WSS: Action at the Damebrunnen (Sept 1704) by Zoom

 On Thursday I had the pleasure of hosting what for me is an ambitious WSS battle - 5 players, quite fussy terrain, lots of troops.

The scenario was based on one I had played before; Franco-Bavarian force (commanded by Marshal Marsin) occupies a key position on the only road capable of getting the Allied siege train (confiscated from Ulm) into position to lay siege to the important fortress at Landau. The Allies send forward a force which includes Imperial, British and Hessen-Kassel troops, commanded by Karl Thüngen, to chase Marsin away.

Marsin has 4 brigades; Thüngen has 6, but 2 of his are delayed. At the outset, Marsin has a slight advantage in numbers and a strong position on a ridge overlooking the road, while the Allies' advanced troops are stomping onto the table up the road and through an adjoining wood; when the Allies' delayed brigades arrive, they will have overall superiority, but will have to get themselves sorted out quickly to bring this advantage to bear.

JBM and Jon were the Franco-Bavs, and Chris, Dave B and Dave C had the Allies.

The French side adopted a very aggressive "defence", going for the enemy vigorously to disrupt them before the reinforcements became involved. 

 

Starting positions. On the Damebrunnen ridge opposite, the Bavarians are on their right flank, based in and around the village of Weißkirch, and the French on their left. On the near side of the table, Austrian troops are advancing along the road and in the farmland on both sides of it, while the (extremely red) British are moving forward through the Binningwald forest. The stream which is visible - the Pfefferbach - is a minor water-splash which is not expected to slow the advance down very much

 

The action commences, and the Franco-Bavarians are straight out of the stalls!

 

Withers' British infantry in the woods - the French are coming across the table at them, and there is a major cavalry fight breaking out on the right of the picture...

 

... as you see here - Henry Lumley's British horse (red cube) getting involved with De Broglie's French lads. The Brits did well initially, but lost momentum rather

 

Bavarians on their right and in the centre making rapid progress with their attack

 

The British foot are still in the Binningwald, but by Turn 4 the Allied reinforcements arrive - more Austrian cavalry on the flank (Cusani), and the Hessian infantry (Wilken) on the far side of the wood

 

General Tourouvre gets as far as the British-held wood - splish-splash

 

The battle took a while to build up to full fury, but then it finished quickly. Here Jon sends the Wolframsdorf Cuirassiers forward in the decisive attack, with General Weichel; they eliminated a further Allied Cavalry unit and a battery, and the game is won...

 

A couple of extra pictures: here you see a detachment holding part of Weißkirch - my "detachment" rule is a straight copy of the "garrison" rule from C&CN - the troops here are one of the companies from my siege spares. They were pleased to get a bit of fresh air, but they had a very quiet time

 

 

And here you see a fine publicity shot of Marshal Marsin and his staff going in with the Bavarian attack - this must be one for the engravers

It was a smashing, jovial evening - I had to leave markers and a few extra counters around the place to help me remember where we were up to (bad form if the umpire loses the plot), but it was really very enjoyable. As ever, my sincere thanks to my colleagues for their company and good-humoured preparedness to "muck in", as my Preston grannie would have said, and their ability to cope cheerfully with the residual shortcomings of what is still an evolving rule set.

Thank you, gentlemen! 

WSS: The British Army

 Now I have some staff ready, it is time for a proper group photo for the British. In theory, there could be another dragoon regiment to come - I have the figures, it's just a question of getting them in the painting queue. Priorities - you know how it is.

I've now put a link to my Prinz Eugen rules - somewhere over on the right.

WSS: Fighting Tomorrow - Intercontinental Playtest Session!

 If my broadband service stands up to the excitement, the plan is to stage a Zoom playtest of my heavily-edited, battalion scale version of Twilight of the Sun King tomorrow with the bold Jon Freitag. I'm really looking forward to it. Here are some previews of the battlefield (things may move around a bit before we start!).

Some of my hex scenery is in play, as you see, but this will not be a hex game tomorrow. It is quite a change to be able to pack the boys in on the "analogue" battlefield! Here we have a British army (dressed in red) defending a ridge position, near the town of Wartenried, against a rather larger French army (mostly not dressed in red). It does look a bit heavy for a test game, but one of the marketed attractions of the ruleset is that it works well with big battles, so let's check it out!

 More soon.

WSS: British Command Group - Eventually!

 It's taken me a while, but I've finally painted up some companion figures to complement the splendid British General that Aly Morrison painted for me last December. So, suitably varnished and based, here they are.

The riders are all Irregular figures. The Commander's horse is an OOP Morion 30YW casting, the other two horses are by Les Higgins. The Commander has been sitting on a temporary single stand since December (he did get a walk-on role in my Battle of Ober Eschenbach, however, in May), so that's another worthwhile tick in a box.

Thanks again to Aly, of course, and to Old John for the Morion horse. The trumpeter is straight from the pages of Osprey's "Marlborough's Army". Once again, I am reminded that I must set myself up with a proper light-box and take some better photos of these armies!

***** Late Edit *****

Further to comment from David (below), here are the existing Command stands with flags for the Bavarians and Austrians. Nothing very clever!

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Sieges: The Siege of Toro (1811) - Part 2 (of at least 2)

 Two further days of solo play (and a lot of rule reading and checking) brought my second "practice" siege game to a close. The result will become apparent in the photo gallery.

 

View of the siege from the British No.3 24pdr Battery

I resumed the game with the British pushing ahead to develop their 3rd Parallel.

 

British Sappers zig-zagging forward to mark out the beginnings of the trenches for the 3rd Parallel

 

 

And, because of one of my Peninsular War tweaks, the trenches themselves are dug by infantry units, with Sappers in support

 

 

The new trench starts to grow some gun emplacements

 

 

...on both flanks

 

 

Confronted by this fine display of digging, the French couldn't resist sending out a Trench Raid to try to destroy one of the new emplacements before someone occupied it

 

 

Just like that bad boy who used to flatten your sandcastles at the seaside, they wrecked the emplacement, and then scampered off back to the fortress, giggling hysterically

 

 

The British were assembling their big guns in the 3rd Parallel now, while the French fortress guns tried to do as much damage as possible

 

 

The British 24pdrs now started to bombard the old stone wall - you can see the damage chips building up - the big ones are 10 hits each, the mummy-sized ones 5 hits. The British were supposed to be unaware of the true strength of the wall, but an early piece of successful espionage found out that 40 hits would create a breach. The spy in question was, very unusually for the British, of excellent quality. Sadly, he was subsequently captured and "persuaded" to reveal the size of the British powder stores to the enemy

 

As the damage to the wall worsened, Thiébault sent his Sappers to attempt to repair it, while it was still under fire. These brave chaps managed to repair about 3 hits-worth, but it was hopeless, and when the total damage passed 30 hits the wall was technically unreparable anyway, so the Sappers - miraculously unhurt - withdrew back into the town

 

 

I'm not sure what was going on here - Thiebault had a great idea about shifting his biggest mortars into the old castle, but it wasn't very useful. Thiébault himself was killed around this time - reportedly by a shell fragment - I think I may have a look at the mortality rates for general officers in Vauban's War - maybe this can be calmed down a little - that's two commanders lost in 2 games thus far!

 

 

When the next "Leadership" card was turned up, GdB Valladière was duly promoted to CinC, but the French Leadership Dice now went from a D12 to a D10, because of the less experienced Governor

 

 

Inevitably, the wall was breached, and the British 24pdrs turned their attention on the earth "Fausse Braie", which was rated at only 20 hits

 

 

Belatedly, the French heavy guns started to inflict some damage, and silenced two of the British 24pdrs (the ones with two white counters)

 

 

A smart move - on a "Siege Move" card, Sir Thomas Graham withdrew the two damaged 24pdrs, sending them to the rear where the chances of rallying/fixing them was better, and replacing them with a couple of 12pdrs to keep up the bombardment of the earthen bank

 

 

Almost for old times' sake, Valladière sent out a couple of Trench Raids, to try to inconvenience the bombardment as much as possible, but they were sent packing very quickly

 

 

The Morale Points indicator (which is supposed to be a secret to both parties, which is a bit tricky in a solo game!) shows that the French are not in good shape - 6 pts from disaster. On the other hand, the British were rapidly running out of powder, much having been consumed during their extended (and disappointingly ineffective) long-range exchange with the fortress guns. Thus an assault was becoming a pressing necessity, and the optional "Assault" card was duly placed in the British card deck.

 

 

However, an assault was not possible until the Fausse Braie had been breached - still progressing - I think we're up to 13/20 of a breach at this point

 

 

It collapsed soon enough - the stand-in 12pdrs were useful in getting this job done

 

 

The way is now open - Valladière had everyone rushing around inside the town, and got some of his Infantry to make a warlike appearance on the walls. The Sappers were commissioned to go to read the rule book, to see if they could barricade the back of the wall, or demolish the houses inside the breach 

 

 

The "Assault" card arrived too soon for much to be done by the defenders

 

 

Graham was allowed to call up an extra 6 battalions from the troops outside the Lines, to bolster his assaulting force - the British now had a huge numerical advantage

 

 

At this point, the game had become a tactical wargame, using Commands and Colors - the heavy siege and fortress guns, and the heavy mortars, may not be used in the tactical game. Two British battalions, including the 88th Foot, took one of the hornworks by escalade, and captured a battery of 24pdrs

 

 

The French garrison were right on the edge now...

 

 

...and the final touch was applied when the 74th Foot stormed the breach, and eliminated the last Morale Point. With a practicable breach and zero Morale, the French were obliged to surrender. Toro was in British hands

I'm still a bit shell-shocked by the experience - good fun, and very educational, but a lot of work and I have a big long list of things in the rules I need to look at again. As a siege, the narrative is pretty reasonable, I think. I got to the 8th turn (the British had enough powder left for about 2 more turns, accidental explosions notwithstanding). Since I started with the 2nd Parallel in existence as a trench, and my previous game suggests that it takes about 5 or 6 turns to get that far, at two turns to the week the Siege of Toro took about 7 weeks from starting the 1st Parallel - again, reasonable for the Peninsular War.

I may add another post to discuss the rules, and how the game went, but I'll give that some thought. At the moment, I am left to ponder what earthly use the Coehorn Mortar is. I decided to purchase some for the British, and they were a waste of time. Potentially lethal at short ranges, but useless for anything else - maybe the Coehorn Mortar is a weapon for the tactical game? Hmmm.

If you have read this far, you have my considerable respect - thank you very much.