State of Play: Commands & Colors: Napoleonics – Eggmühl, Day 2 – Attack on Eggmühl, 22 April, 1809

 

 

Eggmühl, Castle Schloss and the bridge, collective worth two
Victory Banners to the French.

The Attack on Eggmühl is the second scenario in the Eggmühl cycle from the Austrian Army expansion (GMT Games, 2013) for Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010), and marks our fourth game in this disjointed, out-of-sequence play-through. This scenario portrays the heart of the action, though it’s one of the (potentially) shorter scenarios at a win threshold of just five Victory Banners, but gaining all five will take some work for either side. There are only nineteen units on the whole board. The Austrians begin with a temporary banner for holding the majority of the combined Schloss Castle and Eggmühl-town. The French forces need to cross the Grosse Laaber to engage the sparse Austrian forces; the whole length of the Grosse Laaber is fordable, but that still means each unit needs a second movement order to extricate themselves from the river-hex. There is a bridge withing ranged fire distance of Eggmühl; capturing this bridge will earn the French player a permanent Victory Banner.

Napoleon was intent on capturing the town of Eggmühl in order to split Charles’s army in twain, breaking their lines of communication. It was a small but significant part of the battle. This was accomplished, but only after a protracted effort on the part of the French, facing dogged resistance from the outnumbered Austrians. Taking the Bridge on the third attack allowed the French to bring more pressure onto the town.

Opening state. The Austrians are few and far between.

The French seize the moment and move first. With so few units on the board, this situation is one where a bad starting hand can take a toll. Even with a one-card hand-advantage (five to four), T again struggled to get his fellows moving in a coherent manner. From the outset, T wanted to get his Line troops up into workable positions on his Right flank. For the Center, it’s going to come down to a frontal assault; not ideal with just Light troops, but he does have artillery for support. It’s doable because if the lack of Austrian troops generally, and the fact that a full third of my forces are in “Reserve” on the Austrian back-line. For a five-Banner game, I’d anticipate a duration of roughly eight to ten rounds, on average (play Commands and Colors six or seven hundred times and you start to get a feel for these things). If I’m going to use any of my turns to engage the troops proximate to the enemy, I’m probably not going to get the Reserve units into the fight at all.

I began the game with a handful of orders for the Left Flank. Having just three units in the entire flank, I thought this would be sub-optimal, but as it happened, this was where T chose to channel a lot of his effort. The river is fordable, but that means units must stop mid-stream, where they become targets for any enemy unit with a clear line of sight.

The game begins with the Austrians holding one temporary Victory Banner of majority control of the combined Eggmühl village and Schloss Castle (if the French forces took the village, the Austrians would lose the Banner, and if their troops were subsequently pushed out of Castle Schloss, the Banner would go to the French). T’s first move was to take the bridge, earning him a permanent Victory Banner, and evening the game.

T recognised the Austrian Left (French Right) as a potential weak spot. This was where his forces were most strongly concentrated, and my defences were thin (a fact I was only too aware of myself). His opening gambit was an Attack Right Flank order, bringing the bulk of his Line troops up into a position to attack the Austrian guns.

Early thinning on the French Right.

The guns held the advantage of high ground, which would prove crucial when elements of the French Line reached melee positions. Foot Artillery are no slouch in close combat, and I saw off a couple of attacks, gaining a couple of Victory banners in the process.

T’s first (and only) Victory Banner came from taking possession of the bridge in the second round. For this he paid a price. Lacking orders to move that unit into the town, I eventually moved the adjacent Grenzers into Eggmühl and successive rounds of ranged fire took out the bridge-capturing Light regiment (though their Leader escaped unscathed).

Marching into the mouth of fire.

T had a hard time of it herding his remaining Light (Center and Left units) into action, but eventually got them up to the riverbank to lay down fire on my defending Grenzers. An opening arrived when persistent fire reduced my right-most Grenzers, forcing them out of the forest with a retreat result, but again, with the cards available, T was unable to take advantage of this (I should note I was equally unable to rally the Grenzers back into their forest position for the remainder of the game.

The tensest part of the battle, through was the French right (my left). Twice I had some success with the Artillery’s ranged fire, reducing and eventually destroying the right-most Line unit (at the bend of the river), and twice I managed to fend off melee attacks, once eliminating the whole attacking unit with return fire. The Line infantry in the left was almost more of a hinderance than a help, getting pushed back tice with retreats, and taking a block damage each time for its trouble (Austrian Line retreats two spaces for each Flag result – professional, yes; disciplined, not so much).

End of round 8.

By the tenth round, it felt like to exhausted boxers taking wild swings at each other, the French clipping blocks off various Austrian units, and the Austrians wearing down Line and Light units that get to close with effective fire (my rolls were, by and large, conspicuously better than my regular form). The hammer fell at the bottom of the tenth round (though there was every likelihood of it not); T played Elán, which allows the player to roll dice equivalent to his hand size, with the resulting symbols allowing a unit of that type to be ordered, and Flag results giving the player this choice of units to order (sabres result in no orders). He had four Infantry results, which split between his remaining Right Flank units and the Light fighting across the river and the bridge, attacking Eggmühl, and the already depleted Grenzer unit on the riverbank. Some unit reduction followed, but the French couldn’t land a definitive punch.

I didn’t hold a lot of hope, or any useful cards. Another good round would give T the opportunity to make good on his attritional gains in the last couple of rounds. I used a Leadership card to order the remaining single block Grenzer unit on the riverbank to attack his reduced Light on the other side. That gave me two shots (number of blocks plus one die in ranged combat) to remove that unit and take the game. I rolled two Infantry symbols and victory (once again) went to the Austrians.

End state. I'm not sure what T was doing straddling two hexes in the Eggmühl  attack.
Some times you only notice these things after the fact.

I spite of the score – 5-1 – had I not scored that last banner, the French were in a good position to snatch victory; pushing me out of Eggmühl and taking the town would have removed a Banner from my lead, and neither of the Grenzers in or adjacent to the woods were likely to survive another attack. But I’m venturing into the territory of what-ifs that tend to bore me after the game is over, so I will demure and take the victory.

Cards played French to the left (inside column then outside).