Fighting Tomorrow - Vimeiro Set-Up

Another Zoom-powered game tomorrow, with Stryker and Goya - Vimeiro (21 Aug 1808). Commands & Colors scenario, as published, though our house rules are tweaked a fair amount.

These early Peninsular War battles are useful for Videoconference-type games, since they are quite small. No doubt more will be heard of this - big reminder to the umpire to make a point of taking plenty of photos!

Vimeiro battlefield, from behind the French left flank.

This is a strange place to fight a battle, the French right is cut off by something that looks rather like Glen Affric - lots of impassable hills - it is possible to tiptoe through the woods! The small village on the right edge of the picture is Ventosa - I wonder whether the inhabitants have ever got as far as Vimeiro town (top left)?

And the whole field again, this time from behind the French right.

Action on the River Coa - 24th July 1810 - The Game

The south-west corner of the fortress of Almeida, which contributed little to the action, really, though the Portuguese garrison gunners caused some loss to the French 3eme Hussards when they ventured too close

Well, because playing a game via Zoom was a new experience for us, I had spent some time this week working on camera angles, and lighting (which sounds grand, but was mostly a matter of which lights to switch on, which curtains to close to avoid table-shine and that strange effect you get when the electric lights are on but the far end of the table is in bright sunshine).

All went very well - this techy stuff is well tried and tested now, and was only really new to us greenhorns, so I shall avoid pretending it was stressful or dramatic, or even particularly clever; the game went well - we finished (just) in the scheduled 3 hours, and we learned quite a bit. Interesting. It was a very good day, I think - a lot of fun, apart from anything else.

We started at 10:30am, Goya commanding the French, Stryker the Anglo-Portuguese allies. The scene was General Craufurd's strange episode on the River Coa. The game was chosen because it is not too big (for a first bash at Zoom, like) - we used my scenario rather than the official C&CN #006 from the book (I was a bit affronted by the fact that the official scenario gives Craufurd a couple of gratuitous British Line battalions, just to balance the game - my usual crib about the official scenarios, in fact).

Our game paralleled quite a few areas of the real battle - interesting. Craufurd should, by rights, have retreated across the only bridge over the Coa a day or so before he did. He was certainly instructed to do so by his Commander in Chief - in the event he hung on, while Ney's VI Corps bore down on him; presumably he had hopes of gaining some kind of personal triumph against the advance guard, but he risked his entire Light Division with no real justification - he was still going to have to retreat eventually. Still, I guess you had to be there, as they say - it's all very well being smart about it now...

Our game required the accumulation of 7 Victory Points for a win - there was some fancy stuff around the availability of extra VPs for successful evacuation of Craufurd's units across the river, and there was also the issue of having a train of wagons and mules to evacuate, too. The challenge for Craufurd was knowing when to cut and run.

It was very close. These games are usually very close, but this one was probably the closest yet [cue rolling of eyes]. Craufurd himself spent some of the early part of the game resting (apparently) in a wood, but he manoeuvred his little army with skill, through a series of reverses. He evacuated half the wagon/mule train (the other half was destroyed by the French cavalry), he also evacuated 2 of his combat units, and he inflicted enough damage on the enemy to amass 6 VPs - at this stage the French, whose VP all came from eliminating Craufurd's units, had also got to 6 VPs.

Craufurd himself, with a battalion of the Rifles, was on the bridge at that moment, and his next turn would allow him to march them over the river to safety, to get the required 7th VP.

Didn't happen - his turn never came. The French threw in the last of all they had on their left flank, including a charge on the battered 14th Light Dragoons by the last intact battalion, the 1/66eme, led by General Ferey himself. Since the 14LD were not in good shape, and did not have room for the approved Retire & Reform ploy, the infantry won this scrap - a rare example of an attack column defeating horsemen - and the game was over, leaving Craufurd to go to discuss his day with Wellington.

General de Brigade Claude-François Ferey - probably man of the match

Excellent fun - we didn't learn too much from things that went badly, because there weren't many at all - about all I can think of was that the usual red loss counters do not show up well on camera, so we'll use white in future. One important skill in learning, I think, is to make sure you remember the things that did work - and there was plenty of scope for that.

My colleagues, of course, mucked in with their usual excellent enthusiasm and good humour, which was a massive contributor to our success. I was the umpire and general labourer, and it is quite hard work, but I had a terrific time - from time to time I felt apprehensive, because I was charging about, hyperventilating, while my guests were really only getting to watch through the keyhole, but it seems that everything was fine at their end too.

I think it proved worthwhile spending time and attention on the hardware - we had my Android tablet on a high stand - some 7 feet up in the air - as the main camera, at one end of the table, and my iPhone - also 7 feet up (and permanently connected to its charger, since Zoom will flatten a phone battery in no time at all - please take note!) - as the second camera, at the other end. The iPhone attended as a separate guest - Max Foy, in fact, who has his own Zoom account (not many of Napoleon's generals have Zoom accounts, I think). It also proved to have been a good idea to invest some time in setting up a grid reference system for the hex table, and to produce some good maps for the players.

My thanks, as ever, to Goya and Stryker for being such good chaps and making the game a success. Now that we have some experience, we are considering allowing one or two guests/observers to drop in on future games - we'll have to weigh that up, since there isn't a lot of time for chat, but it's all good so far!

One thing I was aware of was the lack of time to take decent photos, so apologies for the unbalanced set I managed to salvage - in particular the end of the game was a little frenzied, so there is a shortage of pictures of the climax! It's worth saying, I think, that playing a game by videoconference introduces a lot of obvious challenges, but it also encourages the players to be very methodical about following orderly turn sequences, for example, and this actually helped the game to run smoothly.

Points duly noted! Oh - yes - being umpire is fun but it's a bit of a work-out - I recommend a bottle of Lucozade on stand-by!

View from above the fortress of Almeida, looking along Craufurd's line towards the bridge at the far end. The little stone-wall enclosures are the remains of old vineyards. Craufurd is on the right edge of the picture, with the white edge to his base.

General view at the start from the French right flank - Ferey's brigade, who did much of the work, are at the far end. Loison, the division commander, like Craufurd, has the white base-border befitting his rank.

Ferey, with two battalions of each of 82eme and 66eme, plus a battalion of Légère, has a couple of batteries and support from the 15eme Chasseurs à Cheval (regular stand-out performers on this table). He sets about the Allied right flank.

And the first target is the 52nd Foot, on the end of the Allied line, with Sydney Beckwith attached. The 52nd suffered heavily and very quickly (something to do with being in the open), and eventually had to fall back behind their more sheltered colleagues.

On the Allied left, in front of the fortress, Col Robert Barclay has Rifles and the 43rd Foot, plus Ross's Troop RHA

A couple of gaps in the Allied right - some of Anson's light cavalry arrive, to help out

A more general view, around the same time - the battered 52nd Foot, identifiable by the stack of red markers, were not impressed by Col Beckwith's speech-making, and took little further part in the fighting, though eventually they were safely evacuated over the bridge. 

Bitter fighting near the bridge - Ferey brings up the 82eme - the black square means that - that's right, good guess! - the unit is in square; no time in a game of this sort to arrange the bases in a nice square, though it could be done in a more leisurely context.

Baron Ferey had a really exciting day - as a succession of units to which he was attached were eliminated, he would move on to someone else - at various times he was briefly attached to the foot artillery, the 82eme and the 66eme, and here he personally brings up the 15eme Chasseurs à Cheval - that's him with label #14 on his base - if he doesn't get made a Count for this then he should. No staff casualties on either side this day, by the way.

The chasseurs were repelled by the KGL Hussars, here seen with Gen George Anson, but they reappeared subsequently to help out with the final scrap. The last of the wagons is heading for the bridge and safety - it may seem unimportant, but that's another half a VP, and these things are hard-won.

Craufurd has now appeared in the battle line, as he prepares for his final stand. Though it was a struggle, Stryker handled the retreat over the bridge and the rearguard action with considerable skill.

Not much remaining on the French left by this stage - the 15eme Chasseurs are out of picture, getting their breath back and being egged on by General Ferey, but this is about it, though there is a flank attack coming in on the Allies from some of General Gardanne's dragoons.

Meanwhile, the French right, mostly General Simon's brigade of infantry, has hardly moved. There may be some awkward silences at dinner tonight.

Suddenly, very quickly, 6-all becomes 7-6 to the French, as Ferey, with the 1/66eme in column attack, manages to rout the British 14th Light Dragoons. The game is over - still within the 3-hour Zoom session. Stryker estimates we played out 14 turns in the 3 hours, which is not bad going at all in the circumstances. Well done, everyone!

Here you go - it's official - the French win 7-6. Yet another close one!

***** Late Edit *****

I received a couple of questions about the reference letters around the edges of the table - this was to make it easier to match the table up with the "official" set-up map I sent to the generals. Here's the map:

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Nantwich - Lord Molyneux's Purple Day

The arranged Nantwich game took place yesterday. Since the field layout for this battle doesn't really work well with the conventional Commands & Colors Left/Centre/Right activation system, we used a Ramekin-based mod for the C&C game, with dice-based activation.

Near the end of the day, Parliament's right flank consisted of Rigby's Regt of Foot and an artillery battery. They saw off some earlier attention from Royalist Horse, and were still holding their ground when we finished.

The game started with the Parliamentary army coming onto the field from the north. Because one of the chief bridges over the River Weaver was wrecked, Lord Byron had most of his Royalist troops on the wrong side of the river, so they arrived, very short of breath, after a detour through Shrewbridge, shortly after Fairfax's boys appeared on the Chester road opposite.

The Royalists already had a regiment of Foot and some medium sakers in place at Acton Church, and a body of musketeers from Fulk Huncke's regiment in the grounds of Dorfold Hall. The Parliament troops had a garrison of 800 muskets in the Nantwich suburb of Welsh Row, which had been strengthened with earthworks. The Nantwich garrison were classed as "raw".

On paper, the Royalists looked stronger - they had a lot of "veteran" units, and their Horse were generally superior tactically to their opponents.

In our game, Byron (that was Stryker and me) set about getting troops up to Acton Church, but realised fairly quickly that Fairfax (Goya and the Archduke) had swerved left and was heading towards Nantwich. Most of the subsequent action took place in the fields around Henhull Farm.

Byron rushes on to the field from the right of the picture, he may be late but he'll be up-to-date when he can shimmy like his sister Kate. He has troops already in the middle of the table, under Richard Gibson. Acton Church is smack in the middle of the photo, Dorfold Hall on the right edge of the table, with Nantwich beyond it, in the corner. Henhull Farm, where most of the fighting took place, is near the top edge of the photo, about one-third from the right.

It becomes obvious fairly quickly that Fairfax plans to avoid the church and head left over towards Nantwich. Sneaky.

With the Parliament troops making for Henhull (right of centre at the top of the picture), Byron attempts to react to this by moving forward with his own right flank.

Near the enclosure just to the west of Henhull, Earnley's Regt of Foot (in the foreground) are attacked by Parliament Horse. Earnley's was one of the numerous veteran units on the King's side this day (see the "V" on the bases), and they had a light gun with them. With confidence appropriate to their veteran status, they declined the opportunity to form a hedgehog - and were promptly ridden down! After a slow start, the Victory Points score was suddenly 3-1 to Fairfax's forces (7 for the win). 

Now there was violent conflict in the open ground around Henhull. Although we had expected this would be a quiet day for horse (assuming that the fighting would take place, historically, around Acton Church), there was some spectacular cavalry action - predictably bloody. At this stage the VP score had reached 4-3 for Parliament.

In a desperate attempt to get a few more VPs, the Royalists attacked on their left. This is Tyldesley's RoH attacking - they were forced to withdraw.

After the Horse, Tyldesley's and Robert Byron's Regts of Foot commenced an attack. It was now 5-4 for Parliament, and Stryker and I were not feeling too confident...

...when suddenly, on the other flank, Lord Richard Molyneux's Horse routed a Parliament unit of Horse, then broke through and destroyed John Booth's RoF, killing Sir Wm Brereton in the process. That's 3 VPs in a single turn, folks, and we'd snatched it 7-5. The picture shows Molyneux's boys getting their breath back, on Welshman's Lane, after their greatest day ever. Lancashire lads, you see?

I'm the first to admit that our victory was more than a little streaky, but I shall enjoy it anyway. At the end of the day, Gibson's RoF and the sakers are just where they started, by the Church of St Mary Acton, having had a relatively quiet time.

 As ever, my compliments and thanks to my colleagues, for their company and excellent humour. Thanks in particular to the Archduke, for his brave circumnavigation of Edinburgh. I'm sure we'll be back to Napoleonics for our next meeting, but the change of period was refreshing!

Eckau from Long Ago

So good we lost it twice.

Yesterday was a fighting day - we were re-playing the Battle of Eckau (July 1812),  of which I confess I had never heard before. The real battle has two alternative dates, depending on whose calendar you use - it was fought between Prussian and Russian forces at and around the small town of Gross Eckau (modern Iecava, in Latvia) - the Prussians, of course, were temporarily working as part of Marshal MacDonald's X Corps.

The real battle was fairly small (by our usual standards), and was won by the (real) Prussians. Yesterday's version was hosted by Count Goya, at his castle up in the remote Arctic, so Stryker and I arrived to do our bit to make a mockery of history.

The soldiers were all from Goya's collection, and he had set up the scenario so that we had something like a 1:1 representation of units present.

Goya's sketch map - North at the top (no Gregorian compasses)

The Order of Battle for the game was

Russians

8 battalions, each of 3 blocks

1 light cavalry regiment of 4 blocks

1 dragoon regiment of 4 blocks

2 foot artillery batteries

3 leaders

Prussians were split into 2 brigades - one on the east, one in the south west.

The east brigade consisted of:

3 line battalions, each of 4 blocks

1 light battalion of 4 blocks

1 light cavalry regiment of 3 blocks

1 horse artillery battery

1 leader

The south-west brigade was:

3 line battalions

1 dragoon regiment of 3 blocks

2 foot artillery batteries

2 leaders

Since this game does not lend itself well to a left-centre-right command system, we used the Ramekin variant of Commands & Colors:Napoleonics, which employs a dice-based activation system. We did not use the C&C Tactician cards. Stryker  took command of the Prussian "south-west" brigade, I controlled the "east" brigade, and Goya had the Russians.

The river was fordable at all points, troops in the water had the usual combat disadvantages. The victory target was 6 banners. No objective-based banners.

Stryker and I decided we would avoid the built-up areas as far as possible - the problem with Russian line infantry, you see, is that, though their units are fairly small, they are able to ignore 1 retreat flag (unquestioning valour or something), which makes them a formidable proposition in a town. Since the retreat flag exemption greatly reduced our chances of frightening them out of any of the bits of the town, we most certainly did not feel very optimistic about simply shooting them out of the place. Thus the grand master plan was that we would mostly ignore the town - I would steam down the road from the east with my brigade, to the north of the buildings, opposing the Russians' left flank, and Stryker would nip smartly across the fordable river, and take them from the other side. We envisaged a mighty meeting in the middle, like a meat grinder. We were also nervously aware, of course, that the scenario plan of splitting our force into two bits, with the looping flank attack from the East, immediately gave our opponents the central position which Napoleon would have recognised as the place to be. 

The meat grinder, alas, did not come to pass - my East Brigade was stopped and decimated disappointingly quickly, leaving my general helping out with a surviving horse battery, and Stryker never got across the river, so we lost very convincingly, and quite quickly, 6-1 on Victory Points. The Russian boys in the town were undisturbed, happily making turnip broth.

Russians in the town, very comfortable, thank you - we are looking north here

From the East, you can just see my brigade starting their march to glory - Stryker's brigade is just visible in the far left corner

There they are - just starting to march on to the corner - all they have to do is keep left and then cross the river

While my boys from the East are cracking on nicely

Here's a view from the south-west, with Brigade Stryker preparing to leap the River Iecava (not too chilly in July)

It didn't go very well at all - this is a (Warrior) Prussian battery, which was about my most effective unit

Back to the south-west, you see that Stryker has got nowhere near the river yet, while in the distance two of my battalions have taken so much damage from artillery that I can't do much more with them, my cavalry has vanished like snowballs in Hades, and another of my battalions is cut off on the hills and in serious trouble

Here they are, in fact, about  to be eliminated - miraculously, the general commanding survived and went to join the artillery battery

Yes - that's right - Stryker still can't get over the river - hmmm - maybe the town would have been easier...

General view from the East - the units with all the red counters are just standing watching - their orders are to avoid becoming more Victory Banners - if you have exceptional eyesight, you may spot a single white counter over in the far left corner - that is our one and only VB. By this point we had lost 6-1

The game ended quite early, so in the afternoon we tried it again. Same line up - the only changes to the scenario rules were that we reduced the Russian allocation of order chips each move (since in the morning they had had far more than they needed) and we allowed the Prussians three Iron Will counters, which allow an emergency cancellation of a Retreat Flag if all else fails. 

This time, the Prussians went for Plan B, which was to arrange for the East Brigade to get back over the river to the southern bank, join up with the South-West chaps, and attack the village in the approved manner. We actually gained just a little success this way, but not enough - we lost again, though this time the score was 6-3. You may decide for yourself if this is a worthwhile improvement. 

Righto - Take Two - Goya fishing in his Ramekin pot, looking for order chips

Some of Stryker's boys very quickly captured the southern-most part of the town. Gott in Himmel!

And my eastern chaps are splashing over the river to join in the fun. The two units with the blue order chips are about to be sent in against the nearest bit of the village (the Manor House, apparently) - the intention was that support would be arranged by the horse battery (currently in the river), but it didn't work out - not enough orders, and the horse artillery is disappointingly lightweight for bombarding towns.

Defeated again - this time by 6-3, but certainly defeated. Stryker's brave attack has run out of men, and further up the table you can see that my own attack on the built-up area just fizzled out

Excellent day - great lunch, good chat and a nice, interesting game. Many thanks to Goya, and compliments on the game design. Smaller armies gave a refreshing break from serried ranks of shoulder-to-shoulder. At the end, the Prussians had rather more space available than we needed. Things to note:

Russians are tough boys to flush out of a town.

Their artillery is very serious indeed.

I think we were using Russian dice.

Battle of La Rothiere - 1st Feb 1814

Yesterday was a fighting day, up at Kinross. There were four of us involved - the Archduke was travelling from Westmorland, Baron Stryker was arriving from much closer at hand, in his campaigning sedan chair, I was coming from south of the Forth, and the day's events were scheduled to take place at the legendary Schloss Goya, where the Count did a magnificent job of preparing and planning the game, preparing a very fine luncheon and (whisper it) even serving up lemon cake with afternoon tea.

The battle was a big 'un, no disputing that fact, the scenario lifted from the commandsandcolors.net website. Here is the scenario diagram - we used my Ramekin variant of C&CN - 8 Victory Points for the win.

We each contributed some of the troops. Stryker lost the toss of a coin and thus had to partner me in command of the French. A quick squint at the situation, along with the events of actual history, suggested that we were about to receive a thrashing.

Some of the Russian troops in action were very scary indeed - the Guard Grenadiers are very powerful, and the most formidable of the lot were their Guard Heavy Cavalry, who are 6 blocks strong, get a bonus of +1 die in combat and may disregard 2 retreat flags. Oh, jolly good. I was very pleased to see they were well back in the rear of the Allied reserve at the start - I had visions of their casually touring the battlefield, mopping up our army. The rules also bestow upon the Russian infantry a most unsporting reluctance to run away when pressed, and the final outrage is the Mother Russia die before the battle starts - on the day, this provided an extra block of strength for two of the Russian infantry regiments, and also an extra block for both of their field batteries. This did not seem like good news - since I had no idea how an extra-large battery is allocated combat dice in C&CN, we had to agree an ad-hoc rule for the day to cover this. Whatever, the Russian artillery was a major nuisance throughout the day.

It seemed very odd that the Bavarians present were, of course, not on the French side. The French had some Guard Cavalry, and some Young Guard infantry, but it was decreed that, this being 1814, the quality of the French line infantry did not merit the usual +1 combat die for elan in melee.

We (the French) assumed that the Bavarians would be sent across the stream into our left flank, so we set up to give them a hot reception. In fact they didn't attack us at all, so that was an effective feint! The VP rules for this scenario are fairly complex, but include extra points for possession of the 4 villages of La Giberie, Petit-Mesnil, La Rothiere itself (with the church) and Dienville. We duly defended these four villages, but things did not go very well at the start, the Russians drove us out of La Rothiere and eliminated one of our two field batteries. Thereafter the theme of the day was fighting for the villages, and trying to stay clear of the big Russian batteries. There was a good deal of cavalry fighting as the day developed. We started rather poorly, but as time went on we started to wear down the Russian infantry, and we got the VP score to 7-each. At this point we only (only!) had to push one of our Young Guard units across the stream on our left flank, and attack a wood containing a much-weakened Bavarian regiment (and, preferably, take out Wrede at the same time). This was such a vivid prospect that we could actually see it happening, but it was vital that we won the initiative for the next turn.

We duly won that initiative, and in a state of some excitement we attacked tthe Bavarian-held wood, but the attack failed completely, and the response was conclusive. Around this time, the Russian Guard Grenadiers eliminated one more French unit, and during that same turn we were driven out of two more of the key villages, so that, instead of sneaking a victory 8-7 (which would have been a travesty, to be honest), we actually lost - within a single turn - by 9-4. Hmmm. From the jaws of you-know-what.

Not to worry - great game - historically correct result, and it was exciting throughout. Questions will certainly be asked about the performance of the French artillery, but we are confident that (authentically) Napoleon will just lie through his teeth about the outcome, and publish appropriate Fake News in his dispatches.

My appreciation and very best wishes to my colleagues, and especially to Count Goya for his tireless hospitality. Excellent day!

View from behind the French right at the start, with the River Aube (unfordable) in the foreground, the key villages all defended. You can just see the Bavarian-Austrian force threatening our left flank at the far end of the table, beyond the stream.

Looking along the Russian line, from their left

Russians advancing on their left - this attack didn't develop as much as we expected, but it kept us worried throughout. You can see the pesky "Mother Russia" super-size batteries on the ridge in the background.

The French are quickly driven out of La Rothiere, and one of the French batteries has been overrun and eliminated. That's General Gerard (white border) attempting to convince his men that they should try to take the place back.

This is just a more expansive view of the same moment, I think (apologies for duff photos)

Over on the Allied right, you can see the Bavarians pretending that they might cross the stream and do something, but they sat it out, while we kept a very warlike eye on them

A general view - you can see the gap in the middle, between the armies, caused by the lack of a French answer to the artillery problem. Russians marching forward relentlessly.

The French are running out of infantry at this stage

Time for some volunteers to win the day...

Here we go - Stryker's Young Guard battalion, about to cross the stream and set about those Bavarians - at least they are thinking about it

First of all, they had to cope with an attack from an Austrian hussar unit - we did pretty well - the YG refused to form square, and convinced the hussars that they should take a Retire and Reform option. Good - not immortal yet, but working on it.

Meanwhile, my own Young Guard battalion took back La Rothiere - they didn't keep it for long, but we were starting to win back a few VPs at this stage

The Russians still have a lot of troops, and many of them are fresh. Note that the village of La Rothiere (with church) is now occupied by the Russian Guard Grenadiers - no-one was in any great hurry to take them on, so there they stayed.

Stryker's YG chaps lasted hardly any longer than mine - having failed to shift the Bavarians out of the wood, they were surrounded and eliminated. The game was over shortly afterwards. I hope that Stryker will be able to put a more positive spin on his blog report on this game! L'Empereur is depending on him.