The Battle of Brückenau, 1796 - A French Revolutionary Wars Batrep

 

Last weekend a horde of Rejects got together for our last game of 2025, Richard had very kindly volunteered put on a French Revolutionary game using his magnificent collection of 25mm figures.

I got carried away playing the game and I'm sure I missed taking lots of photos, so this will be more of a photo report, you can always click here, to view Richard's report on the game.

Here's the background and order of battle, shamelessly stolen from Richard's blog

Background to the Battle of Brückenau, 5th September 1796

36 hours after the defeat of the French Army of the Sambre et Meuse at the Battle of Wurzburg, the pursuing Austrians have caught up with the rearguard close to a river closing at Brückenau.  General Jourdan has given orders to his retreating troops to not just delay the Austrians, but to give them a bloody nose to deter any further pursuit.

The Austrians are in high spirits.  Meanwhile, the French have been retreating for weeks leading to a fall in morale and a crisis of confidence in their generals.  A victory here would go a long way to restore sunken spirits.

The aim for both Jourdan and Archduke Charles, the Austrian commander, is to severely damage their opponent.

Archduke Charles controls the initiative.

Rules: My own written rules
Umpire: Me
Figures: Mostly Elite Miniatures, Foundry, some Eureka.

The Armies
Austrian Army (Surjit, Steve and Stuart)
Commander in Chief:  Archduke Charles

Hohenlohe’s Brigade (Stuart)
4 infantry regiments (2xline; 2xveteran)
1 light gun

Hadik’s Brigade (Steve)
4 infantry regiments (2xline; 2xveteran)
1 light gun

Georger’s Brigade (Surjit)
4 infantry regiments (2xline; 2xveteran)
1 medium gun

Schottendor’s Brigade (Steve assumed control)
3 infantry regiments (2xline; 1xveteran)
1 Grenzer Sharpshooters (veteran)
1 medium gun

Not deployed and never arrived
Spiegelberg’s Brigade
2 units of Hussars (2xveteran)

Rosenberg’s Brigade
2 units of Dragoons (2xveteran)

French Army of the Sambre et Meuse (Ray, Dan and Colin)
Commander in Chief: General Jourdan

Legrand’s Brigade (Ray)
4 infantry regiments (4xline)
1 grenadier unit
1 light gun

Simond’s Brigade (Colin)
4 infantry regiments (3xline; 1xveteran)
1 carabiniers skirmish (1xveteran)
1 medium gun

Olivier’s Brigade (Dan)
4 infantry regiments (3xline; 1xveteran)
1 carabiniers skirmish (1xveteran)

Not deployed and never arrived
Klein’s Brigade
2 units of Chasseurs (2xline)

Ney’s Brigade
2 units of Dragoons (2xline)

Palmerolle’s Brigade
2 units of Dragoons (2xline)

For the start of the game Richard had planned for something a little different, which should have worked really well, BUT, due to the Austrian players inability to cooperate, well.....err....didn't!!

The idea of the blind movement was to get our armies up close to each other and jocky for position. The game was loaded against us French from the start, which was ok, it just made for a different kinda game.

The Austrians had to throw each turn to lose control of the blind movement markers, if they won, they could choose to move one of their markers or force the French to move one or move a French marker themselves. If they lost the initial throw, it was the French's turn to decide what to do.

What they should have done was move the blinds up, while pushing ours back, but there dice rolling was pretty crap, giving the move to us, we just kept moving their markers back all the time, stifling their movement, but when the did have the chance to move, they made us move, which was NOT the right thing to do.

The French had 3 blinds that were actual units and 3 dummies, the Austrians, had 4 unts and 4 blinds.

The reveal.....

Now, here's where it started to go wrong. When we revealed our troops we had to set up in a 12 inch square, then move out into position, but....

We found that, partly due to us moving the Austrians back, left and right, we had 3 brigades of Austrians on our left flank, against Dan, none in the centre facing me and Colin was up and Surj on our right.

So the only thing I thought we could do was for Colin to keep Surj in check on our right, Dan to form up defensively on our left, and for me to advance out and threaten Steve's force on the hill, if it works we might be able to hold them up for a while???

My command

Steve's

Steve's 2nd command on the hill.

Colin's command

Suj's command

Posties command, way out on our left flank

Dan moved into position to defend behind the walls, while Steve, tried to form into an attacking formation

I started the move towards the hill.

Each turn, each unt can do 2 things, (move & fire, change formation and move etc.) 

I won the chance to do 3 things, which meant I might be able to hit Steve in the first 2 moves, which I did.

Unfortunately only 1 unit could reach, but it was my combined Grenadiers!!!!

Poor Dan had a lot of troops flowing his way!!!

But at least he had time to prepare.

On our right, Colin started to bring his troops round, while Surj sent a unit into the town.

The advantage were just in my favour in the melee, all I had to do was kill 1 more than Steve did....

Which I didn't do!!

Steve is cursed with good dice rolls, I am not. He beat me 6-4.

So back I went!

He also after changing his mind about 6 bloody times, charged down the hill into my skirmishers, who were also soundly beaten by Steve's soddin dice!!

As I was in a pretty dangerous situation now, I chose to do a few voluntary fallbacks, if i threw well 50/50, they would go back in good order........well I think you can guess that didn't happen.

Most went back disordered and going down 1 morale grade...sigh.....

We stopped for luch, thank gawd, and Postie bought out some Birthday cake for Richard, I won't tell you his age, its got a three and six in it, I'll let you guess which order!!

After lunch we knew we were in trouble, so I tried moving back again to get out of Steve's reach, which was a bloody disaster.

So we did what any good general would do......fled the field to fight another day.

Conclusion

Richard was very disappointed how the game played out, sometimes the players just don't do what you think they'll do in a game, which can ruin or make the game just not work. I think that's what happened here.

If the Austrians would have stopped arguing with themselves and worked together I can see the game would have worked more in line to how Richard thought it would.

Once again the dice played a major roll, I should have beaten Steve on the hill, but the dice had other ideas, I probably should have held my attack for one turn to make sure I had 2 columns charging one Austrian unit, but the blood was up and I got carried away.

Although we lost it was still a great game, it certainly looked the part, so ell done to the Austrians, but a bigger well done to Richard himself!