It is May so Shaun and I decided to refight the Cinco de Mayo battle, Puebla, using Bloody Big Battles.
We used Vincent Tsao's scenario and took the map from Tim Tilson's Colonial Campaigns book Maximilian in Mexico. Shaun took the role of Major-General Charles de Lorencz, commander of the French army and I was General Ignacio Zaragoza, Republican Mexican Army of the East
The table looking east on Turn 1.
The Mexicans are deployed awaiting the French arrival from the north-west
The table looking west.
Turn 3 and the French assault La Ladrillera occupied by the remnants of the Rifle Battalion whilst Mexican general, and future president, Porfirio Diaz looks on from the top of the building.
Turn 3 and the French exploit through La Ladrillera as their offensive fire obliterated the defenders and overrunning the Mexican general, and future president, Porfirio Diaz.
Turn 6 and the assault on Fort Guadalupe starts.
Still Turn 6 and all of the fort's defenders, the Zapadores and the Toluca Btns, have been forcibly evicted. Can the 3 base Fijo de Vera Cruz battalion swing about and save the day?
The 3 base Fijo de Vera Cruz battalion swung about and fired into the flank of the 1/1st Chasseurs a Pied to no effect. On Turn 7 they were assaulted and, having lost 2 bases, destroyed. In the middle centre the Zapadores are about to get overrun, bottom centre and the San Luis Rifles are going to get pushed back from the rifle pits, and, finally top centre the 2/2nd Colonial Marines fail to move against the La Ladrillera artillery battery.
The last turn shows the French rolling up the Mexicans on the ridge but too far away to take Fort Loreto. Meanwhile the 2/2nd Colonial Marines gaze glumly at the open road to Puebla having destroyed the La Ladrillera artillery battery. but again failing to roll to move.
This view shows the French right flank which suffered from poor movement dice and only saw combat when the Mexican cavalry obligingly charged them on the last 2 turns.
At it stands it was a draw but if we had played another turn then the French would have captured Puebla. Besides the Mexican force had lost over 50% of it's infantry units and half it's guns and cavalry. The French, on the other hand, lost 2 bases of infantry. So no Cinco de Mayo celebrations for the Mexicans.
99% of the figures are QRF / Freikorps 15mm with 1% being Peter Pig or Minifigs. The keen-eyed amongst you may have noticed that some troops have been proxied. This is because some of my figures are elsewhere (I hope).
It's been just over 4 years, or 1,476 days to be precise, since I last posted anything to this blog.
Our club has moved completely online, playing Tabletop Simulator now, and we rarely "push lead" as the pub where we used to game is no longer available to us.
We have found a place over in Cirencester where we can rent a table so we've started using that. It looks like a potential future venue for a Bloody Big Battles Bash day.
Playing this game has inspired me to not leave it another 1,476 days before I blog again.
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Great to see the blog revived! And good news about Cirencester, too. Bash Day VI, 2025?
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