Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Another Song of Drums and Shakos interlude

Murdock (from Murdock's Marauders fame) is playing a Napoleonic campaign game set around the Campaign of Leipzig, that you can follow at the Campaign of Nations blog.
In his last post, Murdock describes how the Game Master has found a way to simulate the acquisition of information by means of scouting parties. A 7 game skirmish series, will be played by Allied and French players, and "the winner of four of the games will get to have the enemy information and preserve their own secret".
This led to an interesting exchange of comments about rulebooks and mechanisms, and at last Murdock proposed me to play one of the 7 games as a solo game and using Song of Drums and Shakos. Details of units and strengths were quickly exchanged during a frenetic series of e-mails, and this is the final result:

The Probing Patrol (September, 1813)
Historical background
Somewhere in Saxony, the French and Allied light cavalry units are scouting the terrain between both armies, trying to gather information about the whereabouts and composition of the enemy.
The Polish General Uminski has sent a patrol of the 1st squadron of the Krakus Regiment, under their young ADC Lieutenant Kaminski, to scout towards the village of Herrnhut. Past the cemetery, the road leading the village crosses a stream and a drainage ditch through a plank bridge. There is a lone cabin log on the far bank at left and a small wood at the right flank and the Poles, fearing an ambush, approaches cautiously to the water stream.
Meanwhile and hidden in the wood, lieutenant Uvarov (a young aristocrat serving as ADC to Majorgeneral Tetteborn) watches the approaching Poles, while his men, veterans from the Denisov #7 Cossack Regiment, are awaiting his signal to fall over their ancestral enemies..

Terrain


The stream and drainage ditch are fordable for mounted men. Men on foot must use the fords or bridges. The stream is also fordable at a distance of 1M from the bridge. Beyond that distance, the

Engaged Forces
Cossacks (Denisov Cossack #7 Regiment). 1 Officer, 1 NCO, 9 Cossacks. 11 men 680 points
Poles (Krakus Regiment). 1 Officer, 1 NCO, 8 Privates. 10 men 716 points

Deployment
Cossacks: Must deploy at the East (right) side of the game-table behind line A-A. They can be hidden into the wood or behind the cabin. Until 1D4 men can dismount and use a musket and these men can also hide within the cabin. The horses are behind the cabin.
Poles: The Krakus enter through the western roads (pink arrows).

Victory conditions
Both sides have the same objective: to deny the enemy any information, so the winner will be the side remaining on the battlefield.

I must play this game before Sunday. I'll try it!





1 comment:

  1. It's great that you are doing one of the battles in this campaign Rafa.

    Just make sure that the correct side (Poles) win; please (ha, ha)!!

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