FOG 2.0 Medieval Stoush

In a four player, 1200 point game today the Medieval Scots (Mark W and myself) medieval Germanic types (Michael and Richard).  I was commander of the Scot's left wing and after a brief promise, did no good at all.

It was hard to get a shot of the whole green field, but in the centre we had a fortified position which the enemy was proceeding to mask with their light troops.

The Scot's centre left.

The Scot's right.

The battle started very slowly.

My command on the far left.  It looked promising, I just had to get things lined up.

Those pesky enemy handgunners.  We had nothing to match them.

Big bad bombards couldn't hit a thing.

The Scot's left advancing and trying to line up.

French knights getting ready to charge, but timing is everything and it was proving tricky.

The Scot's right collapses.

My moment of glory as my longbow decimate the enemy knights.

The centre right fully engaged.

My longbow get ridden down.  They survived the impact, but were hopeless in the melee.

My line gets into contact, but all goes bad.

I'm normally a lucky player, but my luck deserted me this time.  Equally matched, we had four rolls each needing 4 or better.  I got none, my opponent got four.  So it goes.

The Battle of Ottignies - Solo

After the last game I was inspired to try it out solo.

As per my scenario the French deploy first and I thought I would split the II Cavalry Corps to utilise the superior French command structure.  The III Corps I strung out ready to move.  I then pondered the Prussian deployment and went with something reasonably compact (in comparison).

The French go first and quickly move five of their six brigades on to the hill.  Their cavalry stays on react, but the horse artillery is pushed forward.  The fire phase sees the French artillery damage two of the Prussian batteries.  Each side has one of their brigades disordered.  Given that the Prussians fired first this is a very good outcome for the French.

This is what it looks like from the Prussian side.

General von Luck und Witten doesn't like what he sees (and I had the devil of a job trying to get a photograph of him that was in focus, this was the best I could do after a dozen attempts).

Through his narrowed eyes this is what he sees.

The situation at the end of the Prussian's turn (half an hour in game time).  An attack by one of their cavalry brigades has left a brigade of the French 10th Division exposed in square.  Other French units have got the worst of the artillery and skirmish fire.  A Prussian infantry assault further along the ridge was repulsed,  

The French attack, but the almost 3,000 men (24FrLN) in the big brigade of the 10th Division are devastatingly repulsed, despite super human effort (the use of a Free Roll marker - it only turned a bad die roll result into a much worse die roll outcome).  A brigade of the 11th Division is shot up so bad that it flees and Grouchy himself goes to rally them.  An attack by the right flank cavalry is driven off in complete disorder by accurate fire from the two landwher regiments in von Luck's brigade.  With three routed units the French now have to withstand the Prussian turn.

Well, the brigade stuck in square was asking for trouble.  Vandamme, who is rated excellent, has an 80% chance of rallying each of the brigades that he is attached to.  Von Luck has pushed forward and the defending French horse artillery battery decided to evade.  At this stage (two turns or an hour) I thought it was all over for the French.  However their army morale number is five and they should be able to rally the four routed units straight away.

Vandamme fails to rally his units.  Luckily Grouchy and Excellmans get the units they were rallying reorganised, but the cost has been that most of the French were out of command while this was going on.  Miraculously the French light infantry, the last brigade standing on the ridge, didn't get blasted away and lives to fight another day, eh, well, phase.

A French brigade of the 11th Division is dispersed by massed Prussian fire power as they roll up the hill.  The French light infantry live a charmed life, but are now the sole remaining French presence on the rise.  Von Luck pushes forward with his two landwher regiments drawing close to the village of Ottignies.

On the fourth turn the French have regrouped.  The exposed brigade of the 8th Division (the one composed of legere) has been able to pull back.  Vandamme has rallied his troops.  However, in a valiant attempt to stop the Prussians, the French left wing cavalry have been destroyed in a hail of fire from von Luck's landwher.

Von Luck sweeps into the depleted French position.  The other Prussian brigades more cautiously cover the rise, aiming to mass their fire to take out the seriously weakened remaining French brigades.  This tactic successfully removes what is left of the legere.

A French brigade is annihilated in driving off von Luck's leading regiment (you have to hate those "winner's losses").    The remaining brigade of the 8th Division forms square when it is attacked by Prussian cavalry.  In a repeat of what happened to the French cavalry, deadly accurate fire drives off the Prussians in complete disarray.

At the end of the fifth turn (two and a half hours), the Prussians have dispersed a fifth French unit and irreparably broken the French army's morale.  The only positive thing for the French is that the infantry in square survived thanks to Vandamme's personal involvement (and the use of a second free roll).

Vandamme can be seen waving his hat to encourage his troops.  One of his generals has lost his hat while another is busily looking the other way.  In the distance Grouchy can be seen with his last free roll marker while a Prussian landwher regiment heads for Ottignies.

Von Luck is not amused.  His brigade, which was getting so close to the village of Ottignies, has halted and he must rally one of his regiments.  His glory has been stolen and he is rated poorly.

A surprisingly exciting solo game.  The French got lucky in their first turn, but then it all very quickly fell apart by their second turn.  It might be better for them to play defensively.  There was some fine shooting by the two regiments in von Luck's command.  None of the cavalry met with much success, although the result of their actions was generally telling.  I used line formation much more than I usually do and it was successful in stopping the French attacks (even when disordered, although they did have the help of Thielemann's free roll if I remember correctly.

I think hidden deployment and then competitive roll for who goes first would add some additional tension and possible balance to the scenario.  Hidden deployment is reasonable as the two armies where advancing through wooded terrain before hand and then had the gentle hill between them which would have hampered visibility.

In response to a comment on my previous post, here is an annotated photo of what I considered to be the turning point in the game (the end of the Prussian's first turn).

The Prussian infantry attacked as it had a -2 to -4 advantage over the disordered French, unfortunately this went to -5 to -4 after they got shot up by one of the French brigades on their target's flank.

The cavalry attack was launched in the pursuit phase after the French had become disordered in the fire phase.  A central unit was selected to avoid any interference from the supporting French cavalry.  There was just a 40% chance for the French to form square which was too good an opportunity to miss especially as there would be no incoming fire.

Both checked assaults were able to withdraw back through a unit that had already been disordered in the fire phase and so no damage was done to the integrity of the Prussian line.

The Battle of Ottignies - Take Three

At the NWS last night I took James of the ANF through his first game of Napoleon's Battles.  James had long suffered me making comparisons between NB and Shako and so it was an important event for me.  We had planned a day of gaming, but events out of our control conspired against us.  This was probably a good outcome as I was trying to work out how to use my limited 1/72nd scale forces to do the Battle of Quatre Bras.  But I digress.

Background to the scenario can be found in this post.  James took the French and Mark B the Prussians (his second go).  I umpired.  I also decided to take a different approach to photographs, using the "hold the camera at arms length high above the table and trust to digital technology" technique.  Seems to have worked fine...

At the end of the first turn, the French have seized the low rise, bravely exposing themselves to Prussian artillery fire by crossing the crest.  The Prussians were playing defensively, deploying in line, a formation I'm not fond of.  The French cavalry had immediately attacked the Prussian cavalry and successfully neutralised it for a turn. 

The second turn saw a repeat of the first.  More inconclusive cavalry action, except that the Prussian cavalry commander was taken prisoner when he mistakenly thought the French were Prussians  and went up to order them to turn about.  The Prussian artillery continues to damage the French.

Turn three and still more inconclusive cavalry action, although it is beginning to wear down one of the French cavalry units which had finally been trapped in the Prussian "cone of fire" (The Prussians had deployed some guns in the belief that they would get a pass through shot - not in these rules, sorry.)  Acting on umpire advice the French pulled back one brigade which was close to dispersing after withstanding over an hour's bombardment from the Prussian guns.  Attention was now turning to the other troops on the hill and three Prussian brigades were engaged in what turned out to be a fairly ineffective fire, until their guns came in to action that is.

However the French had attacked.  One brigade lead by Vandamme had been repulsed, but its companion was now lodged in the Prussian lines.

The last turn.  Weight of Prussian fire had driven one brigade off the rise and dispersed the isolated brigade.  The French were now in trouble as their incremental losses meant they had few fresh troops to make another assault.    The Prussians were largely intact although some of their batteries had been silenced.

This was the third time I had run this game.  It seems that three or four turns is the most I can get through with new players, competing with the distractions of venue and social engagement.  The table size worked well (three feet deep and four wide although we were just using three feet) along with the numbers of troops.

Each time play has been quiet different which I find interesting.  I'm now determined to give it a go solo.

In these photos the labels really seem to dominate.  As the umpire I found them really helpful in keeping track of things.  The only variation I have added to the label is to include the original unit size.  I'm still perfecting colour coding.  Also thinking I should revisit the flag/pin option I was looking at previously (I think I over complicated it when I tried to also use it to mark casualties).  I also wish I had more figures to use as casualty and rout/disorder markers.

52nd Light Infantry

On the home stretch now.  After this unit there are only three more to go and then I will have finished rebasing and tarting up last year's Xmas big buy.

Defending the hedge and reminding me I need a heap more hedges for Waterloo.

I picked up three sets of 24 of this painted unit.  I've rearranged the figures between the three.  I wanted a more heterogeneous look and like the way these guys have finished up looking "active" as light infantry should.

Marching up a sunken road perhaps.

Flag lifted from the Warflags site.

And to think I used to try and paint these flags by hand.

These guys were painted by Dragon Painting Service, all I have done is change the basing, done a few repairs to chipped paint, roughly over painted white on the buff webbing, changed the shako ornament and cockade and replaced the flag.

When I proudly showed them off to the family, my daughter liked the flag and my partner wanted to put them on eBay.

ESCI Italian Alpini

I recently saw this post on Paul's Plastic Warriors blog and thought to myself, hey, I've painted up some of them.

One pack made one company for Crossfire.

Machine gun squad.  I like the bandaged head.  Looking at this photo I see that some of the paint has flaked off his boots and the green plastic is showing through.

The company commander trying to get me to focus on him.

I can't remember when I did these, but I recall researching to find a unit to base them on.  Better still I made a note under the Company Commander's stand.

How could I resist a name like Marcolini?

These marching guys in greatcoats and felt hats were another nice pose.  As can be seen I was having trouble with my camera when trying to take closeups of multiple figures. 

And the pack contained these two chaps.

I always thought I could use them as Forward Observors.