A Prestigious Occasion (Fighting Again)

Marshal Bessieres-Goya takes a personal interest in the efforts of the Old Guard gunners

On Wednesday I was delighted to attend the first recorded battle in Stryker's new Hinton Hut - excellent day all round. Stryker himself, The Archduke and Goya were all in attendance, and we fought a (fictional) Napoleonic battle, setting the forces of the Emperor (the French one, of course) against a coalition of Prussian, Russian and Austrian troops. All the figures present were from Stryker's own collection (and thus, it goes without saying, were all of faultless pedigree, being original, classic Hinton Hunts or very close approximations thereto throughout), and we used his excellent Muskets & Marshals rules.

The official report of the battle, with far better photos, appears on Stryker's own blog - my own short note here on the day's events is to give me an excuse to provide a few more pictures, to underline the beautiful spectacle of all those lovely old soldiers!

General view at commencement, from behind the French right

Apart from both sides taking advantage of a clear view for the artillery, this battle started with the customary bickering between respective skirmishers

Stryker's lovely Carabiniers - they did OK, but spent some time trying to rally from being disordered - there will be some questions asked...

And still the skirmishers are popping away - though the Prussian lads have rifles, the French had the lucky dice, so had the edge in this department

French light cavalry has an early success - note the thoroughness of the Prussian high command, who have the catalogue reference of every soldier written underneath, to facilitate rapid recruitment after days such as this

The French used the classic strategy of throwing everything in from the start (l'Ordre Imbecile) - here you see the big push developing - Napoleon on the white horse, checking that no-one is lagging behind

Although it didn't count for much in the long run, we had an early disappointment in the performance of the Guard light cavalry 

Our very smart light cavalry of the line - if you look carefully you will see they are being pursued by some enemy cuirassiers...

Crunch time - our brilliant sledge-hammer tactics hit the Prussian line...

While the French Carabiniers upset some more enemy cavalry

To the stupefaction of the French command, the big attack succeeded right along the line...

As may be obvious by this point, I was Napoleon, for reasons too circumstantial to dwell upon, and I am pleased to say that we (Marshal Bessieres-Goya and I) scraped a win - aided by the excellent calibre of our troops and our customary, astoundingly streaky, dice rolls. My thanks to my colleagues for their excellent company, and to the Stryker family for their hospitality - the Hut, I would say, is a great success. Even in a Scottish December we were comfortable and well insulated, and the game, of course, was marvellous.

I must also add that Napoleon was very briefly exposed to the risk  of being wounded at the end of the action, but survived unscathed. Always good publicity to be seen to be in some danger, even if the risk is mostly theoretical - the Emperor's marketing people were very pleased with the day.