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...
Thank you for dusting off the old scoreboard; it's always a consolation to know your memory is reasonably accurate and that you have not halucinated too much or confused a vivid dream sequence with reality.....☺
ReplyDeleteSplendid game!
Flags for the GA? Sorry cannot help. I'd assume each party would want to fly their flag and then squabble about whose had seniority and the most prominent position?
Neil
I think your scenario for the GA sounds quite likely! A combined flag would be handy - there were quite a few units present last night who would not appreciate marching under the flag of the Empire.
DeleteExcellent battle recap played on your elegant green baize-like table. Like Neil, I enjoy seeing your repurposed scoring track in action. I just wish I had one!
ReplyDeleteFor flag enquiries, I suggest dropping David at Not by Appointment blog. He knows everything about all flags.
Thanks Jon - good idea - I'll get in touch with David.
DeleteCheers for a great game. I got lucky this time!
ReplyDeleteNot at all, though the game had its moments. There was a strange period when my troops on my left flank were getting masses of retreat flags in combat, and running big distances; when the time came for the subsequent regulation Rally Checks, using the same dice, as often as not there was not a flag symbol to be seen, and the boys just kept running. More than once, I swear I heard faint laughter coming from somewhere.
DeleteThe 12 VPs I lost were: 1 general disabled, 5 units eliminated by losses and 6 which failed to rally after a retreat, 1 of which had no losses at all! That is an unusual proportion.
What a fantastic looking game. An excellent write up too - my congratulations to your war correspondent.
ReplyDeleteThank you Matt - the correspondent sharpened his pencil and everything.
DeleteA wonderful display of WSS eye candy, love the look of the table.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
Willz.
Thanks Willz, you are very kind.
DeleteConfession time: in the interests of improving the slightly odd scenic traditions of my battlefields, I spent an hour or so looking for an old set of HO plastic fruit trees. St-Truiden is a fruit-growing area, I understand, so it would be great if the orchard could look the part. I found the fruit trees - still in their original box, purchased from Harburn Hobbies in the 1980s - hadn't seen them for years. Excitement subsided very quickly when I took them out, and they just crumbled to multicoloured bits in my hand. As a result, this orchard was growing alder trees - I have no idea what sort of fruit you get off an alder [catkins?].
Humility is fine - I can handle it; let others make their own trees from wire and sticky tape and cat litter, I'll stick with my ancient Merit plastics.
Oh yes - the buildings are all Tey Potteries ceramics (ornaments for Grannie's bookcase), with lashings of matt varnish to calm down the glaze. I like them, though this lot does look a bit more Norfolk than Flanders, perhaps.
Well done to JBM for the win on the night and the victory (by a whisker) overall). Love the stately look of your figures Tony. Seems very right for the WSS. More so than for the SYW somehow.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's always good to get a chance to 'look at the old scoreboard!'
Hearty agreement Chris - JBM put on a fine show, and was a worthy victor. I am very fond of the elegance of the old Les Higgins 20mm figures, though if you'd witnessed the speed with which some of my lads left the field you might reconsider the stately impression!
DeleteThe scoreboard does not normally appear on Zoom, since it is off-camera, so it was due a photo, to prove it hasn't been forsaken! For this battle, I set up my tablet as a 3rd camera, to provide close-up detail as necessary; it worked ok, but I forgot to put it on charge (so it went flat!), it interfered with my Bluetooth headphones, and we never actually used it, so that was probably a luxury too far!
That all gave a very good narrative - kudos for the rules.
ReplyDeleteI thought we might need to spread the action over two evenings (partly because the Games Master talks too much!), but we finished quite comfortably in the time allowed. The Gendarmérie de France were scary, but they've had poor outings before, so it has a lot to do with the luck of the dice.
DeleteA fine looking game, and worthy finale!
ReplyDeleteThank you sir! - the war is over, you can all come out now.
DeleteCracking stuff As always Tony…
ReplyDeleteAll the best. Aly
Thanks Aly - one does one's best!
DeleteThat looked excellent Tony. Nice that your rules are standing up well to contact with the enemy.
ReplyDeleteRegards, James