Historicon 2006 After Action Report, Part 2 - Friday

Friday we had the free breakfast at the hotel and headed over to the dealer's area for some more shopping. I didn't buy much this year - some more of the great "Russian" field works with stakes from Merrimack/OG Shipyards plus a bridge there, a bunch of Sash and Saber 25mm Napoleonic Artillery pieces to complete the last of my planned artillery, some dice, and 2 pack camels for when I eventually start on my small Portuguese African Colonial force; also a few 2nd hand Ospreys at the Flea Market on Sunday.

Joe again helped me unload all the materials from the car for my FoB battle, "Davout's Attack at Wagram, 1809". Dan Beattie also assisted me with the setup and some loaner artillery batteries (see why I needed the Sash and saber stuff? - a pity they haven't done much more with their 28mm lines due to the success of their 40mm ones), and also assisted as GM. I have to say, I think the table looked very nice - no foamcore, but the Geohex ridge, buildings, streams, roads, and bridges plus the trees lining the Russbach stream and the Onion dome church at Markgrafneufsiedl lent the game a very Austrian flavor.

The 2PM game had a mix of Piquet veterans (including Herman and Tony Gulotta) and newbies, but everyone seemed to catch on to the rules quite quickly. Dan and I made a slew of mistakes with the rules (only the second game I've run with them), but it didn't really matter. The French Grand Battery ("corps artillery reserve") was awesome - maybe a bit too much so, as I think we flubbed the rules a bit there. The game ended after about 4 hours as the Austrians ran out of Morale chips and their left flank was being turned by the French cavalry reserve. Most of the players had 2 commands instead of one as planned, so that slowed things down a bit.

Brent had asked me to run the game again a second time Saturday night as an insider game, so I had foolishly agreed. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't reserve the same table, but had to sign up for the same table, but had to register for one at the Con. I got another one in the Showroom, but we still had to take it all down and set it up again. Joe and I grabbed a pretty decent, quiet dinner at the restaurant at the host before returning to set up and run the game again. With 5 players a side, we ran just 5 commands on each side, and I was the tenth player. I had ? Friant's Divisions and Dan had Arrighi's Cuirassiers, while Jonathan to my right had ? Morand and the fellow to my right had Montbrun's Light Cavalry division. On our far left, I think it was Terry Shockey with Gudin, opposed by Andy Cowell. The Austrians pretty much fought the French infantry to a standstill, but Dan with the Cuirassiers turned their flank and sealed the fate of the White Menace, who surrendered after the Army Morale Check card was turned with them having lost all their chips and failing their roll, requiring 3 of their 5 commands to withdraw. This game was a lot of fun to play, and moved along swiftly. We were all done by about midnight, with the game having started at about 9PM. Andy and the rest of the crew helped us take down and cart everything back to the car, and then it was back to the hotel for a cooling shower and some wind down reading before the sleep of contented exhaustion set in...

Above, FoB author Brent Oman supervising operation pack-up after the action!

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Page Last Updated On: 18 Aug 2007