90,000 vs 50,000 at the Nivelle (1813)

The battle of the Nivelle took place in November 1813, by which time the Peninsular War had crossed over into France. It was one of the last major actions of the campaign (there were to be two more at the Nive and Toulouse). It will be one of the scenarios in the BBB Peninsular War campaign book currently in preparation.

Marshal Soult was trying to defend a 20-mile line in front of the Nivelle river with 50,000 men - too few, even with numerous fortifications in rugged country, against the Allies' 90,000. Wellington's plan was to demonstrate against the French left and right, then attack in the centre with the aim of cutting off the French right wing in the coastal sector.

Wellington's Spanish allies had been misbehaving and exacting revenge on the French populace for French depredations in Spain. He therefore intended to leave them behind after this battle and press on with his British and Portuguese troops only. This and previous losses meant he was wary of incurring too many casualties on his British units, a factor which Mark's scenario reflects nicely by stipulating that the Allies lose an Objective if at least one British unit becomes Spent or destroyed. That certainly affected the Allies' tactics in the game.

Apart from that, victory in the game is determined by a conventional formula. There are 12 Objective locations (mostly redoubts or fortified villages, plus one important bridge). The Allies need to take 7 for a draw or 8 to win. Seven annotated photos below illustrate the action. If you just want to read my reflections on the game, skip to the end.

Panorama looking north from behind the Allied lines. Black lines are contours as the hilly terrain slopes down towards the River Nivelle. White counters mark the Objectives.

The Light Division is on the highest peak (the 'Grande Rhune') lower left, facing a French redoubt immediately in front of it on the Petite Rhune, which is supported by the substantial works around the Signal Redoubt on the heights upper centre. The rest of the Allied troops on table are in an arc from centre of left edge to bottom right corner; about a quarter of the Allied army has yet to arrive and will enter in Turns 1-3.

The French are thinly spread. They will receive a couple more divisions top left on Turn 2, plus they have a chance of bringing on Foy's division from the upper right edge at some point.

The French redoubts are armed with a motley assortment of cannon from the Bayonne arsenal, giving them 2 points of artillery firepower. When several were able to combine against a single Allied unit in their crossfire, this did cause the Allies some grief.

The Light Division would be the first to taste the pain of French redoubt(able) artillery. The assorted Riflemen, Cacadores and Lights seen here are about to lose a base to French fire as soon as they advance against that redoubt. Counters indicate unit Attributes: green = Aggressive, orange = Devastating Volleys. (Figures 6mm Baccus from Mark's collection. No, I don't think he's ever going to flock the bases, he likes the boardgame look.)

Our attack develops in the centre. (Mark took the Allied left. I had the Allied centre/right. Dave W commanded the French.) See that empty fortified village centre of pic? A French division held that long enough to make me deploy my guns and prepare my assault, then fell back smartly to join its friends in the redoubt top centre before I could crush it. A clever fighting withdrawal by Dave.

As Mark's Light Div and supporting Portuguese have been rebuffed by the Petite Rhune redoubt (yellow cubes indicate Disrupted), I have had to wheel a large Spanish division onto its flank to help when they try again. Wellington himself observes, unimpressed.

Meanwhile, on the Allied right, a similar story: a French division held the empty earthwork in the foreground long enough to force us to deploy early, then fell back on its supports. Besides, it had taken an age for the Allied right wing to cross the Nivelle - lots of poor dice. And we still have to climb that steep slope (the black line) before we can get at the French. To make things worse, Dave rolled the 6 he needed to bring on Foy's division (top left) at the first opportunity, Turn 2. This would keep my potent 6-base unit, 6th Division (top right), busy for the rest of the game. On the plus side, bringing on Foy did reduce our victory target to 6 Objectives for a draw or 7+ for a win.

The dam is breached: although it has cost us several thousand men, we Allies have now taken the Petite Rhune and the Signal Redoubt (the former's garrison now trapped between them), taken the village of Sare (foreground), crossed the abattis (right edge) and stormed the redoubt in front of Amotz. That's four of the Objectives we need right there, with no real prospect of the French retaking any of them.

What you can't see is the action in the coastal sector on our left. There Mark had captured two Objectives (Ascain and Olhette) but Dave launched a vigorous counterattack that not only retook the latter but also smashed a brigade of British 4th Div, costing us another Objective. Hence we were back to needing to hold 7 Objective locations for a draw or 8 to win - and now we only had 5.

Fortunately, my right flank attack finally got into gear against those additional three Objectives we needed. The French 2nd Div was expelled from the extreme leftmost redoubt (centre right edge), from where we would go on to roll up 3rd Div in the next redoubt along, as well as seizing the bridge Objective. Victory to the Allies - but (in classic BBB fashion) only just, and on the last turn.

Reflections

A Scenario with a Difference. Scenario special rules are one of those good things you can have too much of. In this case, Mark hit the sweet spot with his redoubt artillery. The French fortifications were not a continuous line that could have forced us to conduct a boring frontal assault. Instead, they were a patchwork that gave the battlefield depth and texture and made defeating them - with their intrinsic firepower - an interesting tactical challenge.

The Art of Counterattack! Part of the joy of playing battles on this scale is the ebb and flow they enable. In smaller games, a defender might have one reserve unit and therefore one decision to make - i.e., when and where to commit it. At BBB's scale, there is the time, space, and number of units to conduct more than one counterattack, or repeated efforts. Dave's active defence exemplified this, incorporating not only his timely fighting withdrawals but also a couple of important counterattacks. One failed but the other actually put him in a winning position for a while. It certainly caused some palpitations on the Allied side.

Learning Some History. I knew nothing of this episode before Monday night. Mark's game brought it to life for me in a way that reading a book could not. Thanks, ref!

Vitoria battlefield visit

Vitoria was the biggest battle of the Peninsular War. Roughly 80,000 Allied troops defeated some 60,000 French. A battle that size deserves to be wargamed, as we did last year (see here and scroll down), and a battlefield that important deserves to be visited, as I did last week.

I benefited considerably from Jonathan Jones's blog report of his own visit to Vitoria (thanks, JJ!). You can find that on his "JJ's Wargames" site, here. JJ focused mainly on the various contested bridges across the Zadorra. I took a different approach and hope that my report therefore complements JJ's nicely.

The Duke of Wellington's tea set! On display in the Álava Museum of Arms in Vitoria.

Our tour began with a visit to the Museo de Armería de Álava. Based on a personal collection, donated in the 1960s, then added to over the decades since, this museum has enough to keep you busy for a good 90 minutes to 2 hours. The ground floor is assorted arms and armour from prehistoric times through to the 18th century. The second floor is where the real excitement starts for us C19 enthusiasts, as most of it is devoted to the battle of Vitoria. Uniforms, weapons and equipment from the period, plus quite a lot of personal effects from notable personages (Wellington, Marshal Jourdan, General Murillo, etc). A grand relief map/diorama that is helpful for getting oriented prior to touring the battlefield, plus several dioramas with miniature figurines depicting various episodes. The second floor is rounded off with weapons from other parts of the world (Africa, Oceania, Japan, etc) and some Spanish uniforms and paraphernalia from the Carlist wars and more recent history.

Logistical notes: we found it convenient to park in the underground car park at Plaza Amárica. It's then less than a 10-minute walk to the museum. We hoped to have lunch at the nearby Casa de Napoleon. That was fully booked but we did very well at Asador Orio.

We decided the best place to see the battlefield from was the central knoll above Ariñez: the Cerro de Jundiz. (Viewpoint #5 on the map on this site.) We spent 45 minutes on a 3km round-trip hike up there and back and studying the battle from it. I took these three panoramic photos that cover about 90 degrees each, starting from the French left on the Puebla Heights, working across the front centre, then down the right to Vitoria itself and the French right rear beyond the city.

Panorama #1. The first Allied column under Hill debouched through the Puebla gap (the notch in the skyline at the right of the picture), then fought its way all along the skyline ridge (the Puebla Heights) to left of pic and beyond. 

Panorama #2. The first two French lines (Gazan and d'Erlon) were arrayed across the flat open ground here, with the Zadorra river covering their front and right. The second Allied column came through the village of Nanclares, nestled against the dark woods centre left. Wellington commanded from a knoll behind it. To the right of that, a higher light green patch is "Kempt's Hill" - high ground in a bend of the Zadorra that concealed an unguarded bridge at Tres Puentes, where Kempt's division got across and established a foothold. The rest of the column crossed there and at Nanclares and Villodas.

Panorama #3. (Not a great pic, sorry.) The third and fourth British columns arrived here: Dalhousie's (really Picton's, as Dalhousie was late) from Mendoza (the light-coloured tower near left edge); Graham's force all across the right half of the pic, tasked with cutting off the retreat, against various villages commanding crossings of the Zadorra near Vitoria. The city itself is visible near right edge of pic. In a nutshell: Picton showed good initiative and attacked at the right time to ensure the two French lines in the centre were effectively outflanked and driven back repeatedly; Graham was a little too cautious, so although he did eventually cut off the enemy's direct route back to France, the French army was able to escape by heading a bit further east towards Pamplona initially.

A lot of action also happened between the knoll and Vitoria, but that is all covered by industrial estates now, so I figured you didn't need a photo of that. Essentially it was just more of the same anyway - Allied lines driving back disordered French lines - really only notable for including the biggest artillery duel of the Peninsular War, when the Allies had to bring up 70+ guns to suppress a similar number of French cannon.

As noted above, the battle featured significant fights at a number of crossings of the Zadorra. We only visited this one, the Puente de Iruña at Tres Puentes. Consider it typical.

Our visit made clear just how big and sprawling a battle this was, and how remarkable it was that Wellington managed to pull off coordinating his four widely separated columns as well as he did. Apart from that, my major take-away from the trip and associated reading was how the fog of war hampered the French defence. While Wellington had full information (thanks to his spy network and the support of the local population), the French did not dare to send out scouts very far or in small patrols, as they would fall victim to Spanish guerrillas. Consequently, for a start, they didn't appreciate quite how outnumbered they actually were. Furthermore, they assumed Wellington would be approaching them more directly from the south and likely to threaten their left across the Puebla Heights, and did not expect his big left hook against their right rear. I'm talking with Mark Smith about how we can reflect this in his Vitoria scenario for the eventual BBB Peninsular War scenario book.

I hope my report will encourage some of you readers to enjoy a visit to Vitoria yourselves. If you do go, I hope what I've written here will be helpful. Buen viaje!

PS - First Carlist War

I tend to dismiss the First Carlist War. It seems to me to be disproportionately popular among wargamers. Obviously this is because the availability of beautiful 28mm Perry figures makes it attractive and gets it plenty of play in the glossy mags, but this protracted series of inconclusive skirmishes just doesn't feature enough substantial battles to pique my interest, even though I normally go for the exotic and off-beat. However, on this trip we did pass through one Carlist War battlefield: Ramales (1839). This seems to have been a big enough fight to inflict nearly 1,000 casualties on each side, so perhaps it merits attention. I was struck by the terrain here. Ramales is in a steep river valley, surrounded by the region's characteristic conical hills. How did they find enough room for a battle there? It would be a challenge for any wargamer's terrain collection! Perhaps I will take up that challenge at some point ...

Battle of the Pyrenees (1813) - an operational-level game

This was the latest in Mark's set of Peninsular War battles. It's a challenging one to bring to the tabletop, as the Battle of the Pyrenees was less a battle and more a week-long offensive, involving over 100,000 men and encompassing multiple engagements fought across 1,000 square miles or so of very mountainous country. After Vitoria, the French remnants had retreated behind the Pyrenees. Wellington's army formed a screen in the mountains to cover him while he besieged the fortresses of Pamplona and San Sebastian. Soult mustered fresh forces to bring his own army back up to some 80,000 men and launched an attack through the Maya and Roncesvalles passes to relieve Pamplona. The Allies gave ground, suffering some reverses on the way, but finally repulsed Soult at Sorauren.

Mark said his operational-level scenario was initially inspired by the approach I took to the Austro-Prussian War border battles in the Bloody Big European Battles! scenario book - a single scenario covering four different actions (Nachod, Trautenau, Skalitz and Soor) over two days on a 25-mile front - but that it actually owes more to my more recent treatment of Lee's "Seven Days" in 1862.

To enable BBB's elastic scale to stretch that far, Mark limited LOS to 3", dispensed with canister, decreed that there was difficult terrain everywhere, allowed for some strategic movement in two 'Night Intervals', and limited the number of units that could be committed to a single assault. To make it even harder for the French to relieve Pamplona, he included rules for possible fog (stalling movement in the mountains) and possible supply problems (rendering whole French corps low on ammo).

This scenario also had particular appeal for me because it features "the inexperienced General Pringle [who] found himself unexpectedly in command" in the Maya Pass. I had to look him up. Apparently William Henry Pringle was also MP for St Germans in Cornwall at the time and the House of Commons subsequently formally thanked him for his services in this and other battles. Naturally I asked to command the Allied left in our game. Here are eight annotated pics to show how that went. Even if you don't care, you could still scroll to the end to find what thoughts were provoked by the game.

Spanish troops besiege Pamplona. Do they look so large, and the fortress so small, because of the dramatic foreshortening effect of looking down from the Pyrenees? No, it is because they are 6mm Baccus Napoleonic figures from Mark's collection, while the fortress is TTW01 European Fortified Town from Baccus's new(ish) Teeny Tiny Terrain range.

Most of General Pringle's command, set up to defend the Maya Pass and the village of Elizondo beyond it (white objective counters). No, it doesn't have a tarmac dual carriageway. The dark grey strips are Level 1 contours, while the green polystyrene hills are Level 2 (the valley in the middle, with the blue stream and light grey road running through it, is Level 0). This looks like a decent position, with flanking units atop steep slopes protecting the central blocking brigade. The orange and green counters note that these are top-quality British units - Veteran, Aggressive, with Skirmishers and the Devastating Volleys attribute.

Lots of lumpy Pyrenees! Looking south from the French end of the table. Pamplona is just out of shot, top right. Three roads provide the French with three axes of advance towards it (plus the option of a wide flanking maneuver via the top left corner). The chaps with the pink counters, lower left, are French National Guards (Raw, Passive, Fragile - a bit rubbish). Every other unit in view is Allied. You can see how widely dispersed they are, and also how small they are - mostly just two bases strong. White counters are victory locations. Most of these are time-sensitive. The French have until Turn 4 to seize the two passes (counters on roads) and until Turn 6 (as written) to capture the three villages and a hill in a rough row beyond the passes. There are another two in the top right quarter, and one for getting close to Pamplona.

Turn 1: D'Erlon's French advance towards Campbell's Portuguese in Aldudes, astride the central axis. Admire the French National Guard in their bicornes on the hill on the left. The rocks, lichen, logs etc are to remind us that the mountains are Difficult Terrain.

Reille charges up the Maya Pass. Even with its 3:1 odds, that big 6-base (6,000-man) French division has less than 50% chance of beating these tough Brits in cover on their steep, rocky mountainside ...

... but a bizarre sequence of dice sees the French win on a 6:1 roll that lets them hurtle into and smash the second British brigade as well with a second 6:1 roll. My isolated guns look embarrassed and the road to Elizondo is open.

Things got hectic after that and I didn't take any more photos until Turn 7. On my side of the table, with that hole blown in my line at the start, all I could do was sacrifice yet more units to play for time until Wellington could turn up with reinforcements. I lost Elizondo. Dave, commanding our right against Phil, did better, counterattacking aggressively and preventing the French taking the Roncesvalles Pass in time, though they did capture Aldudes.

Hot fighting on our right. Hard to tell who's who, but Dave has managed to establish a reasonably solid line to hang onto objectives through that crucial Turn 6. (Albeit we were helped by not one but two turns of fog hampering the French advance.)

Panorama of most of the battlefield on Turn 7, with red lines added to show what's going on. Remnants of Pringle's original force are left of the line at top left. Wellington has turned up on our left flank with 6th & 7th Divisions (below line at bottom of pic) to cover the western axis. Dave, reinforced by Picton, is holding the line upper right.

At this point, the scenario as written was effectively over, as it seemed clear that it would be a draw. We discussed tweaks to the victory conditions and played on for another couple of turns, at which point we again called it a draw under the revised conditions.

Reflections

Stinky dice! I know that we roll a lot of dice in BBB, that the luck should even out, and that starting the battle by having a third of my force wiped out immediately by two rolls of one on my British red dice against sixes on Crispin's blue dice may have coloured my view of the matter. Still I will repeat my complaint from after our Salamanca games that players should all use the same dice pool.

Super-asymmetric = super-interesting. As noted above, this game pitted two very different armies against each other, with very different challenges. The Allied force - small but high-quality units - was fighting a delaying action against an enemy army of much larger divisions that was having to overcome time and terrain as well as armed opposition. Asymmetric games are always fun.

It's not linear warfare! Maybe 'perpendicular warfare'? The terrain presented different tactical problems from the usual. It also made those operational-level decisions about which axis to commit reserves along much more momentous. It gave shape and character to the game.

It's tricky but it works. These operational-level games (multi-day battles across large areas) are radically different from a regular pitched-battle scenario. They are therefore harder to design, particularly when it comes to setting victory conditions, and they generally need some special rules. That said, we've done enough of them now to have a fair idea of what works and to have established some basic principles accordingly. Consequently, although in this first playtest we found we needed to apply some tweaks mid-game, it was impressive that Mark's draft was so close to the mark already.

Ways to skin cats. This was a playtest among experienced and creative players. It generated productive discussion about how to adjust the victory conditions and various special rules to capture the character of the battle and create a good game. People threw ideas into the mix - for instance, there are many different ways you could write a fog rule. This was an evening well spent in helping Mark to refine his scenario to be as clean, elegant and entertaining as possible.

The personal connection. OK, I don't know just how distant a relative General Pringle must have been, but even just sharing the name added an extra element to the game.

Pretty terrain items. The fortress is a nice addition to Mark's growing collection of special terrain items. Even though it sat in a corner of the table and didn't see any action, it was important as the reason for the battle, and enhanced the game as a distinctive and aesthetically pleasing piece. All part of another High Quality Gaming Experience (TM).

Smash, bang, wallop: Dresden!

As most wargamers and readers of this blog probably know, Dresden (1813) was one of the biggest battles of the Napoleonic Wars, with over 300,000 men engaged. This makes it a must-do for any serious grognard. Mark Smith duly obliged and ran a game of his BBB Dresden scenario for us.

Just as the historical battle was fought over two days, so was ours. In our case it was two remote sessions on successive weeks. Consequently the French command changed at half-time, with Colin taking over from Crispin as Napoleon to fend off the allies commanded by me and Graham.

It's very much a battle of two halves. On Day 1, the French are outnumbered but have all their best troops on the pitch - including the entire Imperial Guard - with which to prevent the Austrians, Russians and Prussians gaining a foothold in the suburbs around Dresden. On Day 2, both sides are reinforced, but the allies gain guards and grenadiers to stiffen them against the French counterattack.

Scenario map. Red stars indicate victory locations. NB - the redoubts only matter on Day 1. Inevitably there will be tough fighting around the city, but there is also room for manoeuvre on both flanks.

 

The scenario design puts pressure on the allies to attack initially, rewarding them with 1 or 2 Victory Points if they manage to hold 1 or 2 of the redoubts at the end of Day 1. Graham and I calculated that attacking offered other advantages too: once in the Gross Garten or the suburbs, our troops would benefit from cover; and compressing the French front line would make it hard for the enemy to use all his combat power.

We therefore launched multiple serious attacks: against Friedrichstadt in the northwest, against the Gross Garten in the south, and against the three redoubts between them. After a couple of turns of attack, counter-attack, and counter-counter-attack, we had got into but not gained control of the Garten and the 'stadt; all three redoubts had changed hands, but we only held onto one of them. Still, at least that was one VP in the bank that could not be taken away from us.

 

 

Webcam view late on Day 1. Plenty of fog of war! Looking south from behind Dresden. The rectangular hedge left centre is the Gross Garten, with both sides' troops contesting it. Austrians and Prussians line the ridge in the distance; blue 'Spent' markers are the legacy of the Old Guard retaking a redoubt from Kleist's Prussians. Masses of French hold Dresden. Their high quality is shown by the green cubes ('Aggressive') and purple counters ('Shock' cavalry).

For Day 2, Colin inherited something of a traffic jam, with the French army virtually all in the semi-circle of Dresden and its suburbs. On the French right there was some space to breathe and a chance for Marmont to break out and threaten the objectives behind the Allied left wing. Unfortunately for him, stalwart Austrian defence and some lamentable French movement rolls meant Marmont never managed to eject Gyulai from Friedrichstadt. This in turn impeded French efforts to attack in the centre towards the bridge at Plauen and caused losses in precious French cavalry who were exposed to fire against their rear. On the allied right, late in the piece the French did attempt to send some troops around the flank against the objective at Seidnitz, but this was too little too late, as by then the Russian heavy cavalry was there to counter this. Added to the mix were some lethal allied firing and combat dice at a couple of crucial moments, wiping out potent French cavalry formations.

Real-world fatigue on the French side meant we couldn't play the last turn, so "at that point we called it": Mark's assessment as umpire was that it would probably be an allied win, though with a reasonable possibility that the French might have taken enough objectives to salvage a draw. Given what I think was a decent allied plan plus some help from the dice, that seemed a fair result.

Reflections:

Claustrophobia! The high troop density provided a very different feel from more open battles. With so many units packed into a narrow frontage, the French especially suffered from masking their own guns and struggled to attack out of the difficult terrain of the city in anything like a coordinated manner. Whenever either side attacked, instead of sweeping manoeuvre and knockout blows, it was more like two boxers in a clinch exchanging repeated body-blows. Every attack left the attacker disrupted and vulnerable to a counterattack, and the troop density meant there was usually a second enemy line ready to deliver one. Real punch and counter-punch.

Despite the compressed front line, the nuances of terrain and different troop types meant there were still plenty of tactical decisions to be made. It was pleasing that BBB produced the right level of granularity to achieve that but still fight a big-picture grand battle.

Guns that aren't firing are guns wasted; putting them in the right place to start with is crucial. Napoleon was an artilleryman. He knew.

The fog of war of remote gaming. Colin overlooked units that were behind houses. For our part, a couple of times Graham and I advanced our cavalry into range of enemy guns that were off-camera. These were minor frustrations that actually enhanced the game in a sense, in that such blunders are a feature of real battle and it is more realistic than our usual perfect 'helicopter view'.

The time-inefficiency of remote gaming. With Mark having to dance around the table carrying out moves for all of us one at a time, and having to explain what we could see or do, it took us two evenings to not quite finish a game that could comfortably have been concluded in a single session if we'd all been round the table. But it's still way better than no game at all.

How nice to have a battle where you legitimately field the entire Imperial Guard! (Mind you, they were seen off by my iron Landwehr.)

Great game, very atmospheric. Big thanks to Mark for laying it on.

***

If you enjoyed this AAR, you can use the 'Napoleonic' label on this blog or search by year label (e.g., '1813') to find reports of our other Napoleonic BBB battles.

A healthy varied gaming diet

This year's ongoing project is to playtest all the scenarios for my planned Hungary 1848 BBB campaign book (10 out of 15 now done). These battles have kept me and the gang very much engaged. Even so, a change of diet now and then is healthy. Happily, over the last couple of weeks I've played three quite different games.

Gaslands

Two new members, Simon and Martin, joined OWS and laid on Gaslands for us. This is a kind of car wars game in a Mad Max type post-apocalyptic setting. The scenario was a race, but one in which we could shoot or ram our fellow competitors. We each had a team of two cars. I chose two that closely resembled cars I used to own (apart from the rockets). Our referees had a lovely layout which we duly charged around, cheerfully machine-gunning and ramming each other. With four newbie players, we didn't quite complete the circuit, but Bruce's sturdy van was comfortably in the lead when we wrapped up and my poor little sports car was scrap metal ...

 

Six teams surge from the start line, Bruce's van in pole position.

Excellent lighthearted fun, a nice change from historical gaming, and great to meet two new members who will enliven OWS. Incidentally, Simon is the proprietor of Syborg 3D Printing, producing a terrific range of 15mm vehicles, aircraft and terrain for WWI, WWII, post-war and more.

 

Fetching Gaslands scenery and oil slicks. Terrain matters!

Lützen 1813

Back to BBB but not to Hungary. Mark has been working his way through all of Napoleon's biggest battles. This time it was the turn of Lützen, a battle about which I knew effectively nothing until now. This was Napoleon's first victory of the spring campaign of 1813, an attempt to knock the Prussians out of the war and dissuade the Austrians from joining in. It makes a good game because initially the Russian and Prussian are on the attack, trying to beat up Ney's isolated corps; then as French reinforcements arrive, the allies have to fend off Napoleon's double envelopment. Thus everyone gets to do lots of maneuvering and make important decisions. Mark's scenario was particularly good because he drew the frame wider than most maps of the battlefield tend to do, so he made all that outflanking space available for people to make mistakes in.

 

View from the French side. The Imperial Guard (and friends) have counterattacked up the road from Luetzen (offtable bottom right) and retaken three of the four central villages, as well as both flanks, but failed to cut the allied line of communications (road exit at top) - a draw.

We fought this in two sessions: the first remotely, the second in person in Mark's Kriegspielium. That made a big difference. In the remote session, seeing just a segment of the battlefield at a time made it hard to appreciate how the sectors connected and interacted - so for instance I didn't realise some of my artillery in the centre was vulnerable to enemy cavalry on my right until they pounced. Having the overall view of the whole battlefield made it much easier to understand what was going on. Not a complaint - the limited 'fog of war' view is probably more realistic than the 'helicopter' view! - and either approach can work, it was just unusual to have the chance to get both views in the same game.

 

Close-up of Napoleon himself among his grognards in recaptured Kaja, Rahna and Gross Goerschen.

As for the course of the game itself: broadly historical, I think. A big slugfest in the centre over the four strongpoint villages; then pressure on both allied flanks from French reinforcements; and finally the Imperial Guard smashing into the middle. Honours even, objective-wise, meant everyone went home happy with a draw. A terrific scenario that doesn't need any further revision.

Agincourt

I was entrusted with a 10-year-old boy to entertain for a Saturday. Fortunately he has been indoctrinated, is already army-barmy, and was eager to roll some dice. I was recently given two boxes full of 15mm Hundred Years War figures, painted and based, but somewhat the worse for wear after decades in a barn. My apprentice and I spent a happy hour or two just sorting them out and getting rid of the goose poo, cobwebs and dead beetles. Next step was a 3-minute video, "Battle Stack: The Battle of Agincourt tactics", pitched at just the right length and level for an excited youth who just wanted to get the toys on the table. Once he knew what the historical battle was, he had a jolly time setting up a sort of Agincourt terrain. I say "sort of" because my French had it even harder, having to cross a river into the teeth of entrenched bombards and organ guns.

 

A rare sight in my war room - something pre-Napoleonic! Linear, yes; limited, yes; dull, no.

I didn't have a suitable rulebook to hand so we played DBM - that is, De Bellis Made-it-up-as-we-went-along ... let's say inspired by DBA/DBM (command pips and opposed die rolls) but simplified for speed and with movement 'kriegspieled' rather than measuring. This exceeded my expectations: after 90 minutes or so I kept trying to surrender, but His Majesty the King of England was having such a good time he would urge me to charge again and again. I did overrun the bombards and the cocktail-stick chevaux de frise, and I did get rid of a lot of English longbowmen and men-at-arms, but eventually ground to a halt and was permitted to concede defeat.

This was surprisingly good fun for all concerned. It was also educational for my young pupil: he now understands the importance of maneuvering your medieval troops in "battles" rather than modern skirmish lines; and how lethal the longbow was; and has had a first taste of command pips as one way of representing a commander's limited time and attention and influence.

Back to the staple diet of BBB Hungary 1848 tomorrow, but refreshed and invigorated by having enjoyed some different games in between!

Leipzig! Europe's biggest battle pre-1914!

Anyone who is into bloody big battles has to be interested in Leipzig (1813) - the biggest battle in Europe prior to WWI. It has been wargamed less than it deserves. Of course people have fought Leipzig games, but the sheer scale of it is prohibitive: roughly 400,000 Allied troops facing 200,000 or so French - 3x as many men as at Waterloo - on a battlefield 20km across, about 10x the area of Waterloo, and with two full days of fighting rather than Waterloo's one. No wonder the more manageable Waterloo has been played far more often. And when wargamers do play a Leipzig game, it is often just a small part of the action, very rarely the whole beast.

Those glorious gallant Poles again

Tempted by the prospect of the "Bloody Big BATTLES!" rules making it feasible, prolific BBB scenario author Konstantinos Travlos aka Leadhead, Ph.D, has written a draft scenario for this monster battle. Thus when we arranged a Thursday game for some of the lads who can't usually make the regular Monday nights, and Maurice piped up to ask if we could try Marengo/ Borodino/ Leipzig/ Salamanca, I decided to give it a go.

KT's original draft called for 18 mostly corps-sized French units and 26 Allied (+ lots of artillery). This is almost twice the size of a regular BBB game. As it was a weeknight game, in order to be sure of finishing the game I took the executive decision - which in hindsight I regret - to almost halve the number of units and bases by merging pairs of units. A typical unit therefore represented two whole corps.

Well, this was successful in that we did indeed finish the game. The first day was going OK for the French. It opened with the Army of Bohemia being worsted in a series of collisions with the French Imperial Guard and its supporting units. Several AoB units fell back Spent to lick their wounds. In the north, Ney had been skirmishing to delay the advance of Blucher's Army of Silesia, with moderate success. Then Prince Poniatowski had a rush of blood to the head. Thinking he saw an opportunity while the enemy was in some temporary disarray, he hurled his Poles across the bridge he was supposed to be defending, and assaulted uphill. This was still a fight he could reasonably hope to win, but some bad dice threw the Poles back with casualties.

There was then the interlude of 17 October while both sides regrouped and redeployed somewhat. However the Poles were still in a bad way. Blucher's men stormed across the river. The luck of the dice did not even out, the Poles were smashed aside, and the Russians seized the ungarrisoned city of Leipzig. Disaster!

And the Army of the North arrived (from the east) to compound the disaster. The French had been forewarned, so they had moved some guns to cover the approach, but perhaps inexperienced BBB players had not fully appreciated the speed with which troops can advance in BBB. More dire French dice meant the guns could not stop the enemy columns romping towards them and overrunning the French gun lines, smashing another huge hole in the beleaguered French perimeter.

With Leipzig lost, the AoN about to run riot, and no significant reserves with which to respond, the French players understandably conceded the game after 5 of the 8 scheduled turns. This was a pity for John, commanding the Army of the North, who had walked and bused a considerable distance to join us and then waited an hour and a half for his one turn of action! But at least his intervention was swift, brutal, glorious and decisive, so he was happy.

This was a fun game and achieved the aim of a result in an evening but it didn't fully capture Leipzig. We definitely need to do it again with Konstantinos's full orbat. That will probably mean a 4-hour session on a Saturday afternoon some time. having more units will change the game significantly for the better in a couple of respects. One is that it will allow the French to maintain the necessary cordon defence, and garrison Leipzig, while still having units available to mount counterattacks. Another is that it will give a better sense of the sheer attritional scale of this giant action. My thanks to Konstantinos for the scenario (which is in the BBB Yahoo group files, of course), and I look forward to trying the full version.