The Battle of Cacares

 At least I think that's how you spell it. Whilst here has been no wargaming content on the blog for a while, there has been plenty going on in the background. Over the last three weeks we have been playing out the Battle of Cacares, or possibly the battle of a place which has a name that looks a bit like that. I trust that James will write it up fully in a blog post heavily laden with photographs, but here's a few of my thoughts with only one picture, and that one a tad arcane.

Wellington, having captured Madrid, immediately abandoned it and pressed on to confront Soult, taking advantage of a chunk of the latter's forces being holed up in Badajoz with a Spanish army camped outside.  My strategy, for it is I, is based on an assumption that the underlying purpose of the campaign is to provide us with opportunities to play with toy soldiers, and I therefore seek to bring the enemy to battle if the opportunity arises. Reading between the lines, I suspect that my fellow players feel the same way.

The first evening mostly involved manoeuvre by the Anglo-Portuguese while the French just sat there. I had been thinking for some time that the skirmisher rules were too advantageous to the British Light Division and had in a previous game adopted a particular approach aimed at exploiting what I thought was a loophole, thereby encountering much derision from the others, who didn't agree at all. I stuck with it however and committed much of the initiative which I gained from the draw of dominos to an elaborately choreographed advance by the Lights on my centre right which caused no French casualties and got us absolutely nowhere. Somewhat more was achieved by the cavalry. Most of the French cavalry was on their left, and not wanting this on the flank of my advancing infantry I sent my cavalry to see them off, which they did, ending the night poised to force the French infantry into square. On my left the only action was the playing of an event card by Mark allowing him to carry out a prebattle artillery bombardment. This made such a mess of the 3rd division that they played no further part in the game.

I had thought that the French, who started with more units on the table than the British, would attack on their right and my plan was to bring my reserves on to my extreme left and get behind them. No such attack having been forthcoming I brought the reserves on anyway at the beginning of the second evening and moved forwards. This second evening was marked by a British inability to cause any casualties in combat or indeed to throw anything worthwhile in defence either. This was despite no longer being encumbered with the by now abandoned Epictetus grand theory of how to use Napoleonic light infantry. Far from forcing the French infantry into square my cavalry was blown away by musket fire and the entire division became 'spent'. In fact the French switched their remaining cavalry unit to their left flank, with the clear - if ambitious - idea of seizing the village on the Allies baseline and gaining a cheesy victory that way. The evening ended with the British infantry with charge distance across the whole of the French defensive line.

On the third evening British luck with the dice changed and weight of numbers and, probably more importantly, the quality of their troops broke the French line close to the end of the fourth turn of the allowed five. Thankfully for the credibility of the morale system the French do-or-die cavalry raid, er, died. Permanent losses for campaign purposes were quite high, more so for the losers. The following photo makes clear the method of establishing those casualties.

OK, I admit that it doesn't make anything clear, especially to me. Still, James knows what he's doing, and he says I'm currently leading the campaign scoring track, so all is well.