Salamanca : Demo Game

I had the pleasure this past weekend to be part of a Demo game for some college students at the Rivendell Sanctuary with the Rochester game group. Don McConnell is a faculty member and he on occasions makes it down from the twin cities to take in a game.

The purpose of the game and the day was to teach a bit about the Napoleonic era. The battle Don picked was Salamanca which happened in 1812 as part of the Peninsula War. Marmont and Wellington squared off with the British carrying the day.

I wore my French Napoleonic Fifer uniform from the 21eme which is one of the units I reenact with. I gave the students each a reproduction french franc and spoke a little bit about the times and played a few tunes.

The initial table with the armies mostly set. We followed the historical order which found both sides trying to flank each other and thus were strung out. I played on the French side, our cav was at the head of the formation with division by division behind. We had 7 divisions of infantry and 2 of cav if I remember my numbers correctly.

The students that attended each were given a division to run. As the day wore on you could see the excitement as good tactics and die rolls lead to battlefield success.

Here is the crew contemplating their initial forces. On the French side I asked them each to arrange their forces, pick a formation for the unit and then we got started. The Brits won the initiative and came forward on the attack.

We played from right to left as of course all the students were new to the rules. Here the Brits came forward to give battle, one division of Brits vs 2 of French. Note the gap in the British line.  Two battalions of the 95th Rifles are involved and certainly the quality of the British across the line was generally better than the French so nothing bad will come of that right? 🙂

Here Jon moves forward on his attack.

Eric giving a few pointers.

Remember that gap? Well the French charged into it, first routing off some artillery and then into the flank of a battalion of the 95th Rifles. It was well done but the dice were not so kind and while it should have been a good victory for the French the roll was low on the melee and the Brits were able to just drop back. Still the gap was now a hole and this side of the lines was certainly looking less than great for the Brits.

The Cav scrum on the left flank started. The British certainly had better quality and you can see in the bottom middle of the frame a French unit of Hussars thown back.

It was getting to be about 4:30 at this point and with a lengthy pick up, we were happen to have played one impulse per side with as many hands as we hand and with so many new to the rules. It was obvious that the right flank was going well for the French and the left was going to be an interest set of Cav duels.

Historically the French saw Marmont injured early in the battle. Bonet the second in command was also injured early on. No doubt that played a significant role in what happened historically. How this might have gone, tis an open question.

A good time had by all and we certainly look forward to doing something like this again. I hope that students had a fun time. They were a great bunch.