of deck re-shuffles (due to drawn initiative - today was possibly the most drawn rolls I have seen) they seemed to pull their 2 Lull cards with uncanny frequency !

This saw Russians suffer a lot of Army Morale loss (not least to Jeremy) and all seemed lost.

French conscript Brigades (under Jeremy D) pushing forward on right. Despite being 'stuck' in march column for what seemed ages the Russians were unable to get to grips to exploit this before the French changed combat formations.

But after they had actually gone to zero Morale and having seen French turn 7 cards to good effect the Russians suddenly came good with their seven cards, getting them in good sequence and with combinations of charges on Move cards and Melee cards.

This saw them cause severe losses on French with 6 French units Routed or Destroyed for loss of only 1 Russian unit, and the French Army Morale plummet from gaining enemy chips to a significantly lower level.

Russian foot (under Jeremy) these later done terrible damage to French infantry.

However satisfying as this was for the Russians it was too late as their 7th card (lucky in itself) was an Army Morale Card which test they of course failed and they quit the field much to relief of the French.

This was a great game to watch/umpire and despite having to persuade the Russian CinC not to surrender several times it proved a much closer game than it at one point appeared.

FOB works well for multi-player games that can be fought to a conclusion (think we played just over 4 hours including a lunch break) with plenty of action and player input/interaction.

Also at club Leslie and Phil had a 28mm game with Teutonic force against Peasants (?) using Lion Rampant rules (I have no experience of these) from the Osprey stable, however I saw very little of this.