Today Koen and I fought a rematch of Ligny using the excellent Black Powder rules. In short the game went like this, we deployed about equal forces opposite of each other with some houses and shrubbery between the forces. My plan was to deploy slightly more troops on my right flank to attack Koen's rather weak left and from there roll his line up. Therefore I posted some crack troops with my sole gun on my left and kept the troops there stationary. The first 3 turns Koen remained in place and let my right flank near his left all the while trying to shoot me off the planet with his two batteries. Koen's shooting however turned out to be pretty ineffective throughout the whole battle. At first it appeared that my flank attack was working but at two rather crucial moments I blundered and was unable to press home my attacks and Koen valiantly countered my attacks. Things went from bad to worse when I consequently failed not 1, not 2 but even 3 break tests and the units in question were annihilated on the spot. Meanwhile the French Garde had attacked my left and was decimating that as well, it appeared that by bungling my crucial rolls I had fed my troops to the French peace-meal. Oh well...
In the end we had a very enjoyable game and Koen was able to use some of the units he had painted up for the first time. The funniest moment was when one large unit of French Line infantry broke and ran pretty much along the entire length of the table while the Garde was in front of them beating ten colours of poo out of my Prussians. Both the veteran French and Prussians looked down on the fleeing Marie-Louises in contempt.
Cheers Sander
Listening to Evanescence
