Marengo - Part 1

Today Stephen N and Mark B got together at my place to refight Marengo.  This was a refight of a scenario I had done two months ago with Richard, but this time using a printed playing surface.  I umpired, but also took Ott's command.  Stephen was Melas and Mark Napoleon.

The French deployed on the Marengo plain.

Victor's troops deployed around the town of Marengo, behind the Fontanone Creek.

The Austrians.  Note improved movement trays and large print labels, specially designed to blend in with the playing surface.

The scenario allows the Austrians to deploy within six inches (six hundred yards) of the French.  It's a tight fit.

Ott arriving in march column.  It is good to see those limbers getting some use.

At the end of 10:30 the Austrians have advanced Elsnitz's cavalry across the Fontanone Creek and into the marsh.

The French move Lanne's corps to Castel Ceiolo.

11:00 and the French launch an all out cavalry charge against the Austrian horse still entangled in the marsh.  (The units are roughly equal - all 12 figures strong, but the Empire basing of Stephen's Austrian figures doesn't translate well to Napoleon's Battles basing.)

The French seemed to have formed a solid line...

The cavalry clash was inconclusive.  The Austrians have pushed round the French left flank and driven off one of Victor's brigades.  Napoleon has arrived (top left hand corner).

The Austrian's make a combined arms attack on the remaining brigade of Gardanne' division.  This was amazingly successful and Frimont's cavalry went on to cause havoc, running through the French left, cutting down routers and threatening Napoleon himself.  He was only saved by a lucky use of a free roll that turned a captured result into a minor wound.

12:00 and while Napoleon was being covered in gory glory blood, the Austrian cavalry recovered from their earlier set back and charged...

Murat handled his cavalry with the skill expected and the Austrian cavalry are severely repulsed.  What is left of Elsnitz's division is now fatigued. In the top middle can be seen the Austrian cavalry who gave Napoleon a near run thing.

Marengo is surrounded, but the Austrians make no impression on its defenders.

Ott has been rather tardy in his advance, behaving with excessive conservatism.

Murat strikes!  Despite a free roll, the Austrian grenadiers twice fail to form square and are ridden down.  They sweep round the rear of Morzin's grenadier division into O'Reilly's command routing a brigade of Grenz and supporting light cavalry.

14:00 and French reinforcements are arriving.

At this stage we had played for around six hours and we adjourned till a later date.

Wings of Lucky Escape

Last night at the club I took to the air again, this time in a Sopwith Snipe accompanied by Mark B who had control of another Snipe and an Airco DH.4 on a mission deep inside enemy territory.  We flew straight into a flock of Fokkers: two yellow ones flown Stephen N, a zebra flown by Greg and the Red Baron himself flown by Matthew on his first flight.

I'm bottom right hand corner, very close to the edge.

Into the storm,  This turned out to be a game of chicken that resulted in various levels of damage  inflicted due to collisions.

Greg in the zebra stripped Fokker and I have flipped over executing Immelmann turns to get into a tailing position.  May guns jammed.

More games of chicken.  Around this time I realised I needed to fly further into German territory to complete the mission.

The DH.4 observer gets in a shot.

Mark B sets the poor Red Baron on fire.

Again I have set myself up well only to have my guns jam.

And I'm getting a lot of attention.

The DH.4 gets a kill.  However both it and Mark B's Snipe have taken a lot of damage and head for home.

Leaving me, on fire, deep in enemy territory to battle my way out alone.

And I did it!

I was extremely lucky.  Stephen was able to catch me in the end, but suffered a gun jam on his closing burst.  Phew!

The unofficial leaderboard, noting that flying two planes counts as two sorties and doubles your chances of deaths and kills.

Another Napoleon's Battles Practice Session

Last night I took Stephen N and Mark B through another game of Napoleon's Battles.  We used the OOB for Marengo (getting as much reuse out of the labels as possible).  It was a straight up fight (one which I would have loved to have set up using the new Blucher Scharnhorst system, but that will have to wait).  We were also joined by Oliver who took on Ott, the Austrian commander of their left wing.

This is Ott's command, three divisions with plenty of artillery.   Note revised movement trays and what I call, Large Print labels.  The movement trays are necessary to align Stephen's Empire based Austrians with the required Napoleon's Battles basing - something that I am testing out for the extra figures I will need for Waterloo.  Large Print, well, we ain't getting any younger.

That's just about the all the Austrians in view.  The terrain boards looked good and the terrain features (which just represented rough ground) went well.  I was also pleased that the basing on my French matched in.  The Austrian wagons are just for show.

The Austrian right rested on some rough ground.

Victor's Corps on the French left.  While the Austrians might have the artillery, the French had the commanders.  Note the old style labels.  Light blue was not a good choice.

The French centre with Lannes and Dessaix on the right with Murat and the cavalry in reserve.

The big picture.

An attempt at an arty photo - the morning sun raising above the battlefield.  The table was six feet wide by five deep.  The armies deployed within 2,400 yards of each other (1" represents 100 yards).  While this would mean it takes a few moves to get into action, it did allow for some on table maneuvering.

Ott made his way round the left of the rough ground.  The Austrian infantry do not march very fast.  The Austrian centre was fairly stationary due to Melas concentrating on his right where the French advanced in some force.

The French attack in the centre is repulsed.  Ott is slowly coming round. However...

The Austrian right has been destroyed.

In a desperate and totally unsporting move, the Austrian commander pushes the Grenz through the muddy fields to try and capture the up and coming French star, Napoleon himself.  But fail.

The Austrian players had some amazing bad luck.

I umpired as simply as I could, which meant no free rolls and no withdraw.  I am now having second thoughts about excluding those rules.  Free rolls add to the fun and can even out some bad luck (or enemy good luck) and withdraw (provided casualties are capped to no more than the rout number for the close combat phase in total) might better represent the different armies capabilities.

Everyone had fun (as far as I could tell) and I was certainly happy with the visual appeal (particularly compared with the game we had the previous month).

Next up, Marengo - Prelude to Waterloo.

Spanish Reina Dragoon Regiment

This post was inspired by this post from Carlo.

Seeing his post reminded me that I had painted up a Spanish Dragoon regiment to "use up" some Old Glory SYW 15mm figures I had somehow acquired (I'm guessing they were a pass off or part of a bigger deal or something).  These would have been painted some ten or twenty years ago.  They are the only Spanish I have (so far).  They have seen action substituting as Prussian HC.

As they say, too pretty not to show.

Looking at them now, I can see I had a problem with the yellow.  It has gone on too thick and obscured the detail of the fabric folds.

Contact Patrol

Stephen N, whose collection all these planes are from, set up a reconnaissance mission for two Bristol Fighters to fly across the battlefield and return.  Waiting for them were three Fokkers.

With my new found knowledge I will embellish this a contact patrol.  Such patrols were conducted during offensives.  The planes would fly over the front and sound klaxon horns and the advanced infantry would set off flares allowing the planes to mark their position and then report back to high command.

Mark B and myself took a Bristol each (I'm the half painted one).  Stephen N is the yellow Fokker, Stephen B the zebra and, welcoming a new player to Wings of Glory in his first game, Oliver in the red Fokker.

Contact!  Poor bloody infantry down in the mud.

A pair of Bristol Fighters.

Incoming Fokkers.

Not the kind of contact expected, but the collision knocks out one Fokker and gives me a kill.

Very next go my companion gets a good burst in on the yellow Fokker and boom!

A more aesthetically pleasing explosion. 

Prior to this pass by the red Fokker, the two Bristols had collided.  I almost got my second kill, but it would have been a home goal.  Mark B collected 10 points of damage from the contact.

We head for home.

I had collected four damage cards, but they were all zero.  The red Fokker had taken some damage (I forget exactly, might have been nine plus a pilot wound).

And as my good fortune (which is a bit of an understatement) continues, here is the updated, but totally unofficial, leader board for 2015.

Fire in the Sky by Michael Molkentin

A few weeks ago I saw this book mentioned in this post by Kaptain Kobold.

Thanks to the local library service I was able to quickly get a copy and true to the quote on the cover of the 2nd Edition I found it "hard to put down ... accessible, and unfailingly interesting."  As the Kaptain says it is an excellent account of the Australian Flying Corps contribution in WW1.

It will give me new inspiration for my Wings of Glory game tonight and for games to come (even though I have trouble matching performance of the Wings of Glory system to air combat as described in the book).

You can find out more about Fire in the Sky at Google books here.