Napoleon's Battles 800 Points

Thursday Richard organised an 800 point aside Napoleon's Battles game.  We used the 2nd/3rd Edition, but with the 4th Edition modification to the dice roll needed to cause a casualty to units deployed in a built up area.  All miniatures and terrain from Richard's collection.  If you have good bandwidth, don't forget to click on the pictures to get the full effect (each is 1 to 2 MBs in size and shows plenty of detail).

It's hard to get a shot of the whole deployment.  Both sides had three corps.  I was the Austrians while Richard had a mix of Italians, French, Westphalians and Poles.

This town represented three BUAs.  It was to be the scene of much fighting.

In the centre was a large farmstead represent two BUAs, but only a +1 defensive values (the town was +2)

Italians ready for action

The "International" force starts to move forward.

The Austrians have occupied the town as the Italians start to probe its defences.

The French secure the centre as the Austrians cautiously advance.

A steady sniping commences from the woods just outside the town.

Both armies probe around the flank of the town.  It was all bluster.

I'm a cautious player, especially when every thing is equal in a game such as this.  The jagers were pushed forward and suffered horrendous casualties becoming the only Austrian unit to disperse.

Numerous combats occur, but there is no breakthrough (blue cubes indicate disordered troops, black cubes routed).

The play is even more cautious on the Austrian left.

The fighting rages between the farm and the town.  Austrian grenadiers carry all before them.

The French assault has been repulsed and the town remains fast in Austrian hands.

The Austrian left also sees the allied forces pull back.

The centre appears to be in Austrian hands, although there are a large number of troops to be rallied.

The Austrian corps commander busy rallying his men.

Ney, having run out of men.

Time for discretion.

We played for about six hours.  I wasn't keeping track of game turns, but there might have been six or eight.  Everything worked well.  The allies had tried numerous combined arms attacks with mixed results.  The Austrians had plenty of artillery and cavalry to keep them in check.

Regimental Fire and Fury

Wednesday night at the club I put together this rough and ready Regimental Fire and Fury game.  I was very rusty with the rules and worse really only know the brigade level rules.  All I was able to do was assemble the forces and put down heaps of the club's terrain.

The Union had two brigades: Naglee and Palmer from Casey's Division as listed for the Casey's Redoubt scenario plus two batteries.  All green.  I took Naglee and Simon had Palmer.

The Rebs were Garland and Rains brigades from DH Hill's division, same scenario.  Stephen went Rains and Joey Garland.  Luckily Joey had played two games recently, although in 28mm.  Either way, that made him the expert,

The Rebs have to attack.

The move distances gave the impression they would soon be upon us, but they were very tardy.

The woods slowed em down too.

I actually started moving my guys forward.

The rest of the Union clung to their ridge.  There was a developing Reb outflanking move on the Union right.

Fighting in the woods.

Union battery wrecked, but not before it had inflicted heavy casualties, so many in fact I began to think the Union had a chance.

The Union left fully engaged.

The right at risk of being outflanked.

The Reb outflanking move succeeded.  The Union being green also turned out not to have much fight in them (as you'd expect).

Brave colonel taking one for the team.

Game played really well.  I much prefer the brigade size for 15mm, but like the improvements to the Fire and Fury rules in the regimental version. 28mm maybe better for depicting regiments.

In checking the status of the Fire and Fury rules I came across this post dated 30 June 2014 from the game designer, Richard Hasenauer:

If I were to redo Fire and Fury, there would be temptation to make changes using some of the game mechanics developed for the regimental version. The old brigade game was published 24 years ago and you can add four more years to that before it had a name and was still in development. Hopefully over the years we've learned a few things about game design that could improve upon the old version. Some of the things I'd want to change are:

1. Rate brigades separately for unit effectiveness (fresh/worn/spent) and experience (crack/veteran/green). I might even be tempted to add a fourth experience rating called "experienced" for brigades that have fair mix of green and veteran units.

2. Add double quick movement rate and use a fixed movement rate based on terrain type instead of prorating.

3. Expand weapon types to at least Early War and Late-War Union and Confederate, or perhaps an even greater level of detail for weapon types. I don't know how much detail would be more popular.

4. Use the regimental version of the fire combat table where there is a greater chance becoming disordered depending on the experience level of the target unit. I also like the Galling Fire combat effect where a unit loses a stand if already disorder. The old no effect from double disorder was annoying.

5. Fight with your best unit when determining modifiers in charge combat. Stop using the -1 for each stands lost from fire during the charge and simply base that charge modifier on the unit's effectiveness level at the moment charge combat is being resolved.

6. Add victory conditions for heavy casualties, greater losses and key positions lost. The heavy casualties level can be by division or corps.

These are a few of the changes I'd make. I also realize you can't have all of the detail of a regimental game. Also, speed of play has always been an issue with playing both versions of Fire and Fury. Are there changes that can be made to speed up gameplay and still be able to recreate a historical battle with near historical results? I don't know.

Redoing the brigade game has crossed my mind. Just not decided if I should take that path, or more important, if my circle of friends, who contribute their time and ideas, are willing to go there with me. They might be needing a break from the ACW.

http://www.fireandfury.com/phorum5/read.php?8,49924

That seems pretty spot on to me.

Latest purchase

So, I'm talking to guys at the club and there is some interest in Blitzkrieg Commander.  Turns out we all had allies.  Next day on Facebook I see some 15mm Fallschirmjager for sale.  These will go perfect with my Australians which I've built for Crete.  Very attractive price as well.  Decision made, waited a week for parcel to arrive and now I have them.  Brilliant!

Just need to finish the HMG bases and perhaps invest in some singles so I can also use them for Crossfire and we're ready to go.

Going

Going, going, gone.  That was one thought for this post's title.  Then I had "return to sender" and "life's a circle".  The joys of blogging.

About ten years ago I used the threatened move to Perth to buy an ACW army to pad out the meagre collection I had.  Along with the buy the seller threw in a heap of buildings, 3.5 kg worth.

Sadly the building have languished unused.  Then I saw a post in Facebook asking if anyone had any ACW era buildings.  Of course it was the same guy.

So I've now packed them up and they will go in the post today.  No charge, except for postage (which thankfully I won't be paying).

Flight of the Handley Page 400

Guess who has got a new model?

Mark B was allowed the test flight of one of Stephen's latest acquisitions.  Stephen flew escort in a Bristol Fighter while Paul in his pimped Fokker and myself in the Albatross attempted to save the Lego factory from the bomber.

The bomber is focused on its target.

I've made my first pass, but don't seem to cause much damage (unlike the return fire).

It's big!

Bombs away.  My attempts to line up shots were stymied by the bomber dropping altitude and then when I did get a shot my guns jammed.  Grrr!

Around this time I stressed my craft by doing two difficult moves in a row.  The damage was significant.

Finally some progress.  Unfortunately I've taken yet more damage, putting me over 70%.

I head for home while the bomber makes another bombing run.  Even with the fire and complications due to straight flying while on fire, the bomber is only at 30% damage.  Never has an A deck produced so many zeroes.  

No figure left unbased

In July 2015 I bought a some painted AB figures on impulse.  They were just about perfect and all I needed to do were some minor repairs and rebase.  I can now happily say all figures have been rebased.

I had two left over and decided to turn them into engineers.  You never know when they might come in handy.

1000 Point Impetus Game

On Saturday I umpired a 1,000 point Impetus game, four players per side, pitting my Greeks against Mark B's Sassanids (fleshed out with a loan of additional Sassanids from Andrew).

We went for two 6x4 tables placed end to end giving a comfortable 12x4 playing area.  As Mark B was running late I set terrain.  He did have a plan though and the Greeks were caught at a disadvantage.

Hard to get a picture of the whole Greek set up.  It is nearly every painted Hellenistic figure I've got, all Tin Soldier, a collection I've been working on since the mid 1980s.

The Greek right wing commanded by Dave B who also was the Greek CinC.  Next command was Allen (brother to Olivier), in his first Impetus game.

Then Brynden and finally Mark Woods on the Greek left.  

The Sassanids could all fit in one photo.  They were commanded by Mark B, ably assisted by Mark from the ANF, Stephen N and Olivier.

Another look at the Sassanids.  They were a bit short on for light cavalry and in retrospect I think their plan would have gone better with more light cavalry as the medium cavalry bow just didn't have the movement flexibility.

As can be seen the Sassanids had been able to deploy all their army effectively facing just half the Greek army.  As the best Greek troops were on the right, they didn't get to play much of a part on the battle.

The Greek javelin armed skirmishers got lucky against the enemy.  The peltasts were also able to take advantage of the broken terrain.

The Greeks go on opportunity while the Sassanids struggle forward.

Once they spread out there was a lot of them, but they lost one command at this stage and were threatened on their right.

In they charged.

The combats were fairly inconclusive.  As can be seen half the Greek army is still redeploying.

Unfortunately we ran out of time at this point.  We'd had about seven turns in a six hour period.