Valour and Fortitude - 1809 French/Bavarians vs. Austrians

My buddy hosted another one of his 1809 Campaign games this evening. This time using Valour and Fortitude for rules. I only played the first version once, a couple of years ago - also hosted by my buddy, and also an 1809 Campaign scenario. For this evening's game, none of the eight players were very familiar with the rules - including my buddy who GM'd - as it was the first time using the updated version of the rules. I'm sure we missed a few things, but overall the game ran pretty smoothly. I ran two brigades of French infantry on the right flank. Another player on the same flank ran a couple of French/Bavarian cavalry brigades - one light and one medium. The other two players on our left flank and center ran Bavarian brigades. I think our left was getting battered by the Austrians, but our right flank did pretty well. The cavalry ended up destroying an Austrian Lancer regiment, and my French infantry destroyed the Austrian's best infantry brigade holed up in a village. As for the rules, they were fun to play - but again, I relied heavily on the GM and a few of the players who were reading up on the rules during game play. I pretty much got the basics down and ran with it. One thing that is unlike some of the other rules I'm familiar with is the firing phase being first; and once that unit has fired it cannot be activated to do anything else. I think skirmisher are an exception and can activate after firing, I think. There was something about not being able to fire at the same target with another unit - if I recall correctly.  Anyway, here are some photos from the game - all the figures and terrain are my buddy's. I may have mentioned it in previous posts, but for Napoleonics, he is only interested in the 1809 Campaign and has a huge collection for it.

My two French infantry brigades assualting the Austrians in the building/village. It had to be more than a building as an Austrian brigade occupied the area. The rules only allow one unit to melee an enemy, but can have supporting units for more attack dice. The average number of melee dice was 4 (before mods being added), and 3 for shooting.

French Chasseurs in melee with Austrian Lancers. They fought it out several times during the game - the Lancers eventually being routed.

Overall the game seemed to play even faster than Black Powder - that is, units break pretty quickly, especially in melee. Like Chain of Command, I don't mind playing these rules, but will likely only play it if someone else is hosting/running the game. I still like Black Powder over it, as I do Bolt Action over Chain of Command. The thing is, most folks I game with here hate (or strongly dislike) Black Powder and Bolt Action. Maybe it's because I'm not too worried about the "realism" that may be lacking in these games which others are looking for in a set of rules. In any case, thanks for checking out the blog and hope you all are doing well.