Les Grognards - French Artillery To The Front

You won't see this in Total War...

Yesterday over some lunch I played the Battle of Maida which took place in Italy.  )I believe this came with the Peninsular War mod of the game.)  My expeditionary force under the British General Stuart was marching to engage French forces when a French Artillery battery deployed to the front of the French columns (a very Napoleonic tactic) and proceeded to break my advance guard and send it routing backwards.

I've never experienced the tactic gaming (only read about it in David Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon) and it caught me by surprise.  I didn't have the cavalry to seize the battery and had difficulty marching any unit up against it across the open ground.

French gunners engage the advancing British column.
In the scheme of things this is a small piece of history done right but when you are looking for a game to simulate what it might have actually been like on a Napoleonic battlefield, it's the little things that make a big difference in the experience.

Well done Les Grognards.

Acland advances.  The French battery in the distance will rout his men this time.  Acland is also playing a pivotal role on the valley floor engaging French cavalry with his brigade, and conducting himself a little better, in my gaming of the Battle of Vimeiro in Portugal.

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