WSS: Test Campaign Decider - the Battle of Borgloon

 

Last night I hosted the Zoom game to settle the campaign. At this point the Allies (that's me, folks) were leading by 3 points to 2, having won an encounter battle (1 pt) at La Bienveillance (2 Divisions a side) and a medium-sized set-piece (2 pts) at Waremme (at which I defended, with my 3 Divisions partially dug in against 4 Divisions of Franco-Bavarians), while the French (JBM) won an off-table siege (2 pts) at Rijnsburg. 

Last night we had arrived at a large set-piece (worth 3 pts) at Borgloon, near St-Truiden, where each army had 4 Divisions. Because my army was rather smaller, I chose to defend. Thus the winner of this final bash would win the campaign outright. Alas, I forgot to switch off the spellchecker in Word when I took the screenprints, we have some unwanted extra colour in the presentation of the OOB...

JBM (Marshal Marsin) withheld Chatrier's cavalry as a reserve, the location of their arrival a secret.

The action was predictably hectic. The Allies had a ridge and some woodland to defend on their right, the village of Bommershoven in front of their centre, and a more open area on their left, which was held by General Vielgluck, with Austrian cuirassiers and a brigade of infantry from Hessen-Kassel. 

The French arrived, and after a fairly unproductive preliminary bombardment the various artillery batteries withdrew, and Marsin used some very fine Command cards to order his whole line to advance. The Allies had expected the main attack to fall on their left, but hadn't imagined it would arrive quite so quickly!

 

Initial view from the French left; in the foreground La Bonne's infantry surround the little village of Oude Haren, with its neighbouring orchard; in the centre are Arco's Bavarians, with Bassinet's Division at the far end making the main attack. The larger village of Bommershoven is visible in the distance, commanding the main highway to Maastricht

 

From the French right, we get a view of Bassinet's command

 

Continuing around the table, we are now behind the Allied left. In the foreground is Vielgluck's mixed Division, Austrian cavalry and Hessian infantry, none of which performed very well...

 

The French advance very vigorously, right across their front, with the main attack going in in the distance, on their right flank

 

 

Vielgluck's boys get ready to hold off Bassinet. Vielgluck is encouraging one of his cuirassier units

 

In the Allied centre, at Bommershoven, Marlborough's Regt and the Royal Regt of Ireland made a very nervous effort at holding the village, repeatedly being pushed back by some of Arco's Bavarians, but scrabbling back

 

Arco's cuirassiers in the centre, including two very shiny newly-painted regiments, had a very quiet day - there was a lot of bloodshed, but it was elsewhere

 

Both sides taking a breather at Bommershoven; Marlborough himself was called into play a few times, encouraging his regiment to please go back and re-take the village

 

On the Allied right, the British have no intention of coming out into the open, while La Bonne's lads opposite mostly stand and glare at them

 

On the French right, Bassinet brought up the Gendarmérie de France - all 6 squadrons of them! - and the Austrian cavalry were outmatched

 

A general view after about 2 hours

 

At this point the British have taken back the larger village, but it didn't last...

 

With 12 Victory Points required for a win, the French got to 5-1 in fairly routine fashion, substantially helped by the apparent inability of the Austrians and Hessians on the Allied left to stop retreating when they were required to do so

 

With the Allied left pretty much wrecked, mostly by the (elite) Gendarmes, and Bommershoven now taken permanently by the (elite) Bavarian Leib Grenadiers, the value of top quality troops and excellent dice rolls were becoming very obvious

 

At this late stage, the Allied right flank emerged from their woods, determined at least to give some kind of showing. They had a few very helpful Combat cards at this point (including the much-prized Infantry Bonus card) and James Ferguson, now commanding Charles Churchill's old Division, suddenly made such rapid progress that Marlborough wondered why he hadn't tried this earlier. The situation is pulled back to 10-6 at this point, though it stabilised more than somewhat once the fancy cards ran out...

 

So the later stages of the game were dominated by this infantry combat near the orchard and, inevitably,  the French managed to eliminate enough units to clinch the day.

 

12-6! A decisive victory indeed, which also meant that the French won the campaign, 5-3 on points. Very well deserved too, my hat is appropriately doffed to the victors. Each army lost one general on the day, seriously wounded - Vielgluck and Bassinet were carried from the field. In case you are wondering what happened to the French cavalry reserve, it turns out that they were to come on behind their right flank, but they weren't needed - there was no-one for them to fight at that end of the table!

 

For Neil's benefit, this is what a trouncing looks like on my old scoreboard! I produced some army flags for the occasion. The personal arms of Louis XIV (top) seems sound enough, but I have failed to find any record of a flag for the Grand Alliance - not even the League of Augsburg, so just put up an Austrian flag. Just out of interest, does anyone know of a flag for the the unified army of the Alliance in the WSS? 

 The tabletop rules seem to have settled down nicely, and have coped with everything, including occasional memory lapses, without drama. The campaign rules are a little odd, but worked effectively. If I got anything wrong, I think it was in making the recovery rates for "legacy casualties" too generous. Attrition didn't really bite hard enough as the campaign went on - this is easily fixed, so I'll make the rallying rules more miserable!

My thanks to JBM for his help and wisdom, and for his companionship during the games.

A good time was had by all, but I really do want to know how much we are paying for these Hessian mercenaries...