More 6mm Austrian Cuirassiers

Some quick painting done in the cooler hours of the day so the paint doesn't dry on the brush!

Two regiments of 6mm MDF Austrian cuirassiers for the French Revolutionary Wars.  The 5th and 6th regiments. Not that you'd notice at this scale.

Figures are from Commission Figurines.

They are on 60mm x 60mm bases.

There is something peculiar going on here.  Can you spot it?

French Revolutionary Wars Cavalry

It's been a while since I added to my 6mm MDF French Revolutionary Wars collection.

After doing some reading around Jourdan's campaign in Germany, 1796, I decided that I'd like to work towards refighting the Battle of Wurzburg.  However, an inspection of the order of battles revealed that my main deficiency is in cavalry for both the French and the Austrians.

I had enough to start two Austrian cuirassier regiments and two French dragoons.

In the meantime, an order has gone off to Walt at Commission Figurines for more cavalry and, while I was at it, for troops to start putting together a Prussian army for the War of the First Coalition.

For now, here are the four units.

The Austrians first.

They are based for Volley and Bayonet rules.

Next up, two units of French dragoons.

The ones with the yellow plumes are the 20th and the ones with the pink plumes ares the 18th.

Lastly, an unlikely parade of all four regiments.

I've got a mix of 6mm and 2mm in the painting queue.  I guess that they'll give me some quick wins.

Rivoli at the Broadside Show 2025

Another year and another excellent Broadside Show.  This year the Rejects took the Battle of Rivoli to display.

The motley crew.  I'm sure some of these are on the police's most wanted list!

This post is mostly about the game.  I was umpiring and barely had a chance to step away from it all show.  For other excellent reports on the show and the game I refer you to fellow Rejects Lee's Broadside Wargames Show 2025: Show Photo Review and The Battle of Rivoli 1797 - Posties Rejects demo game at Broadside 2025 and Ray's Broadside 2025 - The Rejects on Tour - The Battle of Rivoli 1797.

Surjit carefully eyeing up the table and weighing his options.  Having led the Austrians to the Osteria Gorge twice and failed, he was determined to crack this toughest of nuts.

The Austrians advanced towards the Trombalore Heights threatening Joubert's troops deployed there.

French reinforcements start to arrive while Postie can't quite believe whatever he is seeing or hearing.

Surjit launches cavalry quickly up the gorge and clears the deployed artillery and turns to face the French light cavalry.  The Austrians have already got off to a better start.

To add to the Austrian joy, Vial's troops are being pushed back from San Marco.

Hoping to maintain pressure and hold the initiative, the Austrians rush to climb the gorge and gain access to the Rivoli plateau.

Meanwhile on the Trombalore Heights, Stuart outflanks the French defences and sends the 85th reeling off the heights.  The rest of the French position is looking precarious.

French army reserves are quickly required to form a new artillery line.

The Austrians throw cavalry into the fray.

With troops being thrown back from the heights and San Marco, the French command is trying to form a new line using reserves and Massena's arriving reinforcements.

Alas, the French guns stall the Austrians at the top of the gorge.  However, San Marco is clearly in the hands of the Imperial troops.

Caught in the act!  What sort of lunch break is this?  Ice cream guilt is written all over their faces.

The view over Rivoli shows the French beginning to form their defensive line on the plateau.  All the while, the heights are being heavily contested.

Uh oh!  Austrian troops led by Lusignan have arrived in the French rear.  Fortunately, Steve commanding Massena's division had two units to turn and face the unwelcome threat.

Massena's fresh troops steady the position at the foot of the Trombalore Heights.  With the front line units exhausted and approaching exhaustion, matters are finely balanced just as Surjit launches his best infantry at the French units trying to hold the plateau.

But with an established artillery line supported by steady infantry, the French were able to repulse the Austrian grenadiers.  With that disaster, the Austrian efforts to break out further onto the plateau ended in exhaustion.  With further French reinforcements due to arrive later, the game was called a French victory.

That was both the closest iteration and the one that most resembled the events of the actual battle.  Some slight tweaks improved the scenario and made it a game where the French really had to expend a lot of nervous energy and thought in holding off the Austrians.  Thoroughly enjoyable.

A lot of interest was shown in the game.  Especially in the 6mm MDF figures from Commission Figurines, and the 2mm buildings from Brigade Models.

With so much of my attention on the game, I barely saw much of the show.  Here are a couple of pics just to prove that I did have a quick wander around.  However, I didn't get the names of the games.

I really liked that the terrain was entirely from carpet tiles.

This one was using Lego.  I think it was called "Brickskrieg".

I also managed to come away from the show with some goodies.

I was actually given these by Postie in exchange for doing some future painting for him.

A couple of dice trays.

The rest were bought at the show's flea market.

Hussars to add to my 28mm Revolutionary Wars collection.

A box full of painted 15mm FPW. Mostly French and some Prussians.  I don't know which manufacturer. I will certainly have to rebase them.

All in all, an excellent day.  There seemed to be a lot of people there, including families and young couples.

Well done to the Milton Hundred Wargames Club on putting on another superb event.

Prep for Broadside 2025

This year the Rejects are putting on the Battle of Rivoli as their demonstration game. 

Broadside is on Saturday 14th June at Gillingham, Kent.

In preparation for the show, we are having a walkthrough this weekend.

Here are a couple of photos of the initial set up.

It will give us a chance to tweak the game and ensure everyone is able to chat with the public about the game and the history.

The Battle of Castelnuovo del Garda, 16 January 1796 - AAR

It seemed a suitable time to put on a French Revolutionary Wars game using Volley and Bayonet rules and my 6mm MDF armies.

The engagement is a "what if" set piece battle set two days after the Battle of Rivoli.  Which in this alternative universe did not take place.

The Austrians have launched an attack to break the French siege of Mantua.  Once achieved and reinforced by the large number of troops there, they are to push the French westward towards Piedmont.

Hoping to hold Alvinczy’s Austrian forces at Rivoli, General Bonaparte and his divisions, nonetheless, failed to move quickly enough to reinforce Joubert who was guarding the approaches down the river Adige.  Consequently, Joubert was compelled to withdraw his troops south and rendezvous with the forces of Generals Massena and Rey.

Thus, Alvinczy was able to complete the junction of his three columns on the Rivoli plateau.  After a day’s rest, he set the Austrian army in motion south to defeat the revolutionary Army of Italy.  As he approached Castelnuovo del Garda, Alvinczy got news of the French beginning to deploy.

Bonaparte, now certain that the approaching Austrians represent the main strike towards Mantua – not the feint that Augereau is holding back around Verona - he is determined to strike a blow against Alvinczy at Castelnuovo del Garda.

The Players and Armies:
Austrians (6 divisions)
Generals Vukassovich and Luisignan – Dan
3 artillery, 3 regiments and 3 freicorps

General Quasdanovich – Steve
5 cavalry regiments and 5 infantry regiments

Generals Liptay, Koblos and Ocksay – Ray
10 infantry regiments

plus Colin, a late addition, who would share Ray's command.

French (8 divisions plus assets)
General Joubert – Lee
8 infantry and 1 cavalry plus 3 artillery

General Rey – Stuart
3 cavalry and 3 infantry regiments plus horse artillery

General Massena – Surjit
5 infantry and 2 cavalry regiments, 1 artillery

Battlefield and Deployment
The players had their army lists and some essential rules remainders sent out a week or two before the day of battle.  They were also forewarned about deployment.  In short, they had to follow these instructions:

1.  Choose one player from their side to reconnoitre the battlefield. They had 10 minutes to sketch the battlefield; observe the enemy forces and ask questions about the terrain.

2.  The sides reconvened and had 15 minutes max. to note on their sketch maps their deployment.

3.  the two sides then had 10 minutes to simultaneously deploy their troops.

4.  Both sides rolled 1d6.  The higher scoring side went first.

So, this is how it looked with the troops waiting to be deployed.

The French to the left, Austrians to the right.

View from the French side.

... and from the Austrian side.

And this is how the armies ended up facing each other.

The Battle

From the umpires point of view this was a very busy game.  After a year since last playing these rules, the Rejects needed to (rightly) ask lots of questions. They then proceeded to stress test the umpiring as well.  All that is said because in the second half of the game I just plain forgot to take any photos in the heat of battle.

Interestingly, neither side elected to deploy a reserve despite the big movement allowances in Volley and Bayonet.  At least one player would bemoan this omission at the end of the game.

French cavalry advancing.

Both approached each other cautiously.

The Austrians on the right quickly adopted a defensive posture while their cavalry sought to turn the far flank.

This gave the French cavalry an opportunity to start harassing the Austrian left flank.

Stuart has to turn General Rey's divisions to face the threat to their flank from Quasdanovich's cavalry.

Meanwhile, the Austrian left comes under attack.

However, the French first assaults are stalled as the cavalry is thrown back.

The attacked now become the attackers as they seek to drive away the threat to their flank.

Alas, this is going to be a desperate tussle on the flank that will eventually wear down both sides.  The French commanders now start throwing the rest of their line at the Austrians.

The battle on the far Austrian right is becoming increasingly isolated as Quasdanovich's and Rey's troops grind away at each other.

As we returned to the fray after lunch, the heat of the battle meant that my camera saw no more action.  So, I will try to finish the report as concisely as possible.

On the far flank (Austrian right, French Left) Stuart and Steve continued their own engagement.  Eventually, Quasdanovich was able to induce a morale collapse on d'Hilliers division.  However, the event took an immense effort.  Stuart's last division under, Duga, was also left exhausted.  But not before inflicting enough damage to the Austrians to leave Quasdanovich ineffective as an offensive force.

On the Austrian left, sterling defensive action by Grenadiers and desperate charges left the French assault ragged and ultimately exhausted.  Though the defenders were barely any better themselves.  In the centre, the French attacks were repeatedly repulsed as the luck and valour ebbed and flowed.  In the end, the French centre was in some disarray.

So it was that the French saw two divisions exhausted and another two suffering from morale collapse.  Meanwhile the Austrian army ended with two exhausted divisions and one in collapse.

I called it a minor victory for the Austrians.  Though, on reflection, the reality of the situation was that both armies had fought themselves to exhaustion.

Afterthoughts

That was a busy and action filled game.  However, both sides were struggling with their dice rolling for most of the battle.  This possibly meant that the game was less decisive in its outcome than it might have been.  To give an example, Quasdanovich had four units onto one French.  He had 16 dice to roll and needed sixes.  He rolled and not one six!  This absence of sixes was repeated across the table for much of the game.

The pre-game "stuff" worked well and gave an initial momentum and urgency.  Plus, it was fun to see the results of faulty reconnaissance.  For example, the Austrians failed to see that the French had cavalry and based part of their deployment on that "fact" which explained their exposed left flank.

After the game, one of the Austrian commanders made the observation that they should have kept the cavalry in reserve and ready to move to wherever needed.  I think that he felt the desperation of trying to keep the flank with only the one line of troops.

Whether it was fun or challenging to play I will leave to Ray and Lee to comment in their blog reports.  I was exhausted like many of the units, but satisfied that the game was close and ebbed and flowed, and that I had not made any significant errors.