Fuentes De Onoro 1811, a la Featherstone

by parallels · August 15, 2025

I have decided to pick this battle after reading the Emperor Press volume on the Peninsular War battles from D. Featherstone. His group was not able to play the battle as they wished, and the writer admits that the game was not very successful. He makes suggestions about how it should be, so my plans are to take all his suggestions, his order of battle, a very bath-tubbed one, and give it a try with my old good friends in Rome.

We will use “Shadow of the Eagles”, with the amendments from the author and mine.

I plan to put some events in the game:

the appearance of (and disappearance) of spanish guerrilla in the village of Sanchez or in the wood, player choice. At the beginning of the game, they appear on 1D6=4-6. When they come under fire, they may decide to flee by throwing 1D6=5-6 every move they are under stress.
The disappearance of the Horse Grenadiers from the field after their first commitment in battle. After their first charge, they may retire from the field on D6 = 1-2. throw also after all subsequent charges. A messenger from Bessieres starts from the table edge, with the retire order and when it reached the Horse Grenadiers, they will start retiring. Independent unit.
The appearance of a Guard artillery battery, one base. It was requested by Massena to Bessiéres but it never came. It may arrive from move 3, on 1D6=5-6. It starts from the french table edge, as close to the Horse Grenadiers as possible, Independent unit, it will retire together with the Horse grenadiers.
The brigade which place the role of the 7th division should be made of raw units, they were all just arrived from England and suffered by some indiscipline.
The french morale follows the suggestions of the author, average, apart from the grenadier battalion and light units, which would be veteran, average the cavalry. All french units may deploy as light battalions.

Remember that most artillery batteries should be occupy the space of 2 bases. If depicted as two bases, in any case they fire as one “unit”.
Wellington and Massena should be inspiring generals, but they might not sleep well, so I will throw dice as in the rules suggestions. All general will also throw on capabilities table.
To give more chances, I would have one British cavalry, veteran and three cavalry units, average, plus the Horse grenadiers, veteran, in the game.
The map should be as shown in the Emperor Press book, as Featherstone wished but never managed to have a large table space for that game.
The objective of the game is to relieve the fortress of Almeida. To give a tangible objective, this is achieved if the french train, made of two bases, is able to exit the british side of the table. At the start of the game it is on the road leading to Fuentes De Onoro.
All british training is superior, but the skirmishers do not fire as superior troops. Also, the raw units from England have average training.

The original OOB is below, I will add the above units. Units morale mostly to be assigned.