A playing of a smaller introductory scenario from the Austerlitz game, looking at the southern end of the battlefield around Telnitz and Sokolnitz, which sit on the Goldbach Stream.

Davout thinly spread, holds the area with the lead elements of IV Corps. The rest of the corps are off board and will arrive as reinforcements over the coming hours. The Coalition have orders to strike and take Telnitz and Sokolnitz and the dynamic of the game is whether they can do that before Davout’s numbers grow.

The game starts at 7 AM and plays for 5 turns, each representing one hour of real time.

When you play the full campaign game, there are several opening options for the Coaltition to take, but seeing the thinly spread Davout at the foot of the Pratzen Heights makes for a very inviting target, even though as the Coalition player you know that the whole of the French Corps will soon assemble and that you will struggle against them, opening the attack against Davout is just too compelling to ignore …. plus the the high victory points for that area just draw you in.

One of the fascinating things about wargaming is how individual parts of the battlefield, thanks to situation and dice can see narratives unfold that surely deserve recounting and so it is here, with the tenacious (in our game) Tirailleurs du Po.

They are a small unit of 308 Italian soldiers, allied to the French. As the French centre at the Goldbach suddenly starts to look like a potential crisis point, this small unit works its way across the northern arm of the stream into wooded ground that sits in a loop of water.

The position is good, proof against cavalry, with terrain that protects against both infantry assault and gun fire. Further, the troops are classed as light and so get a +1 bonus to their own fire.

So what can be hoped for from this small unit? A desperate stand, soon to be brushed aside perhaps!

The first assault is launched by a single powerful column (stack) of infantry, but the Tirailleurs Defensive Fire, sends that column routing off into the distance (in the photo,  the red arrow).

The shock to the Coalition caused Dokhturov to make a much better prepared attack (3 attack stacks - the white arrows in the photo), preceded by artillery fire. Despite the overwhelming numbers and taking heavy fire (flipped to the weaker side), the small band of Tirailleurs held out for another two hours, by which time, Davout had brought enough support up to the centre position to keep it secure from breakthrough.

On another day, our dice would be less lucky and we wouldn’t get our little story of a little unit bravely battling to save the Corps!

By mid-point in the game, it was looking a tough uphill struggle for the Coalition, but surprisingly towards the end, the castle and Telnitz fell to them, as each side worked to feed enough troops into the fray, but as the clock ticked down, the Coalition were not left with enough time to turn that into a victory (at best scoring 14 Victory Points from the needed 18) - Davout had held on for long enough and the battle would be decided in other parts of the field.

Just released by Vae Victis, this module called Two Years of Glory, covers the battles of Jena-Auerstedt (1806) and Eylau & Friedland (1807), which is an absolute bonza bundle of battles for the napoleonic fan.

The game comes with 4 maps, 3 ½ counter sheets, plus rules and scenario book, written in dual language (French / English). Units are brigades and regiments, the hexscale is 500 metres and the time scale is 1 turn covers 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Eylau with its snowy landscape map grabs my immediate attention, is a 10 turn game, though I note it has a morning only scenario lasting 5 turns and i might give that an early go, just to see whether the game can fit into a single play session.

There are some rather nice CAM counters that bring a touch of flavour to each of the battles, they seem a bit more inventive than others that I have come across.