Fontenoy 1745

After several weeks playing the hypothetical Melle scenario from BAR Fontenoy, David and I set up the Fontenoy historical scenario from Vae Victis' The Victories of Marshal De Saxe. to play on our next gaming night.

My poor Allied force took a good beating in our Melle game, particularly after David's Normandie regiment recovered from a string of disordered results, returned fire on the Royal North British after they'd fired a volley, and then fired off a combined volley from four battalions as the RNBs tried to retreat. Losing four hundred casualties in one turn was too much for them and the battalion just disintegrated! While I had some cavalry around the French left and might have been able to cause some trouble with it, I didn't see any real path to a British victory and we decided to try the Vae Victis game.

Anglo-Dutch and French armies poised to clash at Fontenoy

The heart of the British force, Ligonier's infantry backed by Campbell's cavalry. Ingoldsby is detached on the right, hopefully, to do a better job than he did historically,

The French right anchored an Antoing. While the counters are a bit thin the art on them and the map is very nice. I like that I can tell regiments apart just from the uniform art. That kind of detail is important to this period.

David has again taken the French, and in a nicely fortified position, too. I'm going to have to rely less on British infantry quality in a frontal assault this time than I did in our Melle game if I hope to pull this off.