Aranzeque Re-Visited

We decided to have a Carlist Black Powder game, however things being busy at work I started running out of time to organise the scenario. As there would only be two players I decided to re-visit a scenario I had done before twice. Straight out of the pages of "All Honour is lost" by Kings Carbine and the pages of real life history was the action at Aranzeque.

An interesting scenario with small troop numbers, Mark and I played it twice as playtests for Nuno who wrote "All Honour is Lost", a starter book for the First Carlist War with lots of information but importantly a load of great scenarios. Now its been published for a while its nice to see a picture of my troops crossing the bridge from our original play tests.

The battle itself was during the Royal Expedition's retreat from Madrid with the 12,000 retreating Carlists being caught and badly mauled by a 25,000 strong Isabelino force.

At Aranzeque the retreating mob of Carlsits, baggage and camp followers is caught by the Vanguard of the Isabelino army and the rearguard of the Carlists has to hold off the Liberals whilst the demoralised army escapes.

The Carlists have 4 units of foot, one of which is slightly superior being the Guides, 3 units of militia lancers and a light gun. Chris Flowers drew the short straw for these.

The Isabelinos have  a horse battery on a hill overlooking the retreat.

The Advance Guard is 2 battalions of foot with a squadron of horse and a mountain gun which all arrives on the roll of a D4. They have 4 further squadrons arriving on the roll of a D6.

Steve had these and rolled a 1 for the move the foot arrived and 3 for the horse.

The Isabelino commander was excellent and the Cavalry commander Average. Both Carlist Generals were poor reflecting the general state of their army.

I gave victory points based on the Carlist ability to get troops off table, they gained a point for each intact unit that got off and lost a point for every unit destroyed, strangely enough both sides felt their task was impossible but having won playing both sides in previous encounters I was happy the game was balanced if players made the right decisions or got lucky......or not.

The retreating infantry units cant join the fighting but all count towards victory points, as they are wavering every time they recieve a casualty they take a break test so targeting these could be the key to victory.

Move one and the Carlists get a unit over the ford and start moving the rest of their army whilst the rearguard starts to shake itself into some sort of order. The Isabelinos make a modest move onto table and the horse gun fires inflicting one casualty which is saved and then comes off the hill to advance with the foot.

Chris lines most of his Carlist foot out on the right of his line but cant get the foot on the left to move at all. His cavalry get themselves sorted out and his first unit is off table.

Chris then decides to charge the Foreign Legion lancers before the rest of the cavalry turn up, this fight does not go well and the Hussars De Arlaban are seen off by the legion who then follow up with a sweeping advance into the Guides. Both sides are shaken by this follow up, the Guides pass their Morale but the Legion is forced to fall back dis-ordered.

Fortunately for Steve its go 3 and his cavalry brigade now enter the table edge rolling two moves they advance quickly towards the Carlists whilst his foot and guns close steadily and the horse artillery finally gets its first casualty on the Carlist horse.

The bottle neck around the ford is causing some chaos in the Carlist ranks but their troops are gradually contracting their line making it hard for the Isabelino's to get to grips with them.

More of the Carlist forces move off table and as Steves foot press forward the Carlists are able to volley and retire making it difficult to properly get to grips with them.

Steve has one flank protected by his horse artillery and the right flank literally wide open, however Chris's lancers cant wheal across the face of the Isabelino's to take advantage of this, he would need to pull right back and begin a slow roundabout flanking march.

The Carlists contract again after the horse gun forces a break test on another of the Carlist units which it passes. A little long range skirmish fire but the Carlists look to be making a decent fist of getting their stuff off table.

Steve plays his trump card now and throws his cavalry brigade forward, it doesnt quite reach the Carlist line but is looking very threatening. Chris throws caution to the wind and abandoning the cavalry on his left the general issues a follow me order and leads his remaining lancers in a do or die charge into the Guard Grenadier Cavalry.

The Guards counter charge but Chris's gamble pays off and the Guards retreat dis-ordered leaving the flank of the next unit, the Princessa Hussars, wide open for the lancers to hit with a sweeping charge.

The Hussars manage to hold the Lancers but things look a little grim for Steve right now.

With a significant proportion of his troops off table Chris is looking like he cant really lose, his intact line of foot is out of musketry range and only two squadrons of cavalry remain available to attack them. Steve concedes that he wont be able to stop them and we shake hands and start to pack away.

Its been great to get the Carlist figures on table again and I do enjoy small challenging games now and again. Both sides started the game thinking it impossible to win. Having played the game twice as a play test for Nuno's book I have seen both sides win convincingly. I have also scaled the game up for 4 players which worked equally well a nice scenario if anyone fancies trying it in future.

In this case I dont think Steve had realised that hitting the retreating troops and breaking their mobs of demoralised infantry was the key to winning.

I hope you have enjoyed our little game, see you again soon.