Blucher 1809 French v Austrian

Simon's Austrians appear again taking on my early French army. I thought I'd continue to try a more aggressive approach (and use some figures that pretty much never appear) by choosing a single infantry corps, a Dragoon corps and a Cuirassier corps all supported by artillery and light cavalry. The army was small so would break fairly easily but would be powerful attacking hopefully.

My plan for the Scharnhorst was to get all my Corps on table by keeping them together, not taking many objectives and being able to declare an advantageous battle. I failed miserably in this, in the event the Austrians had all their units on table and held more objective points!:

The initial deployment shows the French somewhat surrounded! However, the Austrians get off to a slow start and make little initial progress:

The Austrians have unknowingly advanced towards the French Cuirassier corps. The Carabineer's charge the Austrian artillery but are driven off while the rest of the Cuirassier corps redeploys: 

The Carabineer's are left behind to delay the Austrians:

The rest of the Cuirassier corps has redeployed to the right:

In a clash of cuirassiers the French come out on top successfully resisting the Austrian charge:

The rest of the Cuirassier corps menaces Austrian infantry while their horse artillery attempts to weaken the Austrian squares enough to allow the Cuirassiers to charge successfully:

The French infantry corps is activated to join the attack. On the French left the sluggish Austrian forces have failed to make any progress (Simon had a whole run of very poor MO rolls) and awaits the arrival of the off-table French Dragoon corps:

Successfully 'riding to the sound of the guns' the Dragoon corps arrives on the first opportunity behind the Austrian right!:

The Austrians turn to face the Dragoons:

On the French right the attack on the hill intensifies:

The Austrians are a little outnumbered and the French are better quality. Gaps are starting to appear in the Austrian lines:

On the left the Carabineer's are doing a sterling job of holding off the Austrians:

Once again they force the Austrians to retreat:

The French gain a first foothold on the hill:

On the left both sides continue to observe each other warily:

The attack continues:

The French right is now really getting the upper hand and Austrian resistance is starting to collapse:

Austrian artillery under attack:

The hill should be cleared of Austrians soon:

One Cuirassier brigade moves round to threaten the struggling Austrian centre:

The Austrian artillery has been destroyed and the French press on:

The fighting intensifies:

Not everything is going well for the French though and they have several brigades on the brink of dispersing:

The Austrians are close to collapse though:

The Austrian army breaks and victory goes to the French:

A very close fought game which was closer than it looked, Simon lost seven brigades to my one but I had four more with a single elan point left and my army break point was only four! Simon was also unlucky with the momentum dice in the first few moves with a series of very low scores stopping him doing much.

I think I'd have been better off adding a couple more infantry brigades to the infantry corps and dropping a Dragoon and Chasseur unit from the Dragoon corps, I didn't really have enough infantry and next time I'll probably do that. As ever it was nice to get some rarely used units on table, the Carabineers especially performed valiantly holding up the French left flank!