My knowledge of Persia during the Napoleonic period being zero and the fact that there is no Persian list in the rules meant that Gordon had to draw up a list and some specific rules for the army which he had done based on extensive research (where does he find all this stuff?!).
The list was interesting having some high quality units and one big change in that it allowed some Persian cavalry units to fire, an idea totally unknown in Blucher! I was a bit dubious about this idea feeling that it would make the cavalry far too powerful (though they were also very expensive) but was happy to give it a go and see what happened.
I chose an army consisting of two infantry corps with attached cavalry and heavy artillery, a Cossack corps and a reserve cavalry corps of Cuirassiers and horse artillery.
Gordon prefers to play the Scharnhorst map game first so we did that. He managed to pick up more VP on the map than me but I got to declare the location of the battle so basically I had to break his army before nightfall:
My plan consisted of attacking on my right against the somewhat isolated Persian forces with one Infantry Corps while the second (on the hill) would await developments. Some of the Cossacks at the back would be rushed forward to pin the Persian right while the Reserve Cavalry Corps was nicely placed behind my left to support either infantry corps as required:
Initial moves went largely as planned with a couple of Cossack brigades advancing to pin the Persians on my left while a strong Russian infantry and cavalry force moved forward on my right exposing the Persian forces. The Russian artillery was already casing some damage to the Persian infantry and a spoiling attack by a Persian cavalry brigade was repulsed:
In order to increase the pressure on the Persians the Russian infantry on the left started to advance and the artillery opened up on some poor quality Persian units which had advanced to block the Cossacks from moving any further forward:
On the Russian right both armies were now engaged heavily. The Persians had fed a few supporting units in from their reserves and the Russians were committing the Reserve Cavalry Corps to strengthen their attack:
On the Russian left the Persians have all been scouted now:
On the right the first brigade of Russian Cuirassiers has charged home but sadly failed to overcome the Persian cavalry. The Russian artillery is inflicting heavy losses on the Persians now though:
The Persians have now lost several brigades on their right and are starting to collapse. However, time is running out for the Russians with the approach of nightfall:
To try to increase the pressure on the Persian left some units from the Russian left start to move to engage the poor quality Persians defending the stream edge. Realising that they have to distract these units the Persian right advances rapidly:
The Persian army is now within a couple of lost brigades of breaking but the Russians on the right are also greatly weakened:
On the left the Persians press on against the now outnumbered Russians on the hill:
The Persians storm over the hill:
By this stage Russian losses are almost immaterial as they won't lose enough for their morale to break. It is almost nightfall though which will save the Persians unless the Russians can break another Persian brigade. The Persian left has been caught up against the stream but the Russians are unable to finish off the badly damaged Persian survivors:
As night falls the Persians take the hill on the Russian left while their forces on the right hold on giving the Persians the narrowest of victories:
This was another fantastic game of Blucher which, for a long time, I thought I was going to win. Gordon skilfully kept his last few almost destroyed brigades in play and I couldn't quite get the last hit I needed.
I chose Marshall Kutusov as my C-in-C which greatly increased my armies break point so it was never really in danger of breaking. However, this did cause me problems as Kutusov needs to 'rest' for two turns after intervening on the battlefield and on a couple of occasions I could have really done with the ability to use my C-in-C to re-order scattered units from different Corps but couldn't as he was asleep!
The ability of Gordon's cavalry to fire didn't have that much of an effect and, as costed, probably was not worth taking though his elite cavalry unit did shoot scarily well.
One last thing is that the Russians are one of the few armies I own that I didn't paint, I bought them cheaply from a friend and just rebased them with some new flags. The painting standard was not that great and I don't even know which manufacturer made the infantry (the cavalry are Minifigs). Normally I find it hard to take to figures I have not painted but, since buying these, they have developed a personality and I like playing with them.
The most amusing thing though is that I did actually paint two new units for the army, the Cuirassiers, as it didn't have any. The figures are Essex and I tried to paint them to fit in with the rest. Having used them in quite a few games now they always perform dismally despite being very strong units in the rules and often attacking moderate at best opposition. This game was no exception and they kept their record of disaster up as usual!
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