Franclune part2

The 'French' army in the initial attack.  Wurttembergers on the far right, the Italians, the French Middle Guard, the Poles with the purple crimson flags, and the Croatian contingents fighting the dark-green 

Russians of Wagner's division on the near left.The Harpeth River (top) funnels the French/Confederate attack.. 

With many small commands, the French were able to move most of their forces into the attack of the Russian lines, aligning elements,  as the assault led to an every decreasing frontage.  While some elements of Wagner’s (Wagnasky’s ??) exposed Union Russian division held for a bit longer than historically, it did retreat back to the main line creating disorder and, with its destruction, a loss of the overall army morale. The total loss of a ‘corps’ decreases each other command.  With enough army losses, each command has a more difficult dice roll to make to continue the fight.

However, the field emplacements would cause some loss for the oncoming French  [ As the rules are specifically designed for the rather open and rare use of field fortifications of Napoleonic warfare, I added that the emplacements would offer the defender the victory should both sides have a combat tie. As ties are likely, this proved to be an important factor in the fights ]

Surprisingly, the major breakthrough came as the Wurttemburgers surged over the more extensive ‘stone wall’ defences of the Union Russian left given a +2 bonus [historically it was defended by an extensive abattis]. {the breakthrough probably more due to my dice rolling than anything to be honest!}

The 'Regiment of Joseph Napoleon' the white coated Spanish of the French Army, are again trying to take the Russian field emplacements (the straw fence!), are on their last gasp (the 1 pip showing on the small black dice on their base), but roll a three on the large 'combat dice' - a fortunate result.  However the Russians, also on their last legs, also roll a 3...and as the tie goes to the defender...well, the RJN did not gain a heroic victory this day..... 

While the Russian artillery fire proved to be rather weak { it had very disappointing dice rolling!}on the Russian right, it had enough to weaken the on-coming French foreign troops so the Russian defensive line withheld easily.  The Russian far right division started to move toward the middle to close the gap, however with the immediate Russian reserve coming into play, the French morale started to fail with the losses [ rule note: while the loss percentages are similar between small and large commands, the small French commands (taken from the Confederate OOB) cannot sustain many element losses before being unable to continue attacks.  While I did roll well for all the French morale rolls calling for only holds, rather than retreats, this had the effect of halting any further advances and allowing the Russian to plug and reinforce the gaps.  

The French commander (well, me actually …) had to make the decision whether one more push would gain the Union LOC,  looking very near and which would win the battle; but conversely might destroy his army completely.  (Historically the Confederate commander J.B.Hood, took the later course and would indeed destroy the best part of his army.)

I took the more conservative course and call it a day.  So after four and a half hours of fighting or some 9 game turns (about the same time of the actual battle - from 16:00 to 20:00 hrs.) the game concluded much as the historical battle with the Russians still in control of Franclune, ah, Franklin, and the French badly mauled.   But like most wargames, heck, real battles themselves, a couple of different rolls of the dice could/would make the outcome very much different.

"Franclune"

A “Napoleonics” game but with the set up from another era altogether,  I am calling the Battle of Franclune.  

This photo of a magazine cover with Troiani’s artwork might give you a clue to the game’s scenario….

A view of the Reb French Grande Armee ready to assault the Union Russian forward position  

Some of the deployed units are my newly-painted elements which form the Confederate Bate’s division:

On the left is the 3rd Provisional Croatian Regiment employed in Russia 1812.  On the right, the 2nd Provisional Croatian Regiment in 1813 still wearing old Austrian uniforms with modified Austrian shako with added French pompom and cockade. I used the illustration within the Osprey reference MAA 410 Plate F3 as a guide with the shako created from a British shako minus the badge scraped off and painted on the frontal cockade, gluing a pompom on top. In the rear, the Joseph Napoleon Regiment formed from sympathetic Spanish and used in Russia in 1812.

These overcoat Polish units are also newly-painted using Victrix French Guard marching poses and the covered unique squared-topped Polish chapskas, spares taken from their Imperial Guard Lancer set.  In the middle is one of my rare metal units. Together they form Brown’s Confederate division.

An overhead shot of the deployment of the Reb’s army (bottom) as usually shown on the battle maps looking north.  The Union’s exposed Warner’s Division is the three elements in front of the main Union Russian line.  The stone wall represents the more fortified works of the Union left. 

 Historically the Rebs suffered greatly against the the defences and only made a brief single breakthrough which was stopped by aggressive counter attack by Opdyke’s large brigade, seen positioned in the town.   

We shall see how this plays out.

 

Battle of Vauchamps redux

The Prussians, confident the French army was but a fly to be swatted away on the march to Paris, sends Ziethen as the lead element of Kleist’s Corps with Hacke’s Cuirassiers and Kapzevich’s Russians in support chasing Marmont’s weak corps.  But just west of the village of Vauchamps, Marmont suddenly turns and moves against his pursuers.  The Prussians are puzzled by this until they see the French Imperial Guard horse and behind them the bearskin headdress of the Old Guard.  Oh dear, Napoleon must be here.

The house represents the town of Fromentiers and the Russian field hospital represents the Allies' LOC line of retreat  - an aim point for players to move their retreating elements
Kapzevich's Russians( at left) are moving to support the Prussians.

Now looking opposite from the west, showing Ziethen's command near the town of Vauchamps (lower right) and the bulk of Kliest's near the village of Janvilliers(upper left) with Hacke's Cuirassiers to his right .

Marmont's command turns to face the advancing Allies supported by Lefebvre's Guard Horse.  The French Imperial Guard infantry are still 'off-table'.  

Not only are they unwilling to face the renewed French force, they are soon attacked in the flank by Grouchy’s (Grew-she) large contingent of cuirassiers and French horse which cause panic throughout the Allies formations.  They are thrown back with large numbers in casualties and captured.

Sounds like fun to see if we can create this scenario.

The Old Guard and Napoleon arrive on table 

Grouchy's (pronounced: 'grew-she') cavalry about to fall on the Allies flank

The key is to have Grouchy’s flank attack remain unknown to the Allies. While some precautions for this will be necessary if in group play, as it was a solo game, I simply would forget to remember this as the Prussian player!

Kleist, the Prussian commander (at right) seems to contemplate on how he might get out of this situation with his troops pinned in squares (shown by the cubes) and his Corps Morale about to collapse.

The photos show some of the action of the game, but the outcome was very much like the real event with the Allies commands crumpling; although it must be said that Ziethen showed fine form in resisting the French much longer than anticipated by some adroit tactics minimizing the Guard Horse to a large degree.  However, the Old Guard momentum and the mass of French horse let loose to roam on the right flank of the Prussian column - for Kleist was unable to get much going (a combination of lack of command initiative and congestion) meant disaster for the Allies. Their collapse of Corps Morale led to the conclusion of the affair.

the busy Napoleonic battlefield

 

Historical battle of Vitoria game

"hey wait for us!" Action from the game.  (Prussian artillery follows the advance of von Hill). 

I host an annual ‘Big Napoleonic Mystery Battle” each summer and invite the regular players of our developing rules of GdC for an all day affair.  I am always pleased that James and Ron from Oregon make the long 250km trek to join me along with DaveB from the Island (also a bit of a trek with the ferry and all) to come to Surrey BC, Canada to participate in my ‘mystery’ historical battle. Unfortunately SethT of Seattle had pressing work commitments and had to bow out shortly before the date.   I kept the scenario in the realm of Napoleonics this time with the Battle of Vitoria, Spain, 1813 but using my Prussians and Russian in lieu of the British, Portuguese and Spanish of Wellington’s army.

Couple of the locals, ChrisP and KevinA took Dalhousie/Picton’s command and D’Erlon’s French together with Joseph’s small “Royal” contingents ,respectively.   The French commands of Gazan and Reille would be DaveB’s.  He is experienced enough to handle these important forces.  James and Ron decided to stay on the same side (so able to trade the war stories on the ride home!) and thus took Colesky (the historical Gen. Cole but as we were using his own Russians….) and Ron, the Prussians under “von Hill” (obviously the British General Hill).  This left Graham and his Russians ‘Grahamsky’ under my usual dubious command.

Colesky moving across the bridge while to the left, von Hill's forces advance between the river and the heights near Subijana.  Gazan's French are doing rear guard action while the majority of that force is already turned about for the withdrawal at Arinez.

The deployments and numbers were kept as historical as possible.  Thus Cole and Hill came in from the east end of the table to try to pin the French while Dalhousie/Picton “von Pikton” came over the eastern most of the northern crossings of the Zadorra River.  Graham, “Grahamsky” , was to take the furthest of the crossings to trap the French in the valley from their escape route to the east.

Unlike the French command in 1813,  the French of the game, looked at the table and concluded the trap was on and proceeded to set up for an immediate general retreat eastward only restricted by my scenario deployments.

Ron and James contemplate the situation. The pressures of High Command!

The height of the battle with the French defence of the "central hill" collapsing.

Despite some initial set-backs, the Allies of James and Ron, aggressively pursued the French forcing them to make a concerted stand near Chrispijana.  ChrisP added his numbers to the attack on this position. The French needed to slow the Allied advance all the while retreating elements east before the door would close from Graham’s force.  Perhaps luckily for the French, I was commanding Graham and, like the historic commander, I could only slowly deploy my forces against the French LOC to Pamplona toward the north east corner of the battlefield. However with the French unable to do much than cover Graham with artillery from coming directly via the Gammara Mayor crossing,  Graham committed forces spread out to the further crossing at Durana but with that, completely cutting off that route to the French retreaters (as was done historically).

....meanwhile in the east, Grahamsky's forces are met with accurate artillery from across the river and Reille's forces crossing the river.  While the town fight for Gamorra Mayor did not occur in the game, DaveB did accomplish much like Reille did to delay Graham's "closing of the door" in the actual battle

While I did much the poor effort that Graham did in 1813, I did manage to block the main retreat road of the French which was enough. Photo of the lead Russian light cavalry.  Infantry and artillery support would follow.

The final turn had us play 20 turns (some 10 hours of battle which started late in the morning real time in 1813) The famous looting of Joseph’s wagons and treasures gathered from all of Spain was not completed however as the French (the wagons under the command of KevinA’s “Joseph’s Spainish Royal” contingent)  were driven away just in front of the pursuing Allies, thereby giving the French some small argument that it was only a minor Allied victory….
But despite the lack of the wagons capture, the battle went basically to historic form with the French to be shortly expelled from Spain.


James playing “Colesky” (the historical command of the British General Cole) provides the following AAR of the action:
“ I thought the Allies would be the aggressors to kick things off, with Colesky coming across the western bridge and von Hill having sneaked up on the dastardly French from the south end of the hills. We should have easily pushed through the French defense, even with Picton dallying around (waiting for double evens(*), which came the 2nd turn!). Colesky made the decision to forgo splitting his command and making use of the hidden ford(^) to maintain a firmer control of his troops as the PiP cost of moving some elements out of command would have impacted the command’s ability to move forward.

James' own Pavlograd Hussars leading the assault

 Gazan surprised us by going on the offensive. The French cavalry stymied our movement, forcing us to deal with them and allowing for a retreat behind the hills east of Ariñez and what looked to be a full-on withdrawal. Gazan was able to check the allied thrust for four turns, causing a loss of both horse artillery bases and making Colesky rethink things (by forcing a moral check which caused a fallback result). Picton was making his presence felt crossing the Zaddora. 

Having absorbed the initial French push, Colesky and von Pikton began their push. In a bit of combined arms, the Pavlograd Hussars forced a French infantry element into square which was subsequently assaulted and destroyed by some Russian infantry. Ariñez was taken the following turn and the race was on, as the three Allied commands began pushing eastward. Picton began taking substantial fire from d’Erlon. Von Pikton screened Chrispijana and advanced as well. Grahamsky decided to show up and began blocking the main retreat line of the French. 

Gazan and d’Erlon massed behind the central hill and at this point, it could have gone either way. The Allies amasses on the opposite side, but the loss of Colesky’s foot artillery (I’m sensing a theme...) caused another fallback. Von Pikton, after a whiff of grape removed the last of the French cavalry, pushed forward and forced Gazan to rout. Colesky finished off Gazan with another feat of combined arms. Grahamsky stubbornly denied the line of retreat. As night fell, the French were in retreat and the Allies the controllers the field. “

(*Note): This was the scenario trying to simulate Dalhousie’s cautious approach. Eventually the historical Picton would be so frustrated and take things into his own hands and order his division into the action (for which I committed the entire force).  ChrisP, being his usual lucky self, achieved the rather difficult dice in a very short time and so went to the attack quickly.
(^Note):  The ford, the location of which was not disclosed to the French, was the one Kempt and his Light Division used upon being advised by a local Spanish peasant. In future, Cole will be given the option to use some of his force for this purpose without hindrance of that distant command for his PiP amount for a historical scenario design.

James's own Russians...looking good in their attack

The big battle style....

The previous post had a 6mm big battle which each element was brigade strength.  My Napoleonic rules employ a similar ratio but using 28mm figures (but obviously fewer of them for the ‘footprint’!)
Here are some pictures of a Waterloo refight done a while back.  The area of this game would be but a square foot or two on Kevin’s table, but I assume (due to being a historical refight) all the fun maneuvering has already been done (all the corps been committed to one area of the countryside or the other like Grouchy and Gerard's) and the true tactical fighting is to begin……

Looking from the north-east 

the view Napoleon might have witnessed

and that of Wellington

"Ney's Folly" Enfilade 2019

In my third hosted game the critical part of the Battle of Waterloo was reenacted having Marshal Ney order much of the French cavalry unsupported over the crest line of the ridge only to find themselves unable to break the Allies infantry squares and be met with the one coming squadrons of Allied horse to force them away.

Preface:  one year ago at the 2018 convention....in one of our suites after-hours drinking beer... we decided that "it would be cool" to combine the Lion Rampant medieval rules to the showy uniforms and dash of the Napoleonic era into a fun ruleset.  I was tasked with making it happen.  After many trials, some of which have been previously documented in this blog, the rules seem to have operated well especially after having undergone a major trial of a convention setting, having 14 players move around 28 units ..and my voice virtually at a whisper from speaking in the din for the entire day.  Nevertheless, it seemed to go along well for all the players many of which painted up their favourite Waterloo units specifically for this game.

  I cannot describe much/any of the action as I was involved clarifying to the many players the charging procedures (a bit tricky at first but with experience players seemed to have them understood) but I wanted interesting action and not your standard "you set up there and they set up opposite" deployment.  So I had each side dice for their position in a random method: French from the south and west, the Allies from north and east. THAT produced some interesting angles!  I also used random bases of casualty figures as "terrain pieces" to provide delays in movement and charging (horses don't like treading on dead things and so will cause problems for the riders!)

Battle of Dresden - at Enfilade 2019

Battle of Dresden

This Napoleonic battle of 1813, was the second largest of the wars.  Our developing ‘big-battle’ rules is specifically designed to play these massive affairs but even these are challenged by the size.  However, the Allied command conveniently did not utilize large portions of their numbers and to fit it comfortably into a single game session with a convention table restriction and time restraints, I reduced the element numbers by some third.

As with the dedicated group enjoying these rules, the players each painted up their own command with a common basing which really helps with the look of the game increasing its ‘visual continuity’.  We had DaveB with his commands of Mortier (the French Imperial Guard foot) and Ney (the Young Guard), St. Cyr by James, all the Austrians done and commanded by Seth and the remainder filled in by myself.

viewing from the index area of the above map

The Prussian commander moving his heavy horse toward Dresden and the awaiting French. Later in the battle he would be reversing course!  While not strong, apparently the French artillery did sterling work.  

Overview- looking from the opposite westward view with Dresden on the right, the Allies to the left and the Great Garden (Grosse Garten) the landmark area of this battle made from a piece of hardboard for playability.

As I gave myself the “adjudicator” task, I was not intimate with all the actions of the game, moving from one small judgement situation to the next, but the game kinda followed history compressing the two days into one.  In the game, as on Day One, the Allies attacked in the middle forcing the French back to the artillery emplacements before the city. However, the French sprang back, in this case with good artillery support as per Day Two of the historic affair.  On the French right flank, BobE commanding most of the French cavalry with infantry outnumbered the Austrians who were separated from the rest of their army by a rain-swollen river crossable at only one point at Plausen.  Historically the Austrians were severely defeated in this area…as were the Austrian elements on the tabletop…

Marmont's French move to destroy the Austrians.  Elements of my French army.  While mine, the following photo shows four different painter's collections in action together.  They look good together.

the action in the centre and in the distance the Allies right/French left flank.

On the French left flank, DaveB, used the advantage of the French Guard elements to push back the Russians under Ian and Prussians under BobS to their breaking point.
See DaveB's blog post and his activities during the game/battle at: link with a very well written account.
We ended the game without the need to have the obvious happen having those commands inevitably rout off the board so ending with the situation very close to the historical battle.

other 'Trumpeter Salute 2019' games

While London England hosts its large Salute convention, Vancouver, Canada hosts its "Trumpeter Salute" three day convention near the same time.  I believe our 'Salute' name was first but not near as large or famous...

Aside from hosting a game, I played in two other games.  The first was Thomas' WW2 late war action in which I played a German commander holding off a serious British attack on a village.  His winter terrain was very nice to look at and gave a great feel to the game.  I remember one veteran wargamer gave me advice many years ago when he suggested "Only get in games which look good. If the rules are bad, if the GM is unsure, or if the scenario sucks, at least you have something nice to look at"

However, the 'Rapid Fire' rules under the excellent tutorage of Thomas and the straight forward scenario made for a good game; other than the excellent British dice (and tactics if I were honest) and our rather poor dice made for a rather quick game.

Examples of the balance of play:  I heard my German co-player moan to look to my right to see our mighty Tiger 1 tank, the glorious holder of our right flank, in flames!  Apparently lots of sixes were rolled by the British player firing his Shermans at it..... On my side, early in the game I had a panzerscreck crew jump out of cover to fire a surprise shot at the nearest British tank...it missed and was promptly shot to pieces. Later, my StuG moved up from cover only to be destroyed in the first shot and my AT gun in apparent hiding - at least I hoped- awaiting its chance after the additional British Shermans to cross the hedge, finally had to concede the enemy were content only to shoot up my infantry in the buildings, so fired a shot only to have it miss and have return fire kill most of the crew. Meanwhile I was struggling to find anybody to re-man the heavy machine gun - the only real asset the Germans had left,  from the continual British fire.  The game/battle was over in less than two hours. But it was pretty to look at!

---------------

The second game was another of DennisC's ACW historical scenarios, this time the Union assault on the Sunken Road during the Battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam.
I took one of the Union divisions and almost (!) took the right flank of the Confederate stronghold but the local player, JimL, a boy who can pull high dice out of his a*s apparently by demand, always rolled a 10 to my 9 and in the ruleset of "Fire and Fury"one point can make all the difference.
In the middle, the rather weak Union division could not make headway against the small but strong force of Rebs holding the sunken road and so DennisC in his continual quest for history to repeat itself had his wish.....

LBH, Nap. style!

The Battle of Petite Grosse Ramure (in French and as we know it) or as the “Russians” call it: the fight at Малый Большой рог or Масляная трава (maslyanaya trava)

This was another of our play-tests for development of the rules we are calling “Hussar Rampant” inspired by “Lion Rampant” by Dan Mersey (Osprey Publishing).  I say inspired as it has some deviation from the original but a close cousin nevertheless.  Certainly the stats charts are very recognizable to the original.  It is but a copy of the medieval knights bashing about, but in the Napoleonic era so having less armor and pretty uniforms!

I needed inspiration for a scenario for our Napoleonic all-cavalry affair and found one in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Yes, the General Custer and Indians thing!  But you say:  it was mainly fought on foot.  Agreed, but I said I needed inspiration, not actual.  As it turned out, the game outcome mirrored that of the historical event, so all is good.

All the regular attendees could come so I decided to already provide a set command for each.  I took the task of that of Maj. Reno using my plastics, PeterM was given Custer with Will’s plastic French.  The Natives, using Will’s metal Russian figures, as they positioned themselves, were KevinA (Sitting Bull), JimF (Gall), and WillB (Crazy Horse).

The scenario had each of the Natives having two wagons which, un-announced to them, represented the non-combatants breaking up the encampment and leaving the area.  Their victory condition was to have the wagons leave the table at the far end.

Part of the Natives Russians encampment.  Note the differing ways of forming of the troops, the formal lines vs a mob.  The rules do not make any distinction.

The American cavalry [ read: French ] were to inflict a decisive victory upon the Natives [ read:  Russians ].

Each player was given 14-16 points worth of troops which gave each three units, along with a commander for group moves if wanted. It turned out to be a very good amount for each player to play and which I will use as a guideline for future scenarios.
As Custer was indeed outnumbered (substantially!), the Russians had 40% more units and over 50% plus in points over the French this game.

The game started with the Russians frantically trying to activate to move their wagons, all the while move their troops in position.  I failed to instruct Peter to use the stone bridge - which represented the gully which Custer would first use thinking he was at the rear but really only the middle of the large Native encampment.  Instead Peter crossed the creek at a point nearer the front of the Russian camp. Oh well.

"Custer's command" move across the creek

The French initial activations were spotty.  It took Peter some time to ready for the attack as did I …. my double ones at the very start of the game was certainly a bad omen.  However, there were another two rolls of double ones by others that turn -— I guess we just need to get it out of our systems.

Double ones....again..... My chasseurs are immobile this turn. 

At this point of the game, Kevin guessed the game as the historical Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Luckily the players did not have the intimate knowledge of the battle, so still thought the sheep and cow markers at the far end of the table I pointed out in the pre-game info session meant something bad might happen!   (regular players of my games know I do surprise moves on them..some call it ‘fog of war’ , others “ the pucker factor’, others “sh*t will happen”)    Will and Jim actually had a conversation to leave a few units to escort the wagons in case the cows “should mean something” but then both failed to do anything about it!  [ Note: I was using the full table and so merely used the cows, sheep and some barrels as ‘decoration’ to occupy some open space and make the table a bit more interesting to look at. I was not going to dissuade them from making assumptions now was I? ]  

During the game the French, outnumbered as they were, had the better in many of the combats and while Peter’s command became surrounded and slowly whittled away, my “Reno” command was quite strong until the shocking destruction of my company of the 3rd Chasseurs which was  an integral part of our attack but whose elimination had given pause to the French chances of success. Reno would be eventually forced to retreat to a better defensive position.

Kevin's grasping hand indicates "Custer's Hill" the centre of the action (in the actual battle this was on the other side of the creek..but close enough...)

Custer/Peter is surrounded. The unit on the right side of the creek is Russian having crossed via the stone bridge and preventing any French retreat.

My/Reno's chasseurs retreating  moving to a better position after the destruction of the 3rd Chasseurs elite company

As Peter’s ‘Custer’ was massacred (down to 1 lone but ready Dragoon figure!),  I brought on “Benteen command” in the form of two more units to give to Peter, which then could assist my Reno command to fend off the Russians.  However, the Russian victory condition was already achieved - getting the wagons i.e. their women and children - off the table, so the Russian players had no heart to continue the conflict and would only send some units in pursuit.
In other words, the game mirrored the actual affair quite nicely!

I love it when that happens!

The horse heads are our 'blown' or battered markers.  Spare plastic pieces.  Shades of the 'Godfather'?