Montmirail 1814

Last night we played Valour & Fortitude. Ralph set up a scenario based around part of the battle of  Montmirail in 1814. The French have driven off a Russian corps, but their pursuit in intercepted by some angry Prussians and a couple of brigades of Russian cavalry. The French are mostly guard - Old, Young and Something In Between. Here's the setup, with the French top-right Prussians bottom left and Russian cavalry bottom right.  The objectives were a simple old-fashioned 'Destroy Enemy Units'.

Prussians. 

The Russian cavalry. I got given command of these because that's what happens when there's a big cavalry command. To the left are dragoons. The smart massed lancers to the right are, in fact, Cossacks and not as good as they look. 

Still, the Cossacks do have a special 'hit and run' attack which allows them to ignore ordinary combat factors and simply fight on a single die roll but with limited damage on both sides. This meant I could pin down an enemy command and hope to whittle them down. So that's what I decided to do. 

French Young Guard. I think. Anyway, this is what I was up against. 

An overview as both sides fanned out from their deployment zones. To the bottom right you can see teh French in squares against the Cossack hordes. At the top French cavalry advance through the woods on the Prussian flank.

More Cossacks in action. 

The French cavalry in the woods fell on the Allied left flank and looked to be dangerous, so I diverted my dragoons, swinging them across the rear of the battle. Despite the lack of photos of it there was a fair sized battle raging in the centre between the infantry and artillery of both sides. Sadly for us the French quality was winning out over the Prussian quantity. 

Soon there was a gaping hole in the Prussian centre and more French cavalry appeared. In fact there seemed to be a lot of French cavalry. 

Thanks to command inertia and generally average rolls, the Cossacks and the Young Guard actually had a quiet battle, inflicting exactly one hit on each other during the course of it. There was even time for a chat. 

My Dragoons got into position just as the Prussians reached a point that can best be described as 'Total Collapse', thus ending the game. 

There's virtually no photos showing it, but the vulgar infantry fight led to a massive French win. But then they had the wargamers' dream Napoleonic army of Guard, Guard and more Guard.

The Russian cavalry quietly slipped away. 

Mockern 1813

Last night we played a game of Valour & Fortitude, which I am assured was an action at Mockern in 1813, part of the Battle of Leipzig. This was a rehearsal for a slightly larger game that some members of the club are putting on next weekend. Ralph adjudicated, Caesar and Dave took the small French defending force and Peter, Stuart and I handles the Prussian attackers.

Massed Prussians ready to advance. Off-table was the cavalry reserve, which I was commanding. 

French defenders. They had to hold the two settlements. 

The Prissians begin their advance. Some lurking French light cavalry cause the left flank brigades to advance slowly making use of squares as much as possible. Naturally the squares then suffered badly from long-range French artillery fire. 

The light cavalry reserve came on early and moved forward quickly to get rid of their French counterparts. 

The Prussians attack the first defended settlement, As the main objective this naturally became something of a meat-grinder. The French had a lot less infantry than the Prussians, though, so it would only be a matter of time before they were defeated. 

The French had a little heavy cavalry available and used it to attack a shaken Prussian square, routing that battalion. 

Prussian light cavalry advancing. In the distance is the French horse.

The Prussian heavy cavalry turned up as well. The idea was to use them on our left to roll up the Frenach army. But time was running out. 

The Prussian lights charged and drove off the French. 

Fightng in the centre and on our right was still fierce, with both French infantry brigades in a bad way but at least two Prussian brigades past their best as well. And the French had been able to hold on to the objective. However time ran out and the French won on the basis that they still held both objectives. 

The Prissuan heavy cavalry were disappointed. They should have turned up earlier. 

The actual game will have a wider table and a few more battalions in play, as well as more objectives, forcing the French to make decisions about how much to defend. 

Old Scenario. New Rules

Well, the rules aren't really that new. But having played out my British vs Dutch scenario the other day using Form Line Of Battle I wanted to see how it felt if I played it with Galleys & Galleons.

Galleys & Galleons isn't really that good as a set of rules for Napoleonic naval actions. Or not generally, anyway. But if you make a few compromises it works OK for small frigate actions and the like. And it's fine for this action where the quality of both sides is about the same and the vessels don't vary much in size. 

Anyway, the ship setups were:

British

Flora - Q2 C3 - Square Rigged, Drilled Soldiers, Carronades, Trained Gun Crews, Chasers
Crescent - Q2 C2 - Square Rigged, Drilled Soldiers, Chasers

Dutch

Castor - Q2 C3 - Square Rigged, Drilled Soldiers, Chasers
Briel - Q2 C3 - Square Rigged, Drilled Soldiers, Chasers

Flora is dangerous at close range and its heavier guns give it a slight edge at longer ranges. Otherwise the ships are pretty much the same, but Crescent is smaller than the other vessels.

The approach moves were the same as the previous playthrough, but both sides held their fire until they were a little closer. With reloads costing an action it's a sensible move. You want that first broadside to be a full one if you can manage it. 

Castor opened fire first, lightly damaging Flora.

Both British ships engage Castor as Briel fails to come up in support

Castor took rigging damage, slowing her down. Briel fired a long range shot at Crescent and badly damaged her. Crescent's rudder was hit.

With Crescent struggling to turn into the fight, Briel and Castor could focus on Flora. Flora put up a great fight but eventually stuck to the superior firepower of two enemy ships. 

However Castor was quite badly damaged so Crescent had a go at salvaging things for the British. The extra cost of turning meant that it struggled though. 

Crescent suffered in the uneven fight. 

Shattered ,she soon struck when Briel grappled and boarded her. 

Both British ships struck, whilst Castor was badly damaged and Briel lightly damaged. 

Obviously with having played these rules so much over the past few years, this game ran a lot more smoothly than the Form Line of Battle version. The limitations of the rules didn't seem too bad either; I didn't feel the action suffered or felt a lot different from the other game. Combat is less granular, so maybe the game isn't as attritional

Anyway, playing he same scenario with two different sets of rules is an interesting experiment.

Waterloo

It's been almost two weeks since I posted here!

I have been managing a small amount of gaming. It's mostly been Memoir '44 because, at the moment, I find I am enjoy playing a lot of Memoir '44. But otherwise a combination of family, illness and a slight promotion at work have contrived to keep me too busy to manage much else in the way of gaming.

However last night being the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, Catherine and I had a couple of games of W1815. We each had a go at playing as Napoleon and Wellington, and I can report that I lost both games. 

In the first my Allies were bombarded by the Grand Battery and simply couldn't shift it. Attempts to relive Wellington with the Prussians were stymied by the energetic Lobau. Allied morale quickly collapsed and the French scored an easy win.

In the second game an energetic French attack scored plenty of successes, but at the cost of considerable casualties. With the Allied morale looking wobbly I took a gamble of ignoring the Prussians and went for one last push against the Allied line instead. It didn't work and the Prussians capturing Plancenoit put paid to the French army.

Bussaco With 'Valour & Fortitude'

We gave Valour & Fortitude another go last night, now we're feeling a bit more confident with how to play it. It was a simple scenario based on a section of the 1810 Battle of Bussaco; a horde of French would be attacking a thin red line of British and Portuguese up a long rugged slope.

This is the flocked area is the slope, with its highest point (and the British/Portuguese) in the foreground and the French in the distance at the foot.

The British had three small brigades on the ridge, with a larger brigade of reinforcements due on the right flank. The French had several large infantry brigades.

The French discuss their plan. March up the slope seemed to be the best option.

And here they come. As they advanced they sorted themselves out into an imposing line of attack columns.

The two armies were soon in skirmish range, and the firing began. Both sides took minor hits.

Over on our right we looked a bit vulnerable, but our reinforcements arrived in the nick of time to form and line and offer resistance to the French. On the left though we were looking very thin on the ground compared to the advancing enemy. The French closed to musketry range and started to take some proper hits. But they had a lot of units.

The French attack! Our unit on the far left was hit by three supported units, and very much outmatched. Darren had made cunning use of an event card to ensure that all of teh attacking units were fresh as well, so we were really up against it.

As it was, we had cards in or hand too. We lost the fight - badly, I might add - but used a card to automatically pass the following morale test. That kept us in the fight for another turn, in which we used a card to rally off hits and avoid being shaken. We lost the fight again, and only had good die-rolls to save us from rout. But good die-rolls are enough. Elsewhere Darren's large brigade was starting to crumble.

At that point we called an end to things. The French may well have pushed through on our left, but elsewhere they were looking pretty weak; attacking up a rough slope into deadly musketry had really taken its toll.

I think we had a good handle on the rules this time, and were even able to make clever use of the event cards as well. It was a simple scenario that allowed us to focus on the basics, and that really helped.

Thanks to Ralph for putting everything together.

Friedland 1807 With Valour & Fortitude

We played a big game of Valour & Fortitude last night - an ambitious project since whilst we have all played it at least once, none of us really know the rules. We chose a bath-tubbed refight of Friedland; the attacking (initially) Russians had four or five brigades of three units plus artillery, whilst the French were initially defending with about four brigades, but had as many more arriving as reinforcements. The Russians had to grab an objective in the French lines (literally) and then carry it off their side of the board, nicely simulating their initial attack followed by their falling back in the face of increasing French numbers.

Here's the setup, with the Russians on the right and the French on the left.

The Russian advance was slowed by streams and by us trying to work out the rules for a whole range of things. The lively discussion occupied some time. There's a logic to the rules that's not always obvious and sometimes not explained as clearly as it could be. 

I was commanding the Russian left under Bagration (and, yes, we occupied some time working out how to say Bagration). My cavalry engaged that of the French and, frankly, didn't do that well.

The French had anchored their right on a small village, so it seemed rude not to attack it. I massed up some infantry, hampered by the infernal streams.

Meanwhile my other infantry brigade (I'd been trusted with two of them) was forced into square because of French cavalry. Ralph decided to see how hard it was to charge squares. It's hard. His cavalry fell back and was slowly shot to pieces by the infantry and supporting artillery.

My troops kept pushing forward, but what's that on the table edge?

More French! On no!

The reinforcements started to make their presence known, and the Russians prepared to fall back. At that point we ran out of time, and given that the Russians had suffered  two brigade morale failures and teh French none it was really a French victory at that point.

It took us a while to get going with this game, both with the setup and the play - the former because of the size of the scenario and teh latter because of our inexperience with the rules. But once we'd got past the first half of the evening we found that the mechanisms flowed pretty well, and all of teh players knew what they were doing and, more importantly, how best to achieve what they wanted to do (always a key thing to know how to do in any set of rules). They have some quirks, but are very playable and surprisingly quick. I think with a less ambitious scenario - we did deliberately set out to try and break the game - we could get a decent conclusion within an evening.

My thanks to Ralph for putting together all of the kit, Caesar for putting together the scenario and the other players for a great evening. 

Pre-'Napoleon' Lasalle

Our club is having an outing to see Napoleon this evening, so yesterday some of us played a Napoleonics game to get into the mood. We used Lasalle and picked one of the small scenarios from the book. This involved some Russians and French meeting in a clearing surrounded by dense woods and squabbling over a village.

Peter took four brigades of French whilst Caesar and I ran three brigades of Russians. I had the cavalry, naturally.

I had the position of honour on the right flank, but found myself face with a large group of infantry approaching, backed up with cavalry. Turns out they were conscripts, but I wasn't to know that at the time. Anyway, after a round subjected to Russian artillery fire (the best artillery fire in the world) they slipped off into the woods, thus causing me even more consternation because even I wouldn't go haring off into woods with cavalry to chase down infantry.

On the other side of the battlefield Caesar occupied the village and spread out his infantry to await the inevitable French attack.

The conscripts continued to advance menacingly through the woods.

I moved my cavalry out to threaten what I could, although this did leave our right flank (along with our camp and an objective marker) somewhat exposed. But there were French horse out there and conscripts who hadn't made it into the wood and who were seriously considering that square formation they'd been told about.

Caesar had formed square on our extreme left when threatened by more French cavalry. Peter responded by charging it with an infantry column and wiping it out in a typically shabby French move. The rest of our infantry put up more of a fight.

I softened up the French conscript square with artillery (Russian horse artillery - best Russian artillery in the world), then charged it with my dashing cuirassiers. The French infantry decided that they had somewhere better to be.

A turn  later my other cuirassiers swept away the French cavalry on our right. This broke the French army; they had taken heavy losses elsewhere thanks to our artillery and marauding Russian horse in a big open space was too much for them.

To be fair on the other flank they were doing very well, and our infantry was having a bit of a rough time. Mind you, our Cossacks held off an attack by two French cavalry units (who'd sneaked through the wood we thought was covering our flank) so that was a win of sorts right there.

Anyway, it was a fun little game played to a conclusion in a couple of hours. And as accurate as anything we're likely to see at the cinema tonight.