The Dice Gods hate me!

By now some of you will have already seen Fran and Ray's excellent posts about the Rejects game last Saturday. They did such a good job of conveying the wider battle that I thought I would focus just on my little corner of the battlefield, especially as this was where we effectively lost the battle (both tactically and in terms of victory points). You will already know from Fran and Ray's posts that my forces in this game - a division of French cavalry - were charged, routed, trampled on, scattered and destroyed by just two units of Hanoverian Hussars.

Never have any of us seen such appalling dice rolling (on my part) in all our combined experience of wargaming. As you can tell from this picture I was not amused... and this was taken before the worst had happened!

I should give up wargaming and take up Macramé or something! (Picture courtesy of Ray)

Since that utter thrashing I have been trying to find the will to sort through my pictures and write something about the game. I could have posted something yesterday but frankly I was still in shock and just couldn't face the prospect of thinking about it. Now that 48 hours have passed I feel a little more able to ponder my defeat, although I still wince when I think about it.

The game was a what-if scenario and assumed that Blucher had not arrived at Waterloo in time and Wellington had lost the battle. He had been forced to retreat to his planned fall back position at Hal. Unfortunately the troops there are of poor quality and outnumbered, although they have the benefits of good ground on which to fight a defensive battle. The French outnumber their opponents and have better quality troops, but most units are below strength after three days of fighting.

The initial deployment; The allies command the Brussels road but most of their troops are Levy and Militia. The French on the other hand have a lot of elite units, albeit depleted.

I commanded the 1st and 6th Chasseurs a Cheval and the 5th and 6th Lancers and a 6pdr horse artillery battery under the Comte Hippolyte Marie Guillame Pire. Early on in the game (before it all went horribly wrong) I also received reinforcements in the shape of the 12th Cavalry Division, consisting of 2 Carabinier and 2 Curassier units under the command of Baron Nicolas Francois Roussel d'Hurbal. Unfortunately they arrived right behind my advancing Chasseurs and Lancers creating one huge cavalry traffic jam. But, I thought, I just needed one turn of movement to untangle them and all I needed to do was sweep aside the two units of Hanoverian Hussars in front of me....

The arrival of re-enforcements creates a bit of traffic jam, but it'll soon be cleared (which it was, but now I imagined it!). 

The Hussars charge towards the French and my Chasseurs counter-charge  My opponent and I both roll a fist full of dice and...I don't inflict a single kill. In fact I loose both melee by a wide margin, the Hanovarian's snatch both my flags and I then roll impossibly badly for moral (NOW I get a six!). I then roll to see how far they fall back and of course its the maximum, one full move plus six inches taking them through the supporting Lancers and then the Carabiniers and Curassiers crossing behind them (disordering every unit in the process). This is bad, but the worst is still yet to come!

The Lancers flee the advancing Hussars straight through my Curassiers and Carabiniers

The Hussars elect to follow through with their charge and hit the now disordered Lancers who also loose their melee, turn tail and flee through the 12 Cavalry Division behind them. Then the b**dy hussars charge the next rank of French Cavalry, this time the Curassiers who are not only disordered but side-on meaning they get hit in the flank. You guessed it, I loose that melee as well and by now the whole division is in full flight and I'm making (and failing) Brigade and Divisional moral checks left right and centre!! This can't be happening!

"Courir pour les gars des collines, notre commandant est un coq!" 
(Run for the hills lads, our commander is a knob!)

By the end of this massacre-of-epic-proportions the light was fading and the battle drew to a close. But the shear volume of destroyed and dispersed units, not to mention lost flags, meant the Allies won a resounding victory of 20 points to ten.  

To the victor the spoils...and some well deserved smugness! 

As I said earlier, none of us has ever seen a cavalry charge of such devastating proportions, nor are we ever likely to see it again (I hope). But it has to be said that although the Dice Gods clearly had it in for me on Saturday my opponent John was cool under pressure and pursued his advantage ruthlessly despite the odds. My only hope now is that I have used up a lifetimes worth of cr*ppy dice rolls and will have better luck next time!