Neil Thomas Horse & Musket OHW Scenario 17: A Polemos Ruse de Guerre game

Next scenario in the series in Neil Thomas' One-Hour Wargames is 'Encounter', based on an old Charles Grant scenario.  This one is very simple, featuring a central hill feature to squabble over and random arrival of troops to reinforce the lead cavalry elements.  

 

 

As for the last few games, I have used the Polemos: Ruse de Guerre rules for the battle.

 

 

The Forces:

The Franco-Jacobites: 1 General, 2 Dragoons, 6 Foot, 1 Artillery

The British: 1 General, 3 Dragoons, 6 Foot

Each side began with 1 Dragoon unit on the table; with additional units' arrival determined by a die roll. A '6' on a d6 allowed the next formation (remainder of the dragoon brigades, then one infantry brigade, then the other to arrive). 

 The Battle:

Apologies for the odd photos, this was a game 'played under the floodlights', so to speak...

The Jacobite cavalry approaches from the South, the British cavalry approaches from the North.

Another view

More British horsemen arrive

And somewhat fewer Jacobite horsemen arrive in their turn

The British have really seized the tempo and have both numerial and positional advantage over their foes

Riding his luck and exploiting his energy, the British General aims to envelop and destroy the outnumbered French before the arrival of any more reinforcements

And they charge home!

The left-hand French regiment comes off worse, although not perhaps as badly as it might have done; the right-hand regiment fights off the British attackers!

The left-hand regiment runs for the rear, however

In a 'boldest measures are the safest'-type move, the French

However, the Jacobites cannot escape the vice of being outnumbered and outflanked...

And although they rout their immediate opposition, are duly routed themselves when hit in the flank!

The first of the British infantry arrive!

The Irish infantry finally arrive in numbers but the British are in position already

The Franco-Jacobites roll forward - the British cavalry decline to charge, but instead reform alongside their infantry supports

The French artillery begins to bombard the British cavalry, whilst the Irish infantry regiments continue to roll forward

The British cavaly attempts to charge but are repulsed, whilst the French artillery starts to really play on the other regiment; wihlst in the infantry combat, one regiment on each side has been thrown back.

But a second British bayonet charge clears away the left-flanking Irish regiment (Dillon's)

The Franco-Jacobites, seeing little hope of victory, begin to retreat

Game Notes: 

The individual tactical 'bits' of this action were fine but the overall game was not one of the better ones, simply because of one of the risks of scenario design: the British random reinforcements turned up earlier than the Franco-Jacobites' reinforcements, which meant that the latter were always on the back foot.  Allied to the British having more luck when it came to controlling the tempo, the British were able to both 'do more stuff' and have 'more stuff to do it with' so even though the luck in the actual fighting segments was pretty even, then it felt one-sided all the way through.  I think this is a systemic issue with scenarios which have many random reinforcements and those reinforcements are a very large proportion of the overall force.  Unusually for these scenarios, not having artillery wasn't much of a disadvantage, since the Franco-Jacobites didn't have much time to use it: a much earlier arrival would have made all the difference.

figures by Baccus 6mm on a 2'x2' board.