Determined to get closure, Stefan (Austrians) and I (French) played on.
End of 1430 and Napoleon has returned.
The Austrians are now in Castel Ceriolo,
and it will not be long before Marengo is wiped clean
of its French defenders.
Austrian cavalry is rampaging across the countryside.
End of 1600 and Desaix has arrived.
The French are hunting down the marauding Austrian cavalry.
End of 1730 and the final French reinforcement has arrived.
Victor has been pulled back after the threatening Austrian cavalry has withdrawn.
His corps along with Murat are fatigued.
The Austrians also have a lot of fatigued troops, who have been left back at Marengo.
Castel Ceriolo has fallen to the Austrians and is being occupied by Zack's grenadiers.
As the French advance the Austrians launch a stalling attack.
This is followed up by yet another even more massive cavalry assault by the Austrians at 1900.
The Austrians follow up with an infantry assault,
It fails badly and the Austrian morale is broken,
but not hopelessly.
The French just need to disperse one more Austrian unit to fully break their morale and win.
Desperate the French throw in the Consular Guard.
In future echoes of Waterloo,
the clash with the Austrian line goes horribly wrong and they are wiped out.
Hoping for a draw Napoleon commits his last unfatigued unit.
But the Austrians were ready and sweep down on the French cavalry.
There was still a slim chance of success, but it all spluttered out.
The French army was hopelessly broken.
Observations
4th Ed self-rally used (but I failed to remember that a 10 causes an additional rout) 10.3 page 79.
4th Ed self-command gives cavalry plenty of scope as even if they fail, they still have a half move 10.4 page 80.
Artillery is essential in clearing BUAs. Perhaps range rules should be used, along with weight of shell for impact on BUA (as in close range shouldn't benefit from canister). As it is the OOB for artillery is a bit problematic as is the treatment by Napoleon's Battles rules in only depicting horse artillery and corps level foot batteries.
The small units are very brittle.
Using extra stands for maintaining track of casualties and command label is of mixed value. I think best if part of the unit's bases and then using an extra maker to show formation if needed.
I think I might look at an OOB based on the 3rd Edition unit sizes.
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