The Battle of Eylau

Merry Christmas to you all.  I hope the season brings you and your families joy, peace, and prosperity.  

I hosted my annual holiday wargame.  I always try to pick a winter/snow themed game to play just to set the proper mood for the season.  This year it was the Battle of Eylau, 1807.  The game was played using my collection of 28mm Napoleonic French and Russians.  It was a fair sized game played on an "L" shaped table that was 5 feet wide.  I recently replaced my fixed wargaming table with the tables from Frontline Gaming (link here).  Each table measures 60" x 44" and I used four of them to create this "L" shaped table.  It worked great.

The forces involved are below.

At this point in the battle, Augereau's Corps has been torn up by the Russians after getting lost in the snow storm and Murat's massive cavalry column is coming to the rescue.  On the far left of the Russians line two divisions from Davout's Corps are pushing the flank through the town of Serpallen.

As expected this game was a bloodbath.  The Russians couldn't stop Murat's cavalry from breaking through despite determined resistance.  The dice decided that average was no good - so rolling was either stone cold and crazy hot.  I was in combat with 15 hits against me needing 4+ to save.  Saved 12 of the hits.  Right after I attacked back with 10 dice and hit ... once!

To the South (Russian left flank) the Russian's were plague with command issues and slow to react to an aggressive Davout!  By the end of turn 5 the Russian lines had collapsed.

Lots of pictures below.

Crappy phone pictures below.

There you have it.  I used a ton of Woodland Scenics snow on the table so I could take the staged pictures before the game.  It took a while to get all the cleanup done but done it is!