The Sixth Coalition is Postponed

The French won the refight of the battle of Maloyaroslavets last night, the Grande Armée

 was saved, and 1813 will therefore be rescheduled for a later date. 

The battle for the village rages

James, as the Russians, had his usual good results with the C&C dice (he is on a lucky streak at the moment; apparently a gypsy fortune teller has predicted that for every child knocked down by a bus he will find a pound coin), but the cards fell better for Peter and he used them with aplomb.

The Russians are in

However, it turned out that he used them with a little too much aplomb. Rereading the rules I find that only one Tactician Card can be used on a unit per turn, meaning that the heroic charge of the Chasseurs to take out two artillery units would have been ruled out by the video ref had the technology been in use. For the record the other rule we got wrong was not testing for the loss of attached commanders when units took hits without being destroyed; James did draw my attention to it, but I thought I knew better.

And then they're out again, leaving behind only a forlorn Mother Russia token

I thought the scenario worked. The Russians are handicapped by their lack of cavalry (the official scenario in Expansion 2 gives them some Cuirassier) and because the relative weakness of their units means that they achieve less for each activation,, but their extra artillery can be used to devestating effect. The March Move on certain cards meant that reserves at least had a chance to move forward, although as so often in C&C there were half a dozen units on either side that never saw combat. We shall play it again next week without any changes - other than swapping sides - and see how differently it turns out.

The Russians are pushed back everywhere

The changed shape of the playing area didn't cause any problems. The 'at least one dice in melee' rule only came into play a few times and, to me at least, seemed more natural than the alternative.