Battle of Jena - STARTEX

Start locations, French in S/bottom, Prussians in N/top and left

I've had this sat on the table ready to go for a few weeks, but finally got started last night. I'm playing it a Brigade scale, so manoeuvre units are Brigade sized, and the only artillery shown are Army and Corps assets. Figure scale is 6mm (my normal Bn units in Bde sabot bases), and hex scale is 10cm hexon at ~ 300m per hex.

The rules are the "Grand Tactical" version of Steady Lads Steady. The same core mechanics but a bit of simplification and abstraction. In fact I've abstracted a bit more since its last outing, partly as a result of playing Blucher a bit. The main differences between SLS and SLS-GT are:

• Only Corps and Army guns on table as "grand batteries"
• Bde and Divisional guns as a DM 
• Skirmishers as a DM (but need a dominance to get an effect)
• Small cavalry units attached (as in Prussian Adv Gd units) cancel all skirmishers
• The Firefight and Resolve parts of the melee process are combined.
• All units assumed in Column/2 lines of Line unless Extended (occupy 2 hexes, but only 1 line), or Square
• 30min not 20min turns

On the logistical side I've also now got a slick spreadsheet to go straight from Orbat to unit labels!

The game opened with the Guard Grand Battery blazing away the Prussians W of Closewitz and the fell back before the infantry of V Corps could make contact.

V Corps advanced across its front. It took a couple of turns to remove the W most Prussian units in the woods - no melee but a succession of adverse resolve checks on the Prussians, but with the French refusing to actually close to melee (which is the way SLS is meant to work, so nice).

It also took 2 French Bde on the E to get into Closewitz, but they did close to melee and routed the Prussian defenders.

At the end of turn 3 just the remaining Prussian Bde in Luterzode to remove to establish the first French line and clear space for reinforcements. St Hilaire's Bde of Soult's IV Corps is also pushing forward to the NE of Closewitz so we're not far off on the historic timings. The Prussians are making a move to defend forward though.

Lannes prepares to take Luterzode