A bridge too far! Spain 1809

A tidy little battle using Sharp Practice at the club Border Reivers today, John and Mick taking the Brits while I burdened the poor French with my presence!
The French objective was to get the demolition squad, a rickety cart pulled by a white cow with a hump on it's back pulling two barrels of powder and some very dubious Spanish hired help, to the bridge and blow the poop out of it. This would prevent the British army (at least temporarily) from using the road for supplies.
The British on the other hand needed to secure the said bridge for themselves or face Sir John Moore's wrath.

The French main deployment point was just to the right of the church tower with a secondary deployment point to the left of the picture in some heavy woods. The red British deployment point can be seen at the top of the photograph in the village while the bridge is in the centre.

The first turn saw about four French units deployed without one Brit getting onto the table, mutters of cheating bastard could be heard from the two commanders on the far side of the room as I was drawing the chits from the bag! So this meant that I got thoroughly carried away sending my French grenadiers racing off up the road and lining them up covering the bridge while the wagon full of blowy up stuff plodded on behind.

Ready and waiting you shop keeping beef eaters!

Of course along came the British and proceeded to blow the shit out of my grenadiers with steady volley fire supported by skirmishing light infantry on the flanks.

My supports in the form of more grenadiers and voltigeurs eventually arrived but by then the main force in the centre had been well and truly hammered with it's level three commander reduced to a level one having suffered two light wounds.

As can be seen in the top shot this maelstrom had done it's work and the centre force had had enough, crucially though I managed to get them back out of harms way before they broke. This will be one of the deciding factors in the game as my force morale was dropping dangerously low. (Black die - casualties, red die - shock.)

With the British line and 95th occupied slaughtering the remaining grenadier force which had had the temerity to charge them in the rear (don't do that to a British infantryman, it just makes him angry) and wiping out some sacrificial voltigeurs my sneaky Spanish accompanied by a French engineer  and the two barrels of powder managed to get onto the bridge. Needing an eleven to complete the task I threw a nine on the dice roll and finished the job next turn.
Oh I say hard luck old chaps said I, did I bollocks, I couldn't say anything for laughing! John and Mick shook hands and vowed revenge next time.
A cracking game as always with these rules, we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Buildings by Empires at War Mick's business.
Dave.