Best laid plans and all that

I had a busy first half of the week planned. The centrepiece was to be a large set piece game in the garden involving wargaming friends from the length and breadth of this fair land on Tuesday. The lead up to this was a bit tense, with heavy rain forecast, but enough of that for now. One of the players was to be Richard from ShedWest. We've been corresponding about my Marlburian rules and he just sent me a heavily annotated draft set back, so we'd agreed he would come up the day before and we'd play a game  and go over his comments.

As it turned out he did come up on Monday, but much later than expected due to a series of unfortunate events, mostly to do with bad traffic. Anyway, we got in a couple of hours play in the evening.

I set up a simple encounter battle with a bit of terrain (the terrain rules are something we've discussed) with a British and allied force facing off against a stronger French army. Richard chose to take the French. I put a river across the centre of the table, as that always causes problems.

The French have more cavalry. Richard massed it on his right. I split mine up and had some on my right centre, which was probably not wise.

Turn one, fired my guns then advanced, thus masking them for the rest of the game.

Richard likewise advanced and masked his guns too.

Richard brings his cavalry up to the steam line so he can cross it the next turn.

A-ha! Or so he thinks. I bring my horse up to dispute the crossing.

Eye candy photo for the rules book (most of these pictures are taken with my SLR for this reason).

I swap my infantry and cavalry over on my right, so I can disrupt Richard's advance with my musketry.

Richard launches his cavalry against me. At his suggestion we now mark proposed charges with laminated arrows.

It does not go well. My units are bundled back from the streamline in a rather undignified fashion.

A cavalry charge into the village is likewise successful. I'm not having a lot of luck.

Richard starts the firefight. I take a hit or two, with some units becoming Disordered.

My return fire, especially from the Platoon Firing Regiments does a lot of damage.

Richard is using volley fire, but I've broken one of his infantry units. The fight for the village on my right is getting intense.

A wide shot from my camera phone shows my left has collapsed, whilst the centre is deadlocked.

The last act of the evening is when on my left Richard's cavalry breaks through and charges my gun line. It is overrun. 

It is getting late now, so we need to tidy up and clear the table in case it is needed tomorrow should the weather turn bad.

A good run through, although it is a shame we were unable to get in more playing time.

I have more work to do trying to get down on paper the mechanisms in my head such that they can be understood without me there.