Carlist War AAR Fighting Retreat

Lat night we had a great game at chum Steve Shann's. Chum Chris Flowers had requested a Carlist game and Chris Charlton wanted to get his new Isabelino Rocket on table so I designed a simple fighting retreat game for us.

The basic premise is that the Carlist army is in retreat back into the mountains, the vanguard of the Isabelino's is catching up and the Carlist rearguard needs to turn and slow them for the rest of the army to get away.

The Carlist army have the following:

 

Brigade of 3 battalions in full retreat with a squadron of lancers and a tiny company of skirmishers
Brigade of 3 battalions lines out with a gun and a squadron of Lancers
Brigade of 3 battalions in reserve, 1 battalion in a walled vinyard, one off table and a third hidden in a wood with a mountain gun, plus a squadron of lancers.

The Isabelino army is as follows

Brigade of 3 battalions, tiny skirmish screen and a rocket entering table move 1
Brigade of 4 battalions Veterans, Guard and French Foreign Legion, a tiny skirmish screen and a mountain gun entering move 2
Brigade of 4 squadrons of Cavalry with a horse artillery gun entering move 2
Brigade of 4 battalions of Militia (3 small) a tiny skirmish screen and mountain gun entering move 3

The Carlists went first and very quickly got their retreating brigade into the battle line and ready to receive the Liberal forces. The Isabelino brigade made a small move forward. Move 2 and the Carlists re-shape their line and fire the first round shot of the day from their gun, whilst the bulk of the Isabelino army is now on table and moving, unfortunately the first of a few blunders results in the rocket (first time on table and a lovely conversion by Chris Charlton) retreat straight back off.

Move 3 and the Carlist reserve lancers move across to their left wing to help face the massed Isabelino cavalry, on the Isabelino left meanwhile the Militia brigade moves on and purposefully marches forward.

The reserve Carlists march through a wood on their right to face the Militia Brigade and both sides skirmishers take pot shots at each other.

At this stage another magnificent blunder sees the famed French Foreign Legion along with the Isabelino Guards slide a whole move to their right and land behind a wood, with load curses from Mr Flowers.

The Cavalry edge forward while the Isabelino left flank march resolutely forward into musketry range and a fire fight ensues along half of the line. The trap with a battalion and a mountain gun in the wood is sprung and produces absolutely no damage at all along with most of the other firing along the line. The rocket battery however is causing some concern and a few casualties to boot.

Move 5 the Guards and Legion extracate themselves whilst the cavalry continue to edge forward with a distinct lack of dash.

The Isabelino left wing meanwhile closes with the Carlist line and a series of fierce melees ensue.

 As the fighting swings back and forth, some bum dice rolling on the Isablino right sees the Legion and Guards remain static and the horse and waiting for their guns to drive off the pesky Carlist left  most battalion of foot to give them a clear run at the lancers.

On the Isabelino left the Carlists right wing battalion breaks, with another battalion shaken from melee and brigade break tests is forced and failed. Oh dear, a third of the Carlists are broken, fortunately the militia brigade are too damaged to take advantage straight away. No sooner do the Isablino cheers die down than one of their battalions fails a break test and forces a brigade test. Failed! The Isabelinos are now in retreat too.

The cavalry decide its now or never as they cant budge the left wing foot battalion, but as they advance into musketry range they receive casualties and dis-orders bringing them to a halt.

With the Isabelino 1st brigade retreatign off table, the third brigade too mauled to be of help and the Cavalry stalled the Liberals decide they are unable to break through the Carlist line and retire leaving the field to the bloodied but victorious Carlist forces.

A fun game for all. Using Black Powder we were able to play a fairly large game with around 500 figures to conclusion in 2 and 1/2 hours.

That has left me nicely warmed up for the Great Northern War game on Saturday hosted by Paul at the Grimsby club. I will catch a few pictures of that game and share them on Sunday evening hopefully.

Thanks for reading.