Battle of Arcole Day One
This is a report on the playtest of a scenario I knocked up for Black Powder. The scenario involves nine French battalions in two brigades attempting to seize the bridge across the Alpone and the town of Arcole in order to allow Bonaparte's Army of Italy to execute a flanking manoeuvre to cut the line of communication of an Austrian army attempting to relieve Mantua. In reality the battle, although it has become part of the foundation myth of the French Republic as a great victory, was only a partial success for the French. The Austrian relief attempt was defeated but the Austrian army managed to extricate itself from the trap Bonaparte laid for it and was back for another go a couple of months later. In this scenario the length of the game is variable. At the end of each turn a D6 is rolled and the result deducted from a starting number of 33. This will, on average, give a game of eleven turns but this isn't certain. I elected to do this to reflect the difficulty of moving wid