MAY GAME NIGHT AND BATTLE OF DYBBOL 1848: AN UN-REPORT

View of the action during my Battle of Dybbol Game as seen from behind the Prussian advance provided courtesy of Mark of Come on My Brave Fusliers! Blog. Clix pix for Big Pix.

Well I had intended to follow up my last post on my Battle of Dybbol game with the usual report on the club game night (May) and a battle report on my game in particular...

The Meanderer, Super Genius, upon discovering that he had deleted the images from his camera before double checking for them on his computer.

...However, having loaded the images on my computer in the usual way (or so I had thought), I found that the folder with them had somehow gone "poof."   Don't ask me how, but I know that next time I won't wipe the camera clean until after I disconnect it and see that files are still on the computer: live and learn.  For a report on the game from the Prussian perspective, you may go to Mark's Come on My Brave Fusiliers Blog.


So, I'll fill in with a small narrative for the sake of closure.  I reprised my battle of Dybbol game for Game Night. For the full story and background, please see my previous post.   For the game night game, I had made some minor alterations to the reference sheet, mainly having to do with jagers in combat and modifying the "depleted" effects of infantry.  This remains a work in progress, however.  Bob and George, who played in the initial version, kindly played in the game once again on game night, and they were joined by Tom D and Mark (of the aforementioned Come on My Brave Fusiliers blog).   Tom D and Bob were the Danes, and George and Mark were the Prusso-Germans.

Danish Guard at the Battle of Isted, 1850

The playtest decision went to the Prusso-Germans, but the game night decision went to the Danes. One interesting feature of the game night battle was more active use of cavalry. One unit in particular, Bob's Danish dragoons, got nicknamed the "Immortals" as they zinged about from one spot to the next in a series of engagements. Fate (and the Madgeburg Cuirassiers) finally put an end to their run. There were also some effective cavalry encounters on the Danish side. These weren't "Napoleonic" in nature, however, but seemed more like a series of special cases where  circumstances presented themselves for cavalry to exploit (isolated batteries, wavering infantry, that sort of thing). Nevertheless, I'll keep an eye out to see how the cavalry works in future games. To some extent, there was some rustiness among players about Volley and Bayonet  (it's been awhile since we've played it), which accounts for some of the "friction" that happened on the table, plus we are all adjusting to the different feel for mid-century, Battalion-scale Volley and Bayonet vs the brigade-level, Napoleonic model everyone is so well versed in.

Nevertheless, it was a good time and the scenario seems to be pretty sound (I'll post it as well once I get the page up).  Thanks to the players, and apologies on not having a report on the game night.  In other news, I've finally gotten back on the painting track, so I should have a post on some Austrian Jagers up soon!

Excelsior!