Austrians 1809 vs Poles 1812
It had been some considerable time since we last fought Bataille Empire, therefore Adam and I agreed it was time to thumb through the rules together again. Not least because I now had a couple of 15mm armies of the period. Although my Austrians are nominally dressed for 1795 I see no reason why they shouldn’t be used for other dates. Not least because to have period specific dress for the Austrians one would need at least 3 different armies!! With that in mind I decided to field the Austrians as per the 1809 orbats in the Danube.
We both put together a 200 point list. Mine, the Austrians, had 4 divisions; An advance Guard, two line divisions and a Cuirassier Division. Adam had three divisions: two line infantry and one cavalry division. The scenario was an encounter battle, and from the look of the terrain we were going to be fighting for possession of a significant village.
The Austrian Advance Guard arrived at the village first, but the subsequent command factors favoured the Poles who occupied it with one of their line divisions before the Austrians were able to do so.
The next turn the reinforcements arrived. The first Austrian Line Division is moving forward to the attack around the right flank of the village. The Advance Guard Grenzer Regiments have been pushed out of the village with losses. The Corps Commander is, rightly or wrongly supporting the guns!
One of the Grenzer Regiments was forced to retire from the Polish artillery fire. However, on the right flank the Austrian Hussars from the Advance Guard have charged and then destroyed in the pursuit a Polish line infantry regiment. A valuable lesson to both Adam and myself of the value of having supports to fall back behind.
Next game turn the Austrian Cuirassier division arrives and moves forward to threaten the Polish Line Infantry Division.
The Austrian right flank division is advancing to a depth objective, but the Polish artillery has been redeployed to provide flanking fire to disrupt this movement. The right forward Polish Line Division continued its advance to overrun the Austrian Corps Artillery. In doing so it became vulnerable to a counter attack from the arrival of the final Austrian line Division that drove it back.
Meanwhile the Austrian Cuirassier Division has failed to have a significant impact. It has forced a regiment into square, but is now threatened on 3 sides and it doesn’t look good for them. Although we didn’t reach the end of the game, in part due to a lot of page turning to re-familiarise ourselves with the rules, we enjoyed the game.
We were happy to be able to call it a draw at that stage based on the scores at that time. I am sure if we had played on it might have been a Polish win.
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