Waterloo sessions round 2 -- Commands and Colors Napoleonics this time

The second in a series of battles between Game Store Tony and yours truly covering the same historical ground (The I corps sector at Waterloo) using three different recent games, in this case Commands & Colors: Napoleonics.

Once again I took the part of the French and again my pregame plan was to make my main effort on the right, avoiding Hougoumont. In C&C:N, of course, you can have all the plans in the world, but if you don't have the cards you can't pull it off. As it happened, though, I DID get the cards.

After some back and forth bombardment that went all the French way (the exposed Dutch unit was eliminated despite pulling back to the ridge and the Britsh guns were reduced to one block and forced to retreat behind the ridge for safety) I started my move on the right with the right flank units stiffened by the Young Guard. Tony was no Wellington was was clearly unwilling to wait patiently for the French and the two side clashed in front of the ridge. Meanwhile another Dutch brigade made a foray around Hougoumont as well, although that came to a bad end from close-range French cannon fire.

The battling was bloody but the Young Guard settled into Papaeotte and refused to be moved out of it, leaving the French with a 6-4 edge in flags. Tony decided he had to pull back his decimated troops on that flank. With the pressure eased there was time for Napoleon to play Le Grande Maneuvre to move up several fresh units including, critically, the Guard Heavy Horse. The following turn the Guard Horse crashed into some Dutch light horse using the Cavalry Charge card. The poor light horse hardly knew what hit it as the French rolled SEVEN dice (4 blocks +1 French Guard +2 Cavalry Charge ) and three sabers wiped them out for Flag No. 7. The breakthrough took the Guard straight into that one-block British artillery unit behind the ridge and unsurprisingly it, too, couldn't deny a seven-die attack. Flag No. 8 and victory for the French again!