The Battle of Rivoli 1797 - A French Revolutionary Wars batrep.

 

The Rejects met up last weekend for our first face to face game of the year. Reject Richard put on The Battle of Rivoli 1797, using his wonderful 6mm collection of MDF (yep you heard right, MDF) figures from

  Commission Figurines . We used Volley and Bayonet rules with I think a few period changes??

Richard has already posted his report on the battle from the umpires point of view and can be found here. Mine will be from the french pov while Lee's will be from the Austrian pov. So all three reports should be an interesting read.

Myself and Steve were the French, Steve was our CnC Napoleon, I was Massena, coming on during the battle from Mantua. Lee was the Austrian CnC with Surj as 2nd in command. I was tempted to look up the actual battle to get a few tips, as I don't know much about it, but chose not to, I waned to go in and play the game with no idea of the history.

All our troops were set up, I must admit to being a little daunted first seeing the field of battle. We asked why we had an artillery piece pointing down the Osteria Gorge, in the centre right of the pic above. We were told to expect the enemy coming from the valley below???

Steve was allowed to redress his infantry by 1 stand's width left or right on top of the Trambalore heights, he chose to extend our lines to the left, to try and cover as much ground as we could.

On our right, although we matched 3 v 3, we were not really set up for the fight.

Hmm? I don't like the look of this!

Turn 1

Holy crap!! 

The Austrians moved first, Surj was on the table straight away and moved up 4 units of Cavalry led by the Mezaros Uhlans!! I had hoped we would have a little time to reinforce the gorge?

Looks like our reserves will be called into action soon!

Lee's Austrian move forward to attack the heights, we're outnumbered  6 to 4!

Surj moved forward on our right as well.

A nice close up of the Mezaros Uhlans.

They'll be in next turn, what shall we do? Stand and fight and hope for the best or pull back off the heights and reform our lines?

Steve managed to move our reserve artillery up to the gun covering the gorge, the infantry and other gun wouldn't reach. He also turned our 22nd Chasseurs a Cheval, to cover the gorge.

That's handy, I'm on the table. Massena has arrived. I had a choice I chose to stay on the road/path, which meant I could triple move, I had to stop at this point as the road/path stopped and I would only be able to move half move, which is what every other unit on the table was doing. 

This meant I could get up quickly and try to support Steve. It did leave me very vulnerable though, If Surj broke through the gorge, he may have been able to reach my troops, and nobody wants to be caught in road column by marauding Uhlans do they?

The plain mdf bases are to represent my units strung out in column.

Charge!

Charge!

Charge!

The previous turn Steve had moved up in between his 2 infantry units, but Surj charged and knocked him straight back again. It was then we found out Surj's unit were Grenadiers!

The Uhlans are in!

Bully boy Surj gangs up on poor Steve

Hmm? This really doesn't look good for us? 3 of our infantry are double teamed.

Now Steve is what is known as a real lucky bugger, he through the dice like the devil himself. 

He not only beat the 2 units that attacked him but destroyed the Grenadiers in the process!!!

Yee Haw!!!

The melees on the hill mostly went in the Austrian favour.

Steve had 2 units pushed back off the hill.

But importantly lost the Uhlans attacking up the gorge!

In our turn it was now Steve's turn to double team the Austrians (on the right)

Looks a bit messy I know. 

The Austrians hold the centre of the heights but we attacked them on both sides.

The victorious artillerymen shout and jeer at the Austrian cavalry!! 

I still find it hard to believe these are made from MDF?

Vial's 17th and 4th Light in action.

We won the melee on the left and took the enemy position, which happily for us was in the flank of the next Austrian unit

Then won the attack on the right and sent another Austrian line unit packing!

What!!!

Steve's dice let him down for once, and our luvvly looking double team the 4th and  17th were both pushed back, either side of the woods.

This is still anyone's game?

Its now the turn of the Austrian Hussars. The Erdody Hussars lead the attack.

Surj charges forward and attacked the 4th light.

Lee charges up the hill and attacks the 14th line

And also me on the left of the heights.

Come and get us!

Hang on, what's this, more Austrian troops?

You can just see the Austrian's arriving on the table next to the empty Wine Gums pack.

Not sure they're gonna be much use though?

I also get more troops on, this time though its more cavalry. I'm gonna head them up and over the heights if I can.

Two thoughtful Austrian Generals.

This does indeed look a tad messy, Steve's Lebley's Division fails its morale check and becomes exhausted, which meant he had retire one move and could no longer attack the enemy.

The plateau is a heaving masse of Frenchmen. 

Another Austrian unit is knocked off the hill, while my horse on the left will be on top of the heights next turn, bearing down on the retreating and routing Austrian units.

Our Chasseurs a Cheval turn and face the Austrian's on the hill.

Its not looking good for the Austrians.

Its here that Lee & Surj admit defeat, there is no way back for them.

Conclusion:

That was one of the best games I've played in if I'm being honest, which I'm sure will swell Richard's head no end! The game had everything, great balance, either side could have one from the get go, great figures and homemade terrain specifically for the battle. The rules worked brilliantly, they are a very basic set of rules, but its not until you play the game you realise the little things buried in them that make them work so well. We were talking after saying we couldn't remember how many melees there was in the game. It was definitely more than most games we play. The melees were quick and pretty brutal, I'm not sure we would have won the game if lucky Steve hadn't turned up and threw some mighty dice rolls, poor Surj and Lee didn't stand a chance. It is difficult to throw 6's and they showed us that fact, they couldn't hit a barn door for most of the game. Then at the end Surj angrily threw 4 D6's moaning that his dice were terrible and that he never throws 6's.

Oh how we laughed!

Well done Richard, that was a brilliant game.