Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Game Day -- Aspern Essling

Jon and Kevin joined me on Sunday for the grand reopening of my gaming palace.  My mother in law had emergency surgery in early July, and she stayed in the palace while she was recuperating.  Now that she is back at her own house, gaming can resume!  We played Aspern-Essling with Age of Eagles rules.


Kevin commanded the defending French: Aspern on top, Essling on the bottom.  We gave each village a defensive bonus of 2.


I commanded the Austrian forces converging on Aspern: seven infantry brigades, one cavalry brigade, and four batteries.


A French corps defended Aspern.  The paper buildings are from Roman Seas.


Jon commanded the Austrians closing on Essling.  He had eight infantry brigades, two cavalry brigades, and five batteries.  The reserve corps (2 brigades on grenadiers and two brigades of elite cavalry) was not immediately available.


We were a little rusty on the rules, but everything came back to us. Age of Eagles definitely has that big battle feel.


Kevin's French laughed off my almost completely ineffective musketry.  I brought up my batteries to point blank range, but they too had no effect.  Time for bayonets! 


Jon delayed his center's advance long enough to press the French right flank behind Essling.  Kevin moved up his cavalry reserve to cover the space between the towns.


With the help of incredibly high dice rolls, my Austrians were able to push Kevin's French out of Essling.  I would love to say it was my brilliant generalship, but I rolled something like 10, 9, 10, 8, 10, 9, and 10.  Ares smiled on the Austrians today.


Kevin's brigade of hussars charged the Austrian cuirassiers and hussars, pushed them back, and delayed the Austrian reserve corps for over an hour!  The hussars lost a few stands, but the survivors should be promoted to the guard!



After three hours of gaming (two and a half hours of game time), I had taken 3/4 of Aspern, and Jon had taken half of Essling.  Kevin was reeling, and he still had two more turns until his reinforcements would arrive.  We took a lunch break at a nearby pub, got sucked into a trivia game, and had to put of the conclusion until next weekend.

11 comments:

  1. That was a fun day! Kevin's propensity to through 10s when needed on my side of the battle were annoying but I think Essling will fall when we reconvene.

    I have been working on my BatRep too but you beat me to the delivery.

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    1. He rolled very well on my side too, but I think we may just pull this off. Kevin does have four brigades of heavy armored cavalry coming, along with the Imperial Guard, so this game is definitely still in the air.

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    2. By the way, Austrian cuirassier are classed as ARMORED in AoE.

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    3. Really? I looked it up ... one time. Long ago.

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  2. Great looking game. I like the "smaller scale" buildings/villages. I've read about this approach before and seeing it on your game table now has me pondering!

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    1. I have 6mm and 10mm Napoleonic buildings to go with my 15mm armies, and I definitely prefer the smaller size. Ground scale and figure scale are all out of whack anyway.

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  3. Definitely the way to go... especially for 28mm. Buildings might be to scale but far to big.

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  4. Great game pics and report. AoE is perfect for larger battles.

    Oh, and those are some really impressive die rolls!

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    1. Kevin held his own, though. I wonder if he will bring new dice on Sunday?

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  5. As I said on Jonathan's blog, excellent looking game and some more nice photos here. Nice inspiration for my planning of this too :)

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  6. Excellent table and impressive size of a battle.

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