Wanting to give his brand new Austrian army a spin on the battlefield, Phil set up a 120 point a side Sharp Practice scenario against my Italians, so back to 1809 and the War of the Fifth Coalition we went! Phil and Jenny commanded the invading Austrian forces whilst Andy and myself were charged with defending Bella Italia and L'Abbazia Vecchia Romagna!
The Austrians were the first to appear - two groups of Landwehr commanded by Leutnant Brucker. I did note these looked very similar to Andy's Spanish Fusileros in their brown coats and top hats which are the bane of my Italians...
The Austrian Deployment Point looked very nice...
More Austrians then turned up. Three groups of Grenzer skirmishers commanded by Leutnant Gustav Mahler...
Eventually some Italians arrived to try and thwart the Austrian horde. First Tenente Baresi and the rather dashing Volteggiatori of the 1° Reggimento Fanteria Legger...
Then Sergente Altobelli and the Cacciatori (chasseurs) of the 1° Real Italiano Cacciatori a Cavallo.
Porca miseria! More Grenzers arrived commanded by Leutnant Joseph Haydn. That is a lot of skirmishers... (Phil had been bigging up this battle as "All white on the night!" - as you can see there were not a lot of white clad troops on the table at this point!)
Avanti, stolti cuori d'Italia! Tenente Conte of the brave (white-coated) Fucilieri of the 5° Fanteria di Linea arrived to thwart the Austrian menace!
At last more white coats! Hauptmann Franz Liszt with three groups of Austrian Füsiliers.
Primo Corporale Zoff and his line Volteggiatori then arrived and dashed across the table towards the L'Abbazia Vecchia Romagna.
And finally Capitano Rossi with the Fucilieri of the 4° Fanteria di Linea arrived, cheered on by a local chicken farmer's wife. No doubt the Austrians would turn tail and run back to Vienna now faced with the pride of Torino...
La fortuna aiuta gli audaci! Tenente Baresi boldly seized the woods and ordered his Volteggiatori to fire at the advancing Grenzers.
Unfortunately the Volteggiatori fire was pretty pathetic with only two points of Shock inflicted on the advancing enemy skirmishers...
Who promptly returned fire...
Killing three of the Volteggiatori with their first volley! Che mucchio di merda!
More merda was to befall the Italians as the 1° Real Italiano accidentally strayed into musket range of Haydn's Grenzers who opened fire taking down two of the Cacciatori and inflicting Shock on them!
An overview of the battlefield at this point shows how disjointed the Italians were having arrived late to the battle and how the Austrians had seized the initiative...
Another round of Grenzer fire saw Sergente Altobelli wounded and the 1° Real Italiano say "incula questo per un gioco di soldati" (or something like that) and retire behind the thick walls of L'Abbazia Vecchia Romagna.
Initial Italian boldness was proving to be a pain in il culo as the Grenzers took the upper hand in their skirmish with the 1° Reggimento Fanteria Legger Volteggiatori who broke having suffered more casualties and Shock, with Tenente Baresi wounded.
The Austrians lined the Grenzers and Füsiliers along the river and waited the advanced of the 4° & 5° Fanteria di Linea...
Tenente Conte deployed the 5° into line, whilst Capitano Rossi advanced the 4° in an attack column in an attempt to break the Austrian line.
Meanwhile Leutnant Franz Schubert moved a second formation of Landwehr up on the flank towards L'Abbazia!
Avanti Italia! The brave Fucilieri of the 4° Fanteria di Linea advanced into the storm of Austrian musket fire. One brave man of Tuscany fell dead and the formation took some Shock but it was still advancing!
Meanwhile Primo Corporale Zoff and the line Volteggiatori found themselves engaged with Leutnant Schubert's Landwehr...
Attacco con la baionetta! Zoff led his men in on the Austrians with bayonets gleaming!
Five of the Landwehr fell to the Italian bayonets and were forced back...
Falling back through a second group behind them.
Having managed to wheel his 8-pounder cannon into a position to fire over the line infantry Tenente Dossena's Artiglieria a Piedi fired at the Austrians - sadly with little effect...
In the centre the Austrian musketry was devastating the 4° Fanteria di Linea who were now taking excess Shock and casualties. The formation started to fall back and break apart with the consequent impact of the Italian Force Morale handing victory to the Austrians...
Well that was a decisive victory for Phil and Jenny and I can only apologise to Andy for both my inept tactics and crap dice rolling! :D
The large groups of Grenzers were an interesting challenge and my bold (one might say fool hardy) attempts to seize ground with smaller units of Volteggiatori and Cacciatori without waiting for the main Fucilieri force to turn up was a bit of a disaster given the damage it caused to our Force Morale (and left me without a Volteggiatori screen for the Attack Column). Still la vendetta è un piatto da gustare freddo! Italy will rise again!
Great looking game Steve.
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