NOLA Campaign: Third Battle of the Tenesaw Gap

 

Last monday we fought the third and likely final battle of the Tenesaw Gap from the NOLA Campaign.  There are two turns left in the campaign and the French and the outcome is still to be determined.  The NOLA campaign is my silly Napoleonic game that simulates a French invasion of America, which is defended by a combine US and British force.  The battle was fairly even with 5 US and British divisions (4 Inf, 1 Cav) up against 5 French divisions (all infantry) plus the artillery reserve.  We played the game using the ESR ruleset.  The scenario had the pursuing French army catching up to the retreating US/British force.  The French would enter on the left side of the map and all of the US/British forces are deployed.

Lannes enters with his single division on the far side of south western corner of the map 

Ed begins shaking out his  two British infantry divisions into line formation.  I took command of the US Corp in the center of the picture.  We placed the cavalry division in the center and planned to use it to support whichever flank had the most pressure.

My forces getting prepared to meet the french attack.  Lannes continues to move against my flank as Davout's 2 divisions and the French artillery reserve enter the board and eye my positions menacingly.

Ed elects to defend a forward position as he hopes to switch to the attack if the opportunity presents itself.

Josh (Napoleon) deploys his artillery forward he is attempting to form a grand battery and if he can do within range of our forces it will be devastating.  Artillery range is only nine inches in ESR (using 1" = 100M) but a grand battery can erase whole divisions at a time.

Seeing an opportunity the British cavalry charge forward trying to catch the artillery unprepared.  They can not form the grand battery but the six batteries do get off individual fire and its enough to force the cavalry to break off the charge  and retreat to lick their wounds- a golden opportunity lost

Lannes (Greg) forms into line for the attack as Davout (Dave) moves toward the hill

My 2nd division moved to occupy the woods (we removed the canopy) while the 1st division prepares to meet its French hosts on the reverse slope of the hill.

While the calvary recovers - Ed sees a gap in the line between Soults(Dave) corps and Davouts and elects to attack.

Lannes and Davouts attacks charge home - there will be seesaw fighting for 4 turns in the woods and on the hill

Josh can not bring his artillery reserve to bear and decides to move forward - the calvary see their chance and charge again - this time the french can only unlimber a few guns and the charge goes in devastating the limbered guns

Ed continues his attack.  By the way it's a general rule of thumb in the club whenever Ed consults the rules during a turn it usually means something really bad is about to happen to your army.

Just as the cavalry charges the guns for a second time the fight in the woods is over as both divisions break at the same time.

With artillery dispatched, the British cavalry wheel and charge Davout's attacking division in the rear - caught between the cavalry and an American infantry division they are overwhelmed.

We called the game at this point as time was running out.  It was declared a US/British victory and will have a major impact on the campaign.

The Second Battle of the Tensaw Gap

 After a COVID19 delay, the NOLA campaign has resumed with turn 9.  Right before the "COVID-PAUSE" the US/British side was retreating form the closely fought Battle of the Tensaw Gap, which resulted in a narrow French Victory.  The French, sensing they had Ed on the ropes, allocated a lot of Operating Points to seize the initiative and managed to catch Eds retreating army - setting up the Second Battle of the Tensaw Gap.

One of the joys of running a campaign is that players often have different strategies than the GM anticipates so battles play out in wildly different patterns.  I knew this was the case with this battle as Ed's initial deployment was not what I had anticipated.  His initial forces consisted of 4 Infantry divisions (3 in column and 1 deployed at the top).  His pre battle instruction said he could win the battle if could retreat off the lower sides of the map in good order.  Ed had other plans.  The french would enter form the top of the map and their force consisted of 5 Infantry divisions and the deadly French artillery reserve.  We used the ESR rules for this game.

Initial contact!

 Ed left one divisions deployed in line to delay the French while assembling the other 3 in a defensive position along a crest.

Ed continues to hunker down on the hill while Soult's corps maneuvers around his left flank.

The final French infantry division shakes out of column and their artillery reserve is deployed - It's unlikely Ed can survive the combined onslaught....

But Wait - Ed springs his drop - coming up upon the rear of the French is the British Heavy Cavalry division - now it's 5 divisions for each side!

In yet another surprise, Ed elects to march off the board rather than attack and the US/British force exits to the east. 

What is this cunning strategist up to the French wonder?

I wonder what turn 10 of the 12 turn campaign will bring?

Battle of the Tensaw Gap, Alabama Territories Sep 1811

Last Monday we fought the first tabletop engagement of the NOLA campaign.  It's turn 8 of a 12 turn campaign and things are getting very interesting.  We're using the ESR ruleset to resolve tabletopl engagements.

The battle commenced with two allied Corps: a British one under the command of Packenham and an American corp under the command of Winfield Scott) marching onto the board.  Their objective was to seize the Tensaw Gap (middle left side of the table).  Initially opposing them was Davout's III Corps (or so they thought...)

Ed and Keith were the allied commanders and adopted a mass column of three divsions with a fourth in reserve.  That formation was dubbed the "sledgehammer" - here you can see them making initial contact with Friant's division of Davout's Corp.  They steam rolled Davout and sent him scurrying back to the rear.

The white cards on the table are order changes.  In ESR orders are issues in one turn and then rolled for to see if they take effect the next.  While the cards don't look all that good, they did make it easy to keep track of pending orders.

The allies were surprised to see the Emperor himself commanding a grand battery on the hill covering the gap.

As the Allied Sledghammer continued on it ran into Morand's division deploying along a stream in an attempt to stem the tide.  Morand's division was also swept aside but fatigue was mounting in the British Guard division

Perhaps more worrying for the allies was the surprise of seeing dust clouds to the north, heralding the arrival of Soult's II Corp.  Had the French sprung a trap?

Indeed they had for a few turns after Soult showed up to the North, Lannes arrived from the west with a single division.  It was now 5 on 4, in the favor of the French.

Soults and Davout's calvary catch a lone British hussar brigade in a calvary sandwich.  It did not end well for the Brits.

Napoleon repositioned his grand Battery and effectively evaporated the US 2nd Infantry division which quit the field.  Seeing themselves now out numbered 5:3 Ed and Keith chose discretion over valor and executed a skillful withdrawal to the south.  The last thing heard form both commanders as they left the field was shouted orders to their aides to erase any mention of the battle in their dispatches as an "assault" and replace it with the word "raid"

The battle was a very bloody affair with the Allies taking slightly more casualties than the French - Grand Batteries are devastating in the ESR ruleset.  Both sides had enough replacement points to replace their losses but their stockpiles are growing very thin, indeed.

NOLA Campaign Kicks Off

With things around the house returning to normal, I've had some time to finally gets my campaign rules organized and kick off the NOLA campaign at the club.

I was very fortunate to get 8 club members signing up to play in the campaign.  These test subjects -oops- "players".  The are 4 French players: Napoleon, Lannes, Soult and old baldy himself Davout.  Opposing them is an un easy alliance between the US (Jackson and Scott) and the British (Wellington and Crawford).  The sides are roughly equal in size but there are a lot of minor allies they'll be trying to influence to join their cause.  Both sides have roughly 100K troops to deploy and the sum total of all the minor allies can add up to 30K troops in total.  Given how the diplomacy system works not all those troops will come into plays and the sides should get maybe 5-10K each.

While an invasion of US by Napoleon is a rather silly scenario, during the war of 1812 there was a furious diplomatic effort to woo different Native American tribes and even the Baratarian Pirates (Jean Lafette) by each side.  For this campaign there will be 4 Native American tribes, the Baratarian Pirates, Texicans and even the Spanish that each side can try to enlist over the course of the campaign.

I'm really happy with the rules but this is the first time they'll be used on the table top.  I suspect there will be a lot of opportunities for improvement.  The rules may actually get published of assuming I don't get tarred and feathered by my players.   The risk of that form of retribution is non-zero, so I enter this campaign with some trepidation.

One thing I added at the last minute was personality traits and a set of secret objectives for each players characters.  These rules are completely optional but playing along with them will earn the player personality points which will be used to award the highest scoring general with the coveted MVP award.  MVP stands for either the "Most Valuable Player" or "Most Vile Player" depending on the personality traits of their character.  Some of the generals are not the most reputable of characters.

The majority of the traits are structured to encourage the players to get into tabletop battles.  One thing I've noticed when playing a campaign is that a player who is normally very aggressive in a single battle style of game can suddenly become rather timid in a campaign as outcomes matter for the next turn.  Your's truly has that affliction.  Hopefully these rules get the guys to mix it up a bit. 

Reporting on the campaign will be hard as there is a lot of hidden movement but I'll keep the blog updated and do a full turn by turn report and also list out all the things that need to be improved in the rules.  I suspect that will be a very long list.

Turn 1 order submissions are due soon!

New Campaign at the Club

With our Waterloo campaign coming to a close (and likely defeat for the French, who have me as Grouchy), it's time to start up another Napoleonic Campaign.

I've always wanted to run a campaign, so have volunteered to do so.  This campaign will be focused on a rather silly idea of Napoleon invading the US and will use a set of campaign rules that I've been working on.  Pray for my fellow club members who are now subjected to my whims dreams of rules writing grandeur.

Why the silly scenario?  Well, last summer at Historicon, my hypothetical invasion of Britain game (To Catch a King) proved 4 out of 5 times that Napoleon would have won so naturally he would attempt to re-possess Louisiana as his next move.  Seems logical to me.  Then again, I'm a moron.

In reality, I'm hoping to run the campaign relatively quickly - (within 6 weeks) to refine the rules and see if it's feasible to run a campaign during the course of Historicon's 3 days where the details of the battles are based on how the campaign plays out.

Pictured above is the campaign map, which is based off a period map of the British Gulf campaign during the War of 1812.  This scenario has the french invading from Port-au-Prince (the bottom center box).  Napoleon will have an army of 75,000 men to invade the new world.  Opposing him are two separate forces - The US army under Jackson and the British Exile Force, or BEF, under Wellington.  For game play purposes both sides will be fairly even which implies the US built up its armed forces prior to the campaign.  It's a stretch, but I'm making this thing up anyway.

The campaign will also feature 7 potential minor allies that both sides can try to woo with diplomatic actions.  These allies include:

The Spanish
Jean Lafitte and his Baratarian Pirates
Texicans (cause why not?)
4 different Native American Tribes
- Seminole
- Upper Creek
- Lower Creek
- Choctaw

I'll use the blog to report general progress of the campaign but because there is hidden movement will wait until it's completed before going into detailed moves.

I really do want to get this done is six weeks, which means tight deadlines for turns.  One of the biggest problems with gaming campaigns is they start off with great enthusiasm but players can loose interest if things drag on and/or their position appears hopeless.  Let's see if we can avoid that.