Welcome to the Forum David
Yes I would say that was a pretty intense baptism of fire even by our standards. The stakes were high and the players were VERY engaged with the challenge of beating the enemy.
The thing that pleased me most was the amount of fighting we got done and the closeness of the result to reality even down to the point of certain units performing to the historical picture.
The player's exhaustion at the Fleches table and the huge number of close combats:
Infantry v infantry
Infantry v cavalry
Cavalry v cavalry
together with the relatively low level of 'musketry' marked the battle out as something a little more akin to atavistic ancients warfare that elegant Horse and Musket warfare.
The casualty rates were huge. Most non close combat casualties were caused by artillery (as is correct) but there were at least 6 instances of regiments fighting each other to annihilation without breaking from the combat..
in R2E terms this does not represent total extinction but rather extinction of combat effectiveness via casualties, fatigue, disorder, broken weapons and lack of leadership.
As one of the Umpire team I was knackered at the end and felt like I had been in a fight!
Congrats to the players:
Bold French attacks and oh so gritty Russian defence!