BATTLES FOR WARGAMERS The Peninsular War: 1813 by Terence Wise

I paid $4.95 for this a long, long time ago.  I have dipped into it occasionally for inspiration and now I think it's time has come (almost).

Published in 1974

It covers a set of semi connected, less well known battles of this period and area of operations (basically the Pyrenees), after the Allied victory at Vittoria.

It starts with Castalla on the Spanish east coast and not involving Wellington or Soult, as the other five do.  Each battle has information on the forces engaged, a description of the fighting and aftermath as well as a decent map and an inspirational picture of a refight using Airfix figures.  Delightful!

The six chapters cannot really be called scenarios, and they are certainly rules agnostic.  Basic information is provided for organization and uniform painting guide with the notable omission of the Spanish.

The west coast battles focus on Soult's invasion in July 1813 and cover Maya, Roncesvalles and Sauroren and the subsequent French attempt to cross the Bidassoa in late August to relieve the siege of San Sebastian and then the Allied crossing on 7 October to invade France.

The battles involve divisions attacking through difficult terrain, often against much smaller opponents.  There is often a bit of preliminary marching and also for the defender when bringing up reinforcements.  I think this makes them challenging to stage, but a good test of a ruleset's ability to simulate Napoleonic warfare as against set piece battles.  Perhaps too small for a campaign, but the Scharnhorst (part of the Blucher rules) or Snappy Nappy might provide some kind of framework.

Anyway, lots of food for thought and having visited some of these battlefields I am certainly keen to see if I can develop some scenarios for Napoleon's Battles.

BIG BATTLES Thematic Byzantines versus Later Abbasid Arabs

An historical match up using Basic Impetus 2.0 Big Battles option.  Brad and John commanded the Byzantines while Karl and I had command of the Arabs.

With Big Battles the benefits of out-scouting and deployment are not so critical.

Terrain was kept to a minimum, just two gentle hills.

Arabs on the right and Byzantines on the left.

The two armies are very similar.

Although the Arab has a lot more infantry.

The Byzantine cavalry wings rush forward.

The Byzantine cavalry (as seen from their side) takes significant casualties.

While the Arab foot advance as quick as they can,

their cavalry is happy to stay shooting at the Byzantines.

The Byzantine cavalry is trying to get into contact.

As seen from the Byzantine side, their cavalry is getting bogged down.

After some success the Byzantine right wing has collapsed

and the Arabs are now focussing on breaking their left wing.

With both wings broken the Byzantine centre stands forlorn on their hill.

Game over.

RAF Take Two

Time for the second scenario which is a four-day event.  We just completed three and sadly had made a few errors as we are still learning the mechanics.  

Some aspects are frustrating, but the overall system seems to work well.

Classical Indian versus Anglo Danish

A club competition battle.  I went into this expecting hairy barbarians but was confronted by pointed sticks and stones. Richard was my opponent.

The Anglo-Danes were out scouted and deployed on a gentle hill.

There is an impassable area called "The Mountain" in the centre of the battlefield.

The Indians start to shuffle to the left and the Danes follow suit. 

A bit of wait and see.

The Indians decide on a full move to their left.

The Indians recover their order.

The Indians start to advance.

The Danish knights skillfully charge the Indian light cavalry,

 who had just routed some of the Danish slingers, 

so that they can't evade, 

but fail to follow up.

Both sides are now close. The Indians are busy firing.

The Danes that have not been disordered push on.

The Indians hold against the first charge.

But it is short-lived as the Indians lose most of their right wing.

Climax of the battle.  

The Indian general with his elephants trundles forward.

The Indian chariots close on the Danish knights

and the Indian light cavalry are about to charge the flank of the main unit of Danes.

Sadly it was not to be.

Indian general and his elephants did well.

The chariots failed to pursue and finish off the Danish knights.

And the light cavalry inflicted serious damage but took too many casualties and routed.

I think I failed to add to 1 to their Cohesion Test for charging a flank. It would have made all the difference as the dice roll was a 3 and they had one hit on a VBU of 2. But it's too late now, I'm knocked out of the competition.

Qugong and Viticulture

Why play one game when you can play two. I see I even have a label to accommodate this type of activity.

Five for Qugong.  For Russell it was his first time, but Richard, Jeff, Stefan and myself are old hands, well, perhaps not so much Stefan who was lucky to get an audience with the emperor on the last turn.

Richard (yellow) wins beating me (pink) by one point!

Jeff (white), Russell (red) and Stefan (blue)

My vineyard.

The board.

Oh!  I won.

(I'm burgundy, Richard yellow, Jeff white and Stefan blue).

Commentary from Richard.

Hi everyone

Thanks for playing yesterday and welcome back Russell who was dropped

right into the thick of a new game.

We had another fun game of Gugong.

Some interesting game play observations. The Great Wall area certainly

seems to be a great points generator, but as I found out, being behind

on intrigue can cost you dearly especially if someone has a double

servant. Mark was able to get multiple Great Wall VPs by being able to

exploit the wall being largely complete with 3 of my servants and

sometimes one or two or someone else's by placing his double servant

and/or one other, winning the tie and then being able to reclaim the

double servant with intrigue points. I got stuck on the wall because I

ran out of servants because I bought that Level 3 decree early in turn 3

and wasn't able to do a lot after that. Ironically, this decree ended up

saving me in the end, but couldn't have got any closer.

Which canal rewards to take are certainly a tricky decision. The extra

card can be an advantage, but the double servant seems to offer a

significant advantage, especially for the Great Wall area.

Interestingly in this game the travel area did not get nearly as much

attention compared with last game.

By far the most interesting game play, however, came from Stefan who

decided to try a sprint finish to the Palace of Heavenly Purity in the

final turn.

For future games, at some point I think we should introduce some of the

modules from the Panjun expansion to keep things challenging.

Viticulture was good too, but I always feel this game is too much of a

race especially with all VPs being public. You really only have a very

limited number of turns and if you don't get decent card draws there is

not a lot you can do and then the end game state is triggered. I do have

the Tuscany and Bordeaux expansions so would also be interesting to play

with them at some point to see how the game play changes. Overall a nice

relatively low stress game.

Thanks again for playing. The next multi-player session will be on 30th

July. I will be back in touch before then to advise the game(s).

Regards

Richard

Later Merovingian versus Later Fatimid Egyptian

Nothing like a bit of practice pre match.  I cobbled together some Frankish types to face Mark B's Fatimids.

Out scouted, the Franks deploy aggressively with their flanks protected 

by difficult terrain on the left and a lake on the right.

The Fatimids are on a gentle hill.

The Franks get straight into action

and it all starts to fall apart.

The Franks keep on fighting, hoping their luck will change.

It doesn't.

Decisive win to the Fatimids.

STP

Some supplementary photos:

British Napoleonic Commanders

In working out an OOB for the Battle of Orthez I realised I was quite a few command stands short.  This has now been fixed (almost I think).

Divisional commanders

Corps commanders.

A small army commander.

Old Nosey

He'll be glad to see the back of the French.

All together.