2025 Hammfilade Saturday - GDC Battle of Logovo (pt 4 - Right flank [main event])

 

 

My knowledge of what happened on the right flank (of the spano-russians) is spotty at best. It was ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE TABLE. Also, it wast narrow at times to pass people.

 

 The French cleverly overloaded this flank (already owning the flank by a wrap around deployment). The Spano-Russians dropped their redoubts here, anchored the hinge at the Onion domed orthodox church, and loaded up this side with a infantry heavy, cav poor force. 

 

 

UNFORTUNATELY the corp was built of brittle units (2 strength points vs 3), this meant that in most cases each stand/division was gone after one serious fight. 

Almost immediately the Spanish were ejected from the church (cue jokes about orthodox vs catholics). The church was now a traffic issue rather than a hardpoint.   

 

Steady pressure from the hordes of French dismantle the first redoubt at the hinge. French certainly had an impressive artillery concentration on the flank, were they had placed their guard corp. 

 

 

 

 

 

 Pushing through the opening they begin to 'pinch' the second redoubt. Cleverly they have chosen to hammer a line of troops along the table baseline (damn the flanks!). I'm not sure if it was a conscious choice or a morale check that had the spanish pulling back further. 

 

 

 

Already the Russian reserve under Miloradovich (guard equivalent) is reacting to the pressure on the right and repositioning guns and troops.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pressure from the centre has created a challenge to do this. The cavalry reserves (2 corp) are moving to the centre as well, to hopefully allow Miloradovich to pivot right.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The lone redoubt holds, but not for much longer. The Russians were surprised, (but probably shouldn't have been) that when they were lost all their corp suffered a morale step loss. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At last the mess is somewhat cleaned up. There's a fighting lull as both sides are tidying lines. Troops continue to die under the steady cannon bombardment however. 

It's subtle (not many units left), but the Spanish vaporize due to a failed morale check. Across the table the players are all starting to try and pick off weakened units and shakey corp to try and degrade army wide morale. It's getting dicey even for mostly intact corp. 

  The armies are largely pivoting to form an 'east-west' front vs the original 'north-south'. There isn't a single corp on the table that isn't at risk of routing on a bad roll (1 in 3 for most, 1 in 6 for the 'healthy' ones). 

The french on their right (closest) are looking at a push by artillery, cavalry, and 2 corp across the river against their Line of communication. The defenders are present...but worn. 

 

On the french left they have a lot of weak troops and reorganization to effect before pushing onto the relatively fresh ressian guard supported by a strong artillery park. Tough sledding there.  

An extended rule discussion (this is why the rules change every year) derails us for a while. We all agree that this is, truly, a bloody draw.  No commander is interested in advancing their worn forces and breaking/routing their whole corp. It's not particularly surprising as the forces were intentionally strength matched at the beginning (actual composition was what we varied on, but each unit had a duplicate on the enemy potential roster). You'd need to be an insane commander (or a wargamer) to go ahead with this meeting engagement. 

It appeared our three new players had a good time, and certainly the regulars did. We likely will have a game/table setup at enfilade 2026 (now in Tacoma).