Now, I only have two units of eight Contra-guerillas, twelve Republican guerrillas, and a few assorted Leaders. Could I possibly make a working scenario out of so few figures?
I'm currently reading La Contra-Guerilla Francaise au Mexique: Souvenirs des Terres Chaudes by General de Kémtry and as far as my schoolboy French can determine, there was an interesting little action near the beginning of contra-guerilla operations that would probably work.
In March 1862 Colonel du Pin's men marched into the dense forests around Vera Cruz to attack the guerrilla stronghold of Tlaliscoya. At one point they engages in a firefight across an apparently impassible river gorge. For the game I posited the idea of a small portion of the main column getting separated in the dark and landing up in the same situation but on a smaller scale.
The Contras start with a unit of skirmishers (6 men and a Level 1 Leader sergeant) and part of the main column (8 man contra-guerilla infantry unit with a Level 2 Leader lieutenant). Opposing them over the river gorge are two groups of Republican skirmishers with similar leaders.
I made the table simply by positioning four of my 2 foot squares with a gap in the middle to represent the gorge. Each side a Deployment about 12 inches back from the river. Both sides would be able to recycle casualties as soon as they had enough to form a whole new unit.
In addition the Contras had a Moveable Deployment Point that started adjacent to the main point. It could be moved as usual until it reached the riverbank. After that it would take 4 command cards to move across the river. This was to represent some other Contra stragglers finding a previously undetected crossing point.
The initial clash was between the Contra skirmishers and unit of Republicans hiding behind some bushes.
Then another groups of guerrillas appeared...
As casualties (and shock) began to mount, the other Contra unit arrived, led by the brave Lieutenant Lebrun.
Lebrun's men unleashed a volley at the righthand unit of Republicans and inflicted some serious shock...
The next volley was even more effective, killing a couple of guerrillas and lightly wounding their officer Don Diego Gomez. However a random event saw a pall of dense powder smoke settle across the main unit's front.
I decided to move the Contra main unit left into the space recently vacated by the skirmishers, who'd been forced to pull back.
This proved entirely the wrong thing to do. Faced by two guerrilla units the new Contra group took enough casualties to force it to withdraw. It fell back through the skirmishers giving them more shock and causing them in turn to rout. And so it went with the two Contra units successively falling back through each other and causing further fallbacks etc etc etc...
Victory to the Republic!
7 comments:
I seem to recall in another TFL Sharp Practice posting that two groups do not continuously fall back through each other. It happens just the once.
Thanks Siggian, I'd not seen that and while an infectious rout seemed entirely feasible in the circumstances, I could see how this would really ruin your day in a full-sized game with the resulting repeated rolls on the Bad Things Happen table really eating into your Force Morale.
Great to the game in action after hearing so much about it on Sunday. Look forward to more stories from Mexico
Cheers, Sheddo!
Sheddo! LOL How's the hand?
Still swollen but the coloured bruising's mostly gone. Do have a spectacular bruise on my upper thigh! No photos as Google may decide it's "adult content"!
Bit risque eh?
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