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| Start of the game. Eylau is represented by the yellow church in the middle |
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| Showing James' fine work. He did these French AND a Russian command! |
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| Murat's huge heavy horse command. Murat is the single horseman in the centre. DaveB's nicely painted Imperial Guard is in the background. |
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| Looking upon the Russian Right/French Left flanks |
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| Showing Davout (commanded by myself) coming onto the battlefield near the village of Serpallen only to be stopped by a good defence by Ostermann (MarkS) and reinforcements coming in. |
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| Showing late in the battle with the Russians advancing with infantry and artillery. |
I debated whether to add sandstorms (rather than snowstorms) add/or downgrade the Russian command and combat abilities, but in the end did not add any variations. Probably should have.
One result is the Russians actually saw how few French were in front of them and immediately advanced. By not lowering their maneuver pips and thus they moved at uncharacteristic speed for the Russians of this era. Using group moves (the now banned after game casual debate over lunch and beers), they managed to move troops to the beleaguered left flank to which Davout (myself) was attacking. My attack along with all the other French commanders were stymied by the good Russian commanders.
Lestocq (and yes that is the spelling; and no, I have no idea how to pronounce; we went with "la-stock") the lone Prussian finally entered at the historical time and immediately started marching toward the French. However it was clear even at that point that the French were done and the Corps Morale rolls were starting to affect the outcome in any event (as they should)
It was a bad day for the French and our first a-historical result using the rules. Should have gone with the original plan. Must revisit this battle with such changes and see if the result will be different and, as interestingly, a historical one.
Nevertheless the game was a good one and as the players are now well familiar with the rules, the game chugged along at a good pace. We had 95 elements on the table, with 9 players and concluded the affair in one time slot.
Thanks to all the players and to those who contributed the time and effort in painting and basing your figures for the game.