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On Friday 28th and Saturday 29th of October I helped run a game at New Buckingham. It was based on the final French attack at Talavera in Spain, 1809.
This was the third time I have run this game at the club but the first time using Shako II as the rule set, the previous two games were played using Black Powder.
The area we covered for this game was from the Spanish 5th infantry division in the northern valley, south to the join between the Spanish 3rd and 4th divisions.
So how did the game go? not too well for the British. The centre brigade of 1st Division failed to stand up from prone in time, despite warnings, and were run down by French dragoons while the Guards brigade to their right suffered from attacks from multiple French columns and supporting artillery.
To the south after some staunch defending the Spanish were forced from the wall line by Leval’s division, the French having ignored the Pajar redoubt.
In the north Bassecourt’s Spanish held, repelling several assaults from Ruffin’s division, while in the valley the British and Spanish cavalry got the better of their French adversaries and even destroyed some artillery.
But with the British centre gone Wellesley would have had no option but to withdraw so we called the game at this point as a french victory and prime example of combined arms usage.
On my blog I cover much more about setting up this game including OOBs and scenario specific tweaks we made and provide copies of my OOBs and layout map.
Cheers Tony.
@Roundie, We have played the battle twice using BP and once using Shako. The first BP game had a very similar result to the Shako game, the second game the brits and spanish rolled better and tried different tactics.
Initially I was not a fan of Shako but as myself and others became familiar with them and we got less random variation/interpretation of the rules I find I like them more. I still play BP and there are a few things that BP allows you to do that I haven’t found a way to replicate in Shako yet.
Our club also does Waterloo using Shako in 28mm with every unit represented.
So the rules definitely work for the big games and battles and the majority at the club prefer Shako to BP. We do have some house rules that we have collectively agreed upon to tweak areas we think could be improved / done differently.
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