Re-run: 16.4.1808 Battle of Yppäri

A Fighting Retreat

This time I joined Marko commanding the Russian frontal assault.

I had balanced the OOB's a bit: Russians had 35 points of troops vs. 30 points for Finns.

This time we also set clear goals for winning honor points:

* Russians would get 1p. / destroyed or routed Finnish unit

* Finns would get 1p. / each unit that escapes the battle field or is NOT captured by the end of the game. See what "captured" means from the first battle report for this same scenario.

Both Joonas and Ludde has really pulled their weight in joining the painting effort and produced a 

unit of Finnish line infantry for the game:

Nylanders from Joonas

Nylanders from Ludde in the first pic, crossing the bridge.

Deployment

Finnish battle line viewing the documentation in the horizon

Joonas von Essen and Marko Trumpovich aka Major Silin ready for hostilities

Finnish troops deployed.

Standard Russian encouragement

Pretty intimidating...

Frontal "assault"

Russians arrive under the command of Anatol Sinebrychoff 

(my Russian alter ego)

but their advance is VERY slow

So the Finnish reinforcements have time to arrive

Santa and his little helper wondering the clamor of battle

Russians tactically shift focus to their left flank to 

avoid massed fire from Finns

More Finnish reserves march on

Finally an assault by Grodno hussars!

That end in a draw and the hussars pushed back, unfortunately

they are unsupported by the infantry, which is driven to wavering

by the shooting from Finnish jaegers and line infantry

Soon the withering fire from the Finns has blunted the Russian attack!

My sly character decides it's time to save his own skin and commands

his unit to retreat from the field of battle - actually fulfilling his set challenge:

do not end up in melee and survive the battle unscathed!

Russian outflank by Marjo Silin

Russian reinforcements arrived via Yppäri stream, but they

soon realized, that the main assault had already failed...

And the Finns under Commander von Essen (Joonas)

formed a solid firing line against them and to screen the not

so exhausted rearguard marching towards safety.

So Russian reinforcements moved on to looting Santa's cabin (not so historical) 

- Ensign Trumpovich SCORING his set goal / challenge.

Russian frontal assault troops watching (in relief) the Finns leaving.

Finnish retreat begins

As the scenario allowed, Finns started to pull of their forces via the road

Russian outflank force harassing the retreat

Santa pissed off!

Cossack blocking the way

River crossing

Hectic retreat to reach safety within the given time line

Cossack assault! Too little too late!

What is left from the frontal assault, total failure!

Nothing they can do to stop the Finnish rearguard from retreating...

Even the cannon makes it across the river!

And AGAIN the Finns get the cavalry reinforcement 

due to double six roll on command!

Conclusions

• This time the Finns won a very clear victory: only 2 of the Finnish units were destroyed and 7 escaped / were not captured
• My balancing shifted the game pretty dramatically - even if the Russians had more points
• My command rolls were quite bad
• We had a lot of fun and made a lot of noise!