Shakos and Bayonets-The Final Hour

For our last club games night, I put on a game of Shakos and Bayonets, a Napoleonic variant of Muskets and Tomahawks. I have had the rules since they came out but this is the first chance I have had to play them. When I sold my 28mm Napoleonics, I kept back several figures to play skirmish Napoleonics. I initially planned to play Sharpe Practice, but I have to say I enjoy Muskets & Tomahawks a bit more. My figure collections in respect to manufacturer is quite varied and includes Front Rank, Perry, Victrix and Alban's well as some from Westfalia Miniatures, a Montreal based figure manufacturer. 

Contained within these figures, are some French ligne, léger as well as dismounted Dragoons. On the allied side, there are British line, both the 95th and 60th Rifles, as well as Hanoverian and Brunswick Jagers. Quite a mix, I have also added a few personality figures from the Brigade Games Napoleonic line, some of which I have yet to paint including Major Ducos and Major Hogan. I have already painted Sharpe, Harper, Major Dunnett, Captain Frederickson as well as Obadiah Hakeswill and Colonel Simmerson. 

Here is the OB with the traits of  the specific units spelled out. With this and the QRS, you really need little else to play the game.

In the rulebook, there were some great looking scenarios but where this was our first game I went with scenario 2: The Final Hour. I acted as games master while David and Julian were the players, while Graham also showed up to keep us all in line. He is probably most familiar with the ruleset having just put on 2 Musket and Tomahawk games at Historicon. 

This was a very interesting scenario with the game being set around the end of a large battle where one side has lost, with the remnants of their troops trying to flee the battle to relative safety. The victorious side has ordered some of their troops to go in pursuit and cut them off. If you look at the table above the French (the pursued) are fleeing from the top of the photo to the safety of the bottom of the table. They are exiting a small Spanish village with many stone walls, as well as an olive grove and some rocky ground. The scenario is set up with the defenders all on the table and the Allied forces appearing at a random deployment point either behind, or to the sides of the French. I thought this was quite a clever mechanic. David played the French while Julian played the Brits.

Some Action Photos

This looked like quite a fun game and I cannot wait to play it myself. Some of the action now escapes me, but there was a lot of back and forth and both players did a nice job, we did reach a conclusion on the second deck with the pursuers being judged the victors. Well played all around.