Clotted LARD - The attack at Codogno

This post is mostly a photo dump of the game I ran at Clotted Lard this year. 

It was set in Italy in 1796 and was part of Napoleons famous Italian campaign.

The battle at Codogno itself was a confused affair that came in the aftermath of the battle of Fombio, where the Austrains counter attacked during the night and is famous for General LaHarpe being killed in the street, possibly from the fire of his own troops.

I decided to set the game in the late afternoon before the battle with a force of Austrians attempting to move up and join the counterattack towards Codogno. Unfortunately the hamlet they have to pass through  has been occupied by a fast moving column of French.

We played the game twice during the day with two very different results.

The main issue that the Austrians had was the French Cannon that dominated the main road through the centre of town. The difficulty was that road was flanked by a walled field and a Vineyard meaning that these had to be overcome before the town could be bypassed. 

In the first game, the French lights deployed in the Field but then moved to the vineyard in order to harass the advancing Hungarian Fusiliers. This gave the Hungarians a tempting target who then charged across the vines and threw the French back. This caused panic amongst the French players an they tried to swing the cannon round to deal with the Hungarians, only to be charged by the Austrian Dragoons as they bombed down the road.

The second game saw a similar deployment from the French but the Lights were swiftly backed up by the Grenadiers. The cannon was much more dominant and hit the Hungarians with a Crashing Volley that crippled them with shock quite early on. It was then moved further to the rear of the town so that it could cover the approaches to the far side of the town. This made the Austrians incredibly gun shy for the rest of the game.

We had a fantastic day and it was brilliantly organised by the Great Bob Connor. Next year the mantle has been handed to me, I hope I cam live up to Bob's expectations!

Cheers!