Tuesday 9 August 2022

Lasalle: Practice game on Waterloo ridge


With our big Lasalle II day on at the Uni next Sunday, I thought I should get some solo practice in with the rules - the usual suspects will be playing Lasalle at our club night, but I am committed to our FOW #Op YULETIDE campaign...

As per our Lasalle Day player pack, each army was 230 points -  the lists I will be playing and lending on the day. For the Brits I'm lending Stuart: 2 brigades of 4 Veteran Bns each, Div Foot battery RA, Lt Cav Bde and attached RHA battery.


For my French list, 2 Bdes of infantry, one of 4 Veteran Bns, one of 4 Conscript and 2 Veterans. 


Each Bde was going to have an attached foot battery, but during this game I had a bit of an epiphany - merge the 2 together to create an extra Bde, hence an extra momentum pip! The French also had a Lt Cav Bde, but no horse guns.


The French came on in the same old way - the French guns subdued the British RA so the columns suffered less from bombardment as the RA were shooting 'shaken'.


British musketry certainly wasn't shaken though, and took its toll...


Wanting just a quick game to gallop through the game sequence, the French pressed on regardless...ganging up 2 on 1 each Bn got a +1 combat modifier. However the British line were uphill and defending the hedge, so also got a +1...


The French rolled a 6 and a 5, outscoring the hapless Brits by 13 to 8! 


The British battalion broke, and the French pressed on over the ridge...


The next assault did not go so well for the brave Grognards - best score was 10, equal to the British score...


So back across the hedge they went, taking another disruption each for good measure!
I look forward to sharing some pictures from the big day with you after next week...

6 comments:

  1. A nice action to entertain. In Lasalle, do the British regiments on either side of the impact point contribute to the defence …. for example by either by firing out at 45 degrees or adding support in the close combat?

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    1. Thanks Norm. Yes a infantry unit, normally consisting of 4 bases, can each fire out to 45 degrees. So the adjacent Bn was firing on the French with 2 bases, which for the British with their musketry advantage, was 4 extra dice, hitting on 4s. Interestingly, one of the aspects I had to check, once the first British bn was gone, was whether the unit to its side and rear could then charge the victorious French? The answer is no, a charging unit must be able to see the unit it wishes to charge, and LOS is calculated from the centre of the line, so it couldn't see past the Bn in front of it...

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    2. Very interesting difference between a UNIT (i.e. all 4 bases) being able to fire at 45 degrees and just individual BASES being able to engage within 45 degrees, I will have to check some of my rulebooks to make sure which of those the designer is relying upon. Black Powder uses front quarter, but then refines that to ‘clear target’ i.e. is the target fully in the front quarter, if not there is a modifier (as you know).

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    3. Indeed Norm. Lasalle relies upon firing by base to streamline things and differentiate unit capabilities as part of its overall elegance and streamlining. For example a base is normally only fires at units directly to its front, so there is no faffing around with angles etc, its only if there is no target to your front that you can engage up to 45d either side. Similarly, to reflect units with particular musketry (or rifle skills) those units get to roll 2 dice for the 2 flanking bases, as opposed to 1 d6 per flanking base for standard trained units...

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