Tonight's game saw us using Napoleonic figures as proxies.
The above pic was from several turns in. By this time, a few hits has been delivered by artillery, including some successful counter-battery fire, close combat between Horse ended with the elimination of a few squadrons, and the British sub-general had just bought his farm, causing three battalions to go shaken.
This time, we had four players, two per side, with 20 units per army. As I do not yet have terrain for woods/forests, we had some hills to mix up the battlefield appearance, but that was it.
Three of the players were new to this version of the rules, with one never having played BLB before.
Player comments centered around the brutality of combat, compared to past experience, with the cavalry being pretty well used up by game end.
We did have quite a few morale checks, with a large percentage as failures. Two generals were killed, one per side, with the British side suffering 3 shaken results, and the French 1.
As there were more close combat fights, this game, we had about 10 disruptions that had to be dealt with.
For combat results, the most effective fire of the night was a 6 casualty volley; the least effective was 0 casualties for five dice rolled.
Close combat results ended up with a difference of 10 wiping out a full squadron of Horse. The few close combat casualties were the result of a difference of one, with 2 and 3 casualties for winner and loser, respectively.
The experienced players liked the speed of combat, with the more telling results.
A comment was made about the extra brittleness of cavalry. We discussed this at length and came up with the following change:
1) Horse moves and charges three hexes. During charge moves, wheels by Horse are free, but the move to contact must be straightforward.
We felt that the three hex, as opposed to two, move gave Horse a chance to remain at extreme musket range prior to declaring a charge. It is hoped that this slight change will give Horse a little more life.
We dis mull over reducing infantry musketry dice to one, from three, or to increase the base chance to hit to 5+, but we ended up rejecting those options.
The plan is to play again, next week, and ponder over how to handle dragoons.