CCN: Salamanca

Josh and I did Salamanca (Attack on the French Left) tonight. One would think with that title, I'd have figured out that the Brits are attacking the French, but that's not the way I played it. In the first few moves I brought my left forward (an easy decision as all I had were Left cards) and exchanged pleasantries with the two Portuguese ("Portuguese? Let me check that. Well, there are stickers for Portuguese Heavy Cavalry, I guess they really do have them. Who knew?") Heavy Cavalry. One cavalry unit was reduced to one block, which holed up in Miranda de Azan and started inventorying the wine supply. The Portuguese infantry advanced and pushed my left back, not destroying it but rendering it ineffective.

By this point I had a couple of cards for my right, so I charged to engage the Rifles and the British light infantry, driving them back off the ridge. The Rifles continued their tradition of being a bayonet-magnet and not getting anything else done. One of my divisions chased the Greenjackets down and destroyed them, and were destroyed in turn by the British lights.

I advanced and formed line in the center; Josh advanced the Brits and they also formed line, except they had six units while I had three plus some hussars hanging around on the right. I managed to take out the Cazadores but the return fire threw back the French assault. My artillery finally got into action, firing effectively on the ridge, but it was too late to salvage the situation, and the Anglo-Portuguese right swept forward and destroyed the remnants of my left.

Final score was 6:4, although the force ratio at the end was much more in favor of the Brits than the score suggests.

Moral of the story: an impulsive attack into against an equal or more powerful enemy isn't going to fare well.