Peninsular diversion

I felt that I needed a wargame over the weekend. I am isolating between my Covid-19 test on Saturday and my eye operation tomorrow. I had quite a lot else to do at home so it needed to be a quick set up and play game.

With the inspiration of Military History Matters magazine I decided to revisit the Battle of Corunna, last played with Airfix soldiers in about 1970. I remembered that this was a scenario included with the Commands and Colors Napoleonics base game, so I dug it out of the loft and set to.

I had to relearn the rules, which are quite a bit different from the American Civil War version played with friends over the August bank holiday weekend.

After a shaky start the British force drew some lucky cards enabling them to advance to the village of Elviña in the centre and set up a stout defence which repulsed every French attack across the stream to their front.

Towards the end of the game the French managed a cavalry charge on their left flank, forcing the British into square. A nice touch in the rules is that for every infantry unit which forms square you temporarily lose one randomly selected command card from your hand.

The French cavalry did seem to be gaining the upper hand, but the British, using their superior firepower, destroyed the last two French units attacking in the centre and won the game.