501 Sahagun - Cavalry Action (21 December 1808)

So if the French cavalry were dropped down to 3 blocks per unit, would this make it a better scenario?
I'm always a bit concerned about all cavalry scenarios in C&C, because the Command Cards aren't really designed for it. Maybe the Command Deck should be weeded?

Got the chance to test this scenario using 3 block French cavalry yesterday, and the French still won 16-10. However, the English were quite unlucky with their rolls, with several air swings.

Moreover, the dynamic of the game certainly changes, the French can no longer rely upon harder hitting power and stronger units to use brute force to win. My previous experience was this is a 3-5 card play game, with the French cavalry smashing straight up the centre for the win. This time round the French lost 2 units, and managed to exit 3 blocks over a 50 minute game (on VASSAL) in a pretty tense match. The main problem we had was the card decks, with both the Command deck and Tactician deck turning up a lot of infantry cards that weren't much use. I'm considering a smaller deck for these scenarios, just to weed out the over powerful or narrow focus cards that sometimes can upset these scenarios.

Overall, I found the French 3 block version was certainly no worse than the original, it changed the dynamic considerably and made for a tense match which followed the historical narrative somewhat more closely.

I'm experimenting with the following mix of variations; Make French Light Cav a militia type unit - retreat two blocks (haven't tried 3 yet), also -1 die on attack and -2 if battling back against a charge. These make the light cav very weak, and the battle much closer to history in general. I will try something like the Russian Militia lancer spec next (3 hex retreat but ignore sabres totally). Card wise, I tried treating infantry and artillery Tactician cards as "Make strategic move with one unit (ie 4 hexes, no battle)" and otherwise ineffective Command cards as "move one unit" ... made for a better scenario I think, but I will try it a few times more.

RiverWanderer or Mark-McG: Have you tried this scenario again with RiverWanderer's card changes? I am wondering which is best: the card changes alone or Mark's 3 block cavalry for the French?

I've not tried River's variant, but I did playtest the 3 block strength version, which seemed much better, and considered a smaller deck for Cavalry actions
I'd use the 56 card deck for this
www.commandsandcolors.net/napoleonics/fo...rd-command-deck.html

Despite GG's welcome, I think I'd still use the Tactician deck, though I dare say the relevance of the Tactician cards might be considerably diminished due to the all cavalry nature of the battle. However, that existed before any unit/card deck tampering on my part, it is the same Tactician Deck and all cavalry action RB designed.
On the plus side, there is a goodly number of Tactican cards that have default use only, which could reflect the mobility of the cavalry commanders!