General d'Armee trial game.

Having moved house back to the Settle area last summer it has taken some time to be able to meet up with many of my old pals due to covid and lockdown. A couple of weeks ago I finally met up with Ian, Howard and Phil for a few drinks (well actually a few drinks too many) and by the end of the night the Settle and District  (SaD) Wargamers were formed. We used to game together in our late twenties, early thirties; we are somewhat older now! Our first game was planned, 15mm Napoleonics using the General d'Armee rules in early June. 

Move forward to today and Howard invited me round  for a quick trial game of General d'Armee so that we could try the rules out prior to our 4 player game next week. Oh the joy of being retired so that you can just pop round for a game at a moments notice. We were using Howards very splendid collection of 15/18mm Napoleonics. The entire collection comprises of AB and Battle Honours figures, both cracking ranges of figures despite the size difference. The idea was that as the British, I had to hold the line and prevent Howards more numerous French from breaking through...whilst actually learning the rules. 

The British Line

The French about to advance. 

The main area of interest was on my right flank where Howard was able to assign his ADC's well and advance at a very rapid rate. This French attack took us through rules for artillery and musket fire, use of skirmishers, rockets and how to work through a charge. My valiant British managed to repulse Howards first attack, captured in the photo's below. 

Sadly we ran out of time to play any further but we do feel that with a bit more reading we will be ready for our 4 player game next week. It was great fun and the first of hopefully many games.