Historicon: Battle of Ruschuk

Here are some photos of a game I played in on Saturday: The Battle of Ruschuk. This little scrap too place in 1811, between the Turks and the Russians. It is an aspect of the Napoleonic wars I know nothing about. The Turks basically came to the battle with a medieval army, a really big medieval army. The Russias found themselves heavily outnumbered by an army of significantly poor quality. You know, the role they usually play.

The battle was fought with 28mm soldiers using Shako II rules. I'm new to Shako, but they were easy enough to pick up. I learned how devastating artillery can be to densely packed units. On the whole, though, the rules came easily and the game moved along swiftly. We pretty much cleared this table of lead in under four hours.



Anyhow, the Turks began the battle with an insane amount of cavalry. Mind you, they were going up against Russians already formed into squares, so they didn't last long. In fact, after turn 4, the only Turkish equine left on the battlefield was the donkey pulling our baggage train...!


The Turkish infantry had a tough slog then into the Russian lines without much cavalry support. In retrospect, we should have coordinated our assault better, holding the cav back for two turns or so. Then our problem would likely have been crowd control.



Anyhow, the Turks marched to the slaughter, and it looked like it was a hopeless cause until we got to the inevitable "Well what would have happened if we played on" stage of the game. Based on the outcome of a few hypothetical dice rolls, the Russian center would have collapsed and we would have ended up achieving our main objective! Crazy.

Anyhow, a big thanks to Dave Reiners and his friends for setting this one up. The figures were gorgeous, the scenario was challenging for both sides, and I had a blast.