Crossing the Sambre, General de Brigade AAR

With our complete group painting ACW at the moment RobP decided to distract us all from the period and organized a Napoleonic game using General de Brigade rules last saturday. For the last years we played Sharp Practice (variants) for most of our gaming so this is a significant change from what we usually do. From a skirmish like setting to a couple of brigades on the table and a whole new approach on how to use troups etc.

While the group was expecting lots of difficulties with the new rules the really cool part was that it actually quite easy to learn. OK, you will have to go through some of the basics a couple of times but we picked it up quickly and got to play more turns than we thought beforehand. We definitely liked it and it acknowledged our choices in rules: Toofatlardies for skirmish, quick two man games and to get started in a period. Then building the armies up to brigade level for GdB or any of the rules based on GdB. Works for most periods since both sets cover almost all the major conflicts.

The game:
Rob sent us detailed orders and OOB a couple of days before the battle. In Dutch so I will do a very, very simplified version as I don't feel like translating today: The French had to march across the table to reach Brussels while the Allied basically had to stop them. Unaware of the opposing sides objectives we started the day by deploying the armies and giving the orders to the Generals de Brigades. The Allied forces made the decision to take and hold the farm with one Brigade which in the end proved a fatal mistake as the French columns neglected the farm and went straight at the Prussians in the center. Once the Brunswickers got their new orders to engage it was too late, the Prussians were being pushed back and losing their nerve. The Allied cavalry Brigade got orders to engage and threaten the right flank but got stuck in difficult terrain the overall C&C (who was that?) mistakenly took for a perfect hill to do some cavalry charging. We had a great day trying out the game mechanics and discussing the new possibilities this brings. I think we had about 1100 points a side and played a 2x2,4m board. The distraction worked well as I am now planning the next army after the two ACW Brigades are done after the summer. Down to two choices but I have some time to decide with which I start.