Travel Battle - Giving it a try

 Bob Black popped over for a few hours and we had agreed to give Perry's Travel Battle an airing.  I have had the game, in fact two sets, for a couple of years, and although I had painted some of the figures I had not actually tried the game.

We had more troops than needed for the game, but we decided to play it as it comes out of the box.  Bob took the French army and I the Austrians. The game starts with a random selection of the playing area, decided by a dice, with the two boards set up side by side.  Each army has three Brigades formed as desired by the players.  Then in turn each player places a brigade on his edge of the board.  This is what the initial set up looked like:

My Austrians are nearest to the camera, and I had organised my army with two infantry brigades with artillery support and a cavalry brigade. Bob, on the other hand, went for three mixed brigades with infantry and cavalry.  

My side of the board had some key defensive positions, with a walled farm on my right and high ground behind, a small farm in the centre in a flat area of land.  On my left was a large wood and more high ground.  Bob, however, had high ground in the centre, a village on his right and a wood on his left.  I decided from the outset that I would defend the the walled farm and the wood, keeping my artillery on the high ground. The cavalry would work best on the flat ground in the centre.

The village, with a French Brigade deployed behind:

The Austrians move forward to take the high ground and advance towards the walled farm beyond, the French can just be seen beyond the wood:

Early on, Bob pushes his heavy cavalry forward, but has overlooked the need to keep them in contact with the Brigade commander.  They will not be able to move further until he catches them up, but they can fight if attacked. However, he has left them very exposed with the Austrian cavalry to their front.

On the next move the Austrian cavalry brigade charged forward, with their brigadier and slammed into the French:

Fighting is done on the basis of the highest score on the dice, with elite troops and heavy cavalry getting a second roll option.  The Austrians did not do as well as expected. They lose a heavy regiment and one light cavalry regiment routs.  The French lose a regiment too.

A second round of combat sees the destruction of the French cavalry attack and the Austrian cavalry pull back and reform.

The French attack towards the walled farm also comes unstuck as they lose a cavalry regiment and two foot units, although they force one Austrian unit back to the edge of the boars upsetting the cohesion of the Austrian brigade.

In the centre French infantry push forward and are attacked by the Austrian cavalry:

The French troops are grenadiers who have some lucky rolls on the dice.  They destroy one regiment of Austrian Hussars and force the remainder of the brigade back:

However, with the destruction of the French cavalry and the mauling of the French assault on the walled farm, further casualties on the French right sees that Brigade abandon their advance. They withdraw out of range:

Having had all three brigades blunted and with the threat of beer, sausages and baked potatoes for lunch Bob concedes the battle.  He could have gone on fighting as to win, two complete brigades need to be destroyed.

This was an interesting experiment that provided a couple of hours of fun.  The game probably moved a bit slowly as we had to consult the rules frequently.  We made a few mistakes too, for example, forgetting to attempt to rally broken troops as they fled the field.

We will give the game another go in the future.  We are already wondering if some micro tanks could play on the same boards!

Napoleonic Border Clash - A Two Bob Battle Report

The French advance guard has crossed into Austrian territory and is marching as fast as possible to seize a key bridge.  Alerted to this threat, a small Austrian force deploys across the road to block the French advance with their centre in a small village:

Both sides have seven infantry, two cavalry and two artillery units. The Austrians suffer from lack of mobility and the Austrian General (Me, Bob K) decides to form a defensive line with a hill on the left, the village in the centre and a small wood on the right.

 

The French (Bob B) adopt an aggressive stance and push cavalry out on both flanks, begin an artillery bombardment and rush infantry up the road in the centre.

 

The cavalry battle on the left flank involves Austrian and French Cuirassiers.  This becomes an epic struggle which lasts almost the entire game:

On the opposite flank French allies, Bavarian Light Horse, make short work of some Austrian Hussars and push their way around the Austrian right flank.

While this is going on French infantry reach the village and launch several assaults agains the Austrian infantry and artillery.  Each time they are beaten back:

The Cuirassiers continue to slug it out on the Austrian left and the battle rages in the centre, but now free to sweep around behind the Austrians the Bavarian horse become a significant threat. An Austrian infantry unit stands in their way, but fails to form a square and is punished by the Bavarian cavalry:

With the Austrian infantry swept aside the Bavarians crash into and destroy an artillery battery:

In quick succession the cavalry assault has swept up the Austrian right flank. General Bob B plans the Coup de Grace

An Austrian infantry unit deploys to block the Bavarian cavalry, forming square and beating the horsemen off:

But, the square becomes a sitting duck from French musketry and suffers accordingly. 

 

At the same time the Austrian Cuirassiers are finally overwhealmed by their French counterparts and leave the field. The way is open and with the Austrian right completely destroyed, the French gain the road beyond the village The Austrians reach their exhaustion point and concede.  Both sides halt for lunch (pork pie, corned beef rolls and tea), but it is an Austrian defeat 5 - 2.

A great game that hung in the balance for a while, but the Bavarian cavalry changed all of that.  

The figures are mostly 25mm Ros Figures, with some Minifigs added.  The Austrian commsnd are all Warrior Miniatures.

Warrior - Prussian Dragoons

I bought these figures on Ebay and I have repainted them. I now have two dragoon regiments, a Cuirassier and a hussar regiment. I have also painted some test infantry figures, which look quite good:

Battle of Klingenhofen - Command and Colors Napoleonic Part 1

1809, in a surprise move Napoleon makes a thrust south deep into Austria. To counter this move, Archduke Charles rushes his army north to a steep sided valley, the Sneetal (all made up of course), in an attempt to block the French advance.  The Austrians position themselves astride the village of Klingenhofen, lying in the rolling floor of the valley.

We join the action on the third move, as the Austrians rush columns of troops forward to form a defence line:

View from the east, Klingenhofen village at the top, Austrians on the left:

View from the west:

Napoleon surveys the field and determines that the village is heavily defended, so he decides to apply pressure to the Austrian flanks to draw off Austrian reserves, then if the flank attacks are unsuccessful, to push into the centre.

The action starts off on the Austrian right as French voltigeurs seize a wooded knoll to cover the advancing French columns.

The Austrians counter with their Jaegers, who skirmish forward downing some of the French:

However, French fire from the knoll and artillery devastate the Jaegers, who break and retreat:

As the skirmishing unfolds on the flank, the Austrians continue to build up the defence line in and around the village:

Napoleon orders his heavy artillery to bombard the village:

On the Austrian right centre German grenadiers come under fire from French columns supported by artillery and, despite accounting for some of the French, the grenadiers give ground after 50% casualties:

The action now switches to the Austrian left, which is dominated by an old stone walled farm, that is defended by light troops and grenadiers:

French artillery fire causes some Austrian casualties as a Polish column surges forward to assault the farm:

The devastating fire from the farm and supporting grenadiers rips into the Polish column, wiping them out:

First blood to the Austrian (1 VP), as Napoleon decides to invest in the action on the other flank, until he can amass sufficient strength to take the farm.

More to come..........................

Perry's Travel Battle

Last year I bought a couple of sets of Travel Battle, with the aim of having a quick wargame available that I can set up on the dining room table.  Over the last couple of weeks I have been reading the rules and thinking about the types of battles I can fight.

Straight away I knew I would have to paint the board and the figures - but they are very small.  The uniforms are generic and would work for European armies, but are not right for British, in my view. After some thought, I decided to paint an Austrian and a French army.  Here are the Austrians on the painted scenic boards:

Napoleonic Army level operations - an emerging idea.

I have been reading with interest about a growing move towards playing games that involve whole armies fighting, rather than a couple of Brigades or a Division on the table. Inspiration has come from sites such as Bob Cordreys developing Napoleonic game, as well as Hexblitz and other sites, such as the Napoleonic Wargaming Blog; Napoleonic Wargames 

In most cases a grouping of units, which would be about a brigade on my table, represents a corps, with four or five 'corps' making up an army. I have tried this to some extent with Command and Colors by using figures, but even this does not give manoeuvre feel of a number Napoleonic corps widely dispersed.

With this in mind I have dug out my old 'big fat' 25mm Minifigs and based them along similar lines to those described in the blogs.  I am just about able to field an Austrian army:

This army consists of five 'Corps'. Four are infantry consisting of four blocks of 12 troops, a gun, a cavalry unit and a command figure. The fifth corps is a cavalry corps of three units of heavy cavalry and a horse artillery gun.

I have organised the French in a similar way:

My plan is to devise a mechanism, whereby the battle will start with one or two Corps in contact and the remainder marching to the sound of the guns. The table will be divided into entry sectors and the marching Corps will arrive in one of those sectors, with a D10 time delay. This should make for an interesting game. 

Ligny 16 June 1815 - Command and Colors

Having enjoyed the Waterloo action and built up experience of using the C&C rules, it seemed a good idea to have a go at another scenario. Ligny, which I found on the G&G website, looked inviting and potentially a real slogging match - needing 11 points to win.

It was also a good opportunity to use my very old Prussians, that have not been out of their box for decades!

Here is an overview of the battlefield, which is cut in two by Ligny stream, that loops across the table. The village of Ligny is on the right, with the two bridges:

The Prussian defending the top of the field are deployed into a string of villages and woods straddling the stream. The bulk of the Prussian army sits in the centre behind this defensive line. The Prussians are mostly Ros 25mm, supported by a few Hinchliffe and a smattering of Minifigs and Warrior figures.

Looking at the Prussian position in detail, the left flank is held by (old Hinchliffe) Prussian riflemen. across the river opposite Ligny:

Ligny itself is in the hands of Ros Prussian Line infantry:

And the village and woods of St Amand have both Ros Prussian line and light troops defending them:

The Prussian centre has the bulk of the cavalry and infantry drawn up in reserve:

Meanwhile on the left the French have noticed with interest that the village of La Haye is held by Militia (Hinchliffe) - a potential weakspot?

The French forces, made up of a mix of Warrior, Minifigs and a few Ros figures have the bulk of their forces on the centre right. This is where the Imperial Guard is also located:

On the left, the French have a good mix of infantry, cavalry and artillery, including the Young Guard:

The French have significantly more artillery, with five batteries, as opposed to two Prussian. The stream is fordable, but reduces battle effects and the built up areas are worth two majority victory points - meaning that the Prussian start off with a two point advantage.

This battle will likely be played out over the next couple of days, as time permits. A battle report will follow.