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| Snipped from Wiki, with thanks |
The next battle to be tackled in the Historical Battles section of Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte, is Austerlitz (the Battle of the Three Emperors). Great description of the battle at Wikipedia so I won't summarize it.
The Austro Russian force has control of the Pratzen Heights, courtesy of Napoleon's strategic withdrawal. The French have also weakened their Right Flank with some unreliable Column Infantry, hoping to lure the Coalition in...
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| My version of the great battlefield |
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Both sides took casualties in the opening turns. It's worth noting that the unreliable Column Infantry are still tussling with the Grenzers on the French Right, and that The French Imperial Guard (Grognards to a man) have ominously moved into centre.
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By lunchtime, the Elite French Cuirassiers have joined battle (and those unreliables are still there).
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Later in the day, the Imperial Guard have smashed their way through the defenders on the Heights and can now out flank the remaining Austro Russians (Napoleon loves it when a plan comes together).
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End of the day and its au revoir Third Coalition (and yes, those unreliable column infantry lasted the whole day). No embarrassing French loss to report to Josephine, so it's on to Jena, after a quick stop at Pressburg (Bratislava) for a Treaty signing. DoNB provides another fun little game!
Oh well … “your” Napoleon matched the performance of his historical counterpart.
ReplyDeleteHere’s hoping he gets his comeuppance soon ⚔️😉
Cheers,
Geoff
Indeed, Boney has been very successful to date - can it continue?
DeleteExcellent battle report. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks Roger, you're very welcome.
DeleteHistory repeats itself, as it did in just concluded Thunder on the Danube campaign. The French won the first battle of Eggmul, the Austrians won the battle of Aspern Essling and Napoleon emerged victorious at Wagram. All of my battles turned out to be more one sided than the historical engagements, but it's interesting to me that , in my battles at least more often than not my results mirror historical results.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a fun campaign Mark - have you tried fighting one of the historical battles but changing the initial positions of forces?
DeleteYes, I've done different deployments. The great thing about this set of games is you can experiment to your hearts content because the games play so fast.
DeleteAgreed, the fast games allow some experimentation without a large time investment, which can be difficult depending on the level of domestic duties!
DeleteAnother great report, short n sweet… good to see the Risk-piece games, and use of some scenics to add to the overall effect. Was the use of black figures to denote Light troops/Grenzers, or some suggestion of different nationality?
ReplyDeleteAnd you mentioned position-swapping, in a reply to Mark C.. Is that something you plan to try?
Cheers Martin. Yes the Black figures are the Grenzers.
DeleteI'm going to try position swapping just to see what happens in a Historical situation! A What If... What if Napoleon hadn't weakened his flank etc (although in the above it didn't seem to matter)
Hi Maudlin! Very nice report. I quote you: "No embarrassing French loss to report to Josephine". You made me laugh with this one, I love the way you wrote your conclusion :) And last, it's nice to read a Napoleonic report on another battle than Waterloo.
ReplyDeleteThank you Philotep. I'm slowly working my way through the Historical battles in Steve Parkers Rulebook - this is number 6 of 25 I think.
DeleteAccording to Wikipedia:
"..Napoleon was not confident of victory. In a letter written to Minister of Foreign Affairs Talleyrand, Napoleon requested Talleyrand not tell anyone about the upcoming battle because he did not want to disturb Empress Joséphine. According to Frederick C. Schneid, the French Emperor's chief worry was how he could explain to Joséphine a French defeat" 😁
Oh, I didn't know this anecdote, thank you for this :)
DeleteI didn't know about it either. You're welcome.
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