1812 - Retreat from Moscow: Battle Report

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of getting a visit from Teemu, a blogger from Finland who is visiting Denmark. Teemu has been playing with the 1812 - Retreat from Moscow ruleset almost since I finished it.

After picking up some food at my friend Michael's grill and Teemu being told by Michael how easy I am to beat, we returned to my flat. A quarter of an hour later we where ready to roll up the objectives and build our armies. Teemu had brought some of his Cossacks - excellent sculpts from Wargames Foundry, so he took the role of the Russians while the French were once again stuck with me.

I rolled up the Raid objective and Teemu got the Protection objective, meaning that he would get an additional 10% of the points total to buy peasants from. Since he had a long drive ahead of him in order to get home, we decided on 350 points.

French army:

Officer, regular

Regular troops, 1 unit of 8

Voltigeurs, 1 unit of 6

Grenadiers, 1 unit of 8

Light Cavalry, 1 unit of 6


Russian army (this is what I believe Teemu took):

Cossack officer

Mtd Cossack officer

Cossack Cavalry, 1 unit of 4

Cossack Cavalry, 1 unit of 5

Cossack Infantry, 2 units of 8

Peasants, 1 unit of 5

Peasants, 1 unit of 6

Teemu started with his Cossack Cavalry units and the Mtd Cossack officer in reserve.

In the first round things took a dramatic turn when on the Event 1 card we managed to roll up the event, that it had started to snow. This basically meant that the penalty for shooting a more than Long Range (6") would be doubled to -2. So a lot of melee it would seem.

My Grenadiers and Voltigeurs quickly got into the face of one of the Cossack Infantry units and the Cossack officer, and with a few losses managed to defeat them. Unfortunately for the French the other Cossack Infantry unit had withstood the charge of my Light Cavalry, who then recoiled and was subsequently defeated in a combination of failed melee rolls and Reaction tests.

In the next turn, the Russian reinforcements in the shape of a 5 man Cossack Cavalry unit then appeared on the horizon. At this point my Regular unit where chasing a group of peasants and were about to set fire to one of the buildings. With two units and my officer close to one of the other buildings I quickly managed to put the six burning markers on it.

The next turn was brutal. My Regular unit was charged from the rear by the Cossack Cavalry and took heavy casualties, before Routing. This meant that the French Morale Card would be added to the deck and I had failed my Side Plot. At this time Teemu revealed that he had also failed his Side Plot of making sure that the Cossack unit that I had defeated would come back alive with at least 3 men. So the game was still up for grabs, but my chances were looking bleak - at this point I had my Officer, 7 Grenadiers and 4 Voltigeurs left on the table.

Another round and another Cossack Cavalry unit came on to the table, this unit would not get to see any action as I gambled and failed miserably. With in the first 4 cards that we played were my two 2 Actions Regulars, meaning that my Grenadiers would be fully done (with the exception of the Forward Boys! card) for the turn before the Cossack Cavalry unit within shooting range. I got into Long rang and tried to see if I could make the Cossacks take any casualties that would provoke the Reaction test, but failed. This meant that my Grenadiers would just be standing there waiting for the Cossacks. I tried the same when my Voltigeurs were activated but failed again. When the Cossacks charged the Grenadiers took 4 casualties and then Recoiled.

The next card played was the French Morale card and here both my Grenadiers and my Voltigeurs failed their Reaction test and rolled a Rout result. With only my Officer left the game had finished with a convincing victory to the Russians.

It was as usual great fun and a pleasure to play with Teemu - even though he had the indecency of defeating his host! Since he is also into Saga Crescent and the Cross we had lots to talk about, and could quite possibly have talked all night. So thanks for taking the effort and making the long drive to Struer to have a game with me.