WSS: Set-Up for Another Playtest

 Gaming via Zoom on Friday, so I've been setting up the table. This will be the little-known Battle of the Beutelbach, which must have been in 1703, I guess, on an unusually flat area of  Bavaria. I needed some photos for the participants, so it seemed sensible to post them here as well.

This is the first-cut set-up, still a little adjustment allowed before we kick off on Friday. Here is the view from the Bavarian left flank. That stream is just a little watersplash.

And now from the Bavarian right flank. Since the micro-dice will be completely invisible on the Zoom session, there will be an issue of coloured counters, to denote unit status, before we start.

A drone shot from behind the Imperial position - no-one in the little hamlet of Staubhof yet, so the residents can shift the glass and china into the cellar.

10am start Friday - better read the rules again - there are some changes in the turn sequence, so a quick guideline note to keep me right would be a good idea.

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And now an extra photo for Nature lovers - here are Die Schwäne von Staubhof...

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Zoom Game - Fuentes de Oñoro (3rd Day) - 5th May 1811

Yesterday I hosted/umpired a "distanced" game, featuring - nay, starring - Stryker as Wellington and nundanket as Massena - lofty company indeed. We used my Ramekin variation on C&CN, on a 17 x 9 hex table, and the forces were scaled to about 60% of the original, just to get everything on board (so to speak).

I spent some time studying the available scenarios - and eventually constructed my own. Some challenges for Fuentes - it is a very big battle, by Peninsular War standards, but also rather an odd battle in some ways. I chose the 3rd day (which, confusingly, for me, was the second day of fighting - the battle was 3rd-5th May, and the 4th was mostly spent manoeuvring, while Massena tried to come up with something rather more clever, and Wellington extended his right flank, in anticipation of this more clever thing which Massena might do).  The great, received British traditions of this 3rd day are mostly surrounding the early morning action, when Montbrun's cavalry and Marchand's and Mermet's divisions of VI Corps made a left hook through forests and swamps, and flushed Houston's 7th British Division out of the village of Pozo Bello. Craufurd was sent with the Light Divn and some cavalry support, to rescue the 7th Divn - Houston managed to retire to Freneda, which is to the west of the main battlefield, and took no further part. Craufurd then undertook a celebrated withdrawal, with his infantry in square, and with gallant support from his outnumbered cavalrymen. This section of the action is also famous for Norman Ramsay's "charge" with a couple of guns from the RHA, and so on - if you want a truly dramatic account of all this, Napier is your man, though how accurate the depiction is may now be a topic for discussion.

Whatever, I reluctantly decided that much of this early-morning caper is splendid stuff, and would lend itself beautifully to a big game of Sharp Practice or similar, but is far too tactical and fiddly for a big game with a blunt instrument like C&C. Thus our game started with Houston gone and Craufurd on his way back - I would have to grit my teeth and do without the Brunswickers and Chasseurs Britanniques, and our field would have Pozo Bello a mile or two off the south-west corner.

The game, then.

This is my rather basic version of a C&C set-up plan.

Start: general view from north-east corner - Anglo-Portuguese on the right, town of Fuentes (worth 2 temporary Victory Points to the French if and while they hold both hexes of the town) right in the middle of the photo

Start: looking along Wellington's main line, from his right - those big Foot Guard battalions look impressive, but they had a quiet day...

Start: view of the Allied right flank, with Craufurd's force strung out across the field, and Montbrun's cavalry appearing through the trees from the direction of Pozo Bello. Below you see Fuentes itself, with the garrison looking across the river towards Ferey's Divn [I substituted fords for the original bridges, just to avoid that annoying and rather undignified business of balancing sabots on the handrails]

Start: Beyond the Allied left, you see Ferey, with support from the Divns of Conroux and Claparède - the counters on the table edge are further battalions which are still to arrive - Drouet D'Erlon kept back part of the IX Corps force as a reserve. The river is shallow, but the section in the foreground (from the wiggly bit) is in a gorge, and unfordable.

Start: The French centre, with Montbrun's cavalry, Marchand and Mermet beyond. The centre was intimidated by the Allied artillery facing them (for once, the French are outgunned), and served mainly to pin Wellington's main force, and limit the extent to which the Fuentes town position could be reinforced.

Start: Drone shot of Montbrun's cavalry, making a fairly dismal job of harrassing Craufurd. The Allies won the first initiative roll of the game, which was a good one to win

Right from the beginning of the action, the fight for Fuentes began, and it was as bloody as Napier says; to everyone's amazement (especially Massena's), the French gained immediate success and took the southern end of the village. They were promptly driven out again, but came back with equal success. The theme was set - this was the main area of fighting for the day - very quickly, the French were 3-2 up in VPs (9 needed for the victory). Ferey is #17 - he had a very active day.

General view, about an hour into the game. Not much happening in the centre, though the 6eme Léger are taking a bit of a bashing from the artillery.

And still the fighting goes on at Fuentes - I really did lose count of the number of times it changed hands. At this point, the French brought up a battalion of grenadiers (red counter), but they didn't do very well.

On the French left, Montbrun sends a regiment of dragoons up, forcing the 52nd Foot into square, but they were seen off by Slade with the British 1st Dragoons.

Unusual sight - Montbrun's two dragoon units take shelter in the woods - the official story was that this was to clear the way for more troops and the French horse artillery.

Still not a lot happening in the centre, though the French had now pushed one of their own foot batteries forward, where they provided good support for the troops holding Fuentes.

More troops crossing the river, and still the situation at Fuentes is half held by each side, and heavy fighting.

Under the claim that Massena was having problems with his old injury from Essling, I took the opportunity to field him in a carriage. He looks peaceful - he may, in fact, be asleep. The young ADC in the white hussar kit is the Marshal's 17-year-old son, Prosper, who is definitely very wide awake.

The French now have both bits of the village, so the 2 bonus VPs are shining on the scoreboard, and Picton brings up some Portuguese troops to try to do something about it.

The British dragoons attack - and defeat - the French dragoons in their wood - never seen one of these before...

By this stage, with the IX Corps chaps coming up in support, it is becoming obvious that Wellington is not going to be able to do much about recovering the town; his supporting units on that flank are already badly battered. From memory, I believe the VP count was about 7-3 at this stage, so something desperate was needed from the Allies.

General view after about 3 hours fighting - the French hold the village, and Wellington's troops on the high ground are a lot more sparse than they were.

Wellington leads a general advance in his centre, to inflict some losses on the French troops opposite, and to cut off the Fuentes position.

General MacKinnon, who commanded the area around the town, was seriously wounded in the fighting, and Picton became personally involved in the effort to recover the position - here he is attached to some of the Portuguese from Powers' brigade, who are obviously nearing the end of their day.

Here is General Claparède, of IX Corps, leading some of his men against Fuentes town. I took a great affection for the General, whose name is obviously really Clapper-'Ead (his family were bell ringers). Round about this time the 79th Highlanders, after a long and arduous fight, were finally eliminated, and the French had won 9-4. Someone went to wake up Massena and let him know.

As ever, thanks to my colleagues for their courage and enthusiasm - sitting watching a big battle on a laptop requires not a little fortitude and stamina, so I appreciate their efforts very much! I very much enjoyed my day umpiring and watching fake history come to pass, and it was terrific to have someone to talk to!

WSS - A Little Rules Playtesting

I'm pleased to have made good progress with my new rules for the WSS project. This is closely related with having coerced a little external help. The excellent nundanket kindly did some reading of them for me,  a few weeks ago, and made some useful (and probably tactful!) suggestions, which I've incorporated. 

The huge advantage of getting someone else involved in the production of wargames rules is very similar to the advantage of getting someone else to proof-read your writings - maybe getting someone else to check a description of your computer system is a better parallel; if you check your own stuff, you'll do it armed with the background knowledge that you didn't write down, and you'll find that what you've written is pretty much what you meant. An independent checker will find the holes and the nonsense that you didn't even consider.

Yesterday's positive step was that Stryker very kindly volunteered to help out with some Zoom-based playtesting. Despite my broadband supplier's attempt to scupper the whole idea, we did get running, about 30 minutes late, and played through a very simple game situation. It was very good - time well spent.

I learned two principal things:

(1) there are a lot of things to look at, and sort out - I took a lot of notes!

(2) the game is actually a lot more entertaining than I had feared it might be.

Not much to say about the rules yet, except that they are provisionally titled Prinz Eugen - entirely because Eugen is such an alternative hero, given his rather bizarre lifestyle, that it amuses me to feature him in this role. Sincere thanks to Stryker for his time and willingness to have a go - very useful, and much appreciated.

I include some pictures, partly to commemorate the fact that the event took place, and partly to let Ian see what the 20mm troops look like on the table, in rather better resolution than is possible via my Zoom set-up!

Typical testing session - random tiddlywinks and sticking-plasters (and cotton-wool puffs of smoke!)             

Battle of Espinosa de los Monteros - the Game

Yesterday evening the Espinosa game was duly played out here. I was umpire (I feel that I was somehow born to be an umpire - it's a role I enjoy greatly), and the visiting generals for the occasion were Dave and - erm - Dave. Dave took the role of Joachim Blake, in command of the Spanish army, and Dave was Marshal Victor. Since this is all too much for a bear of little brain, I was pleased to adopt forms of address suggested by the visitors, derived from ancient British TV sitcoms - Marshal Victor (whose real name was Claude Perrin) became Reggie Perrin, of course (otherwise known as Vic of Belluno), and General Blake was "Blakey" - so that was much more comfortable all round.

Blakey

Perrin

The battle involved a minimal cavalry presence - both armies had just two light cavalry units tucked away at the back, but both the commanders threw their cavalry forward, which was a much more exciting start than I had expected.

The Spanish position on their right looked a bit suspect, having a river at their backs, but the ground was quite favourable, with hills and woods offering some advantages in defence, and this was where all the Spanish artillery was placed. Victor duly left this flank alone, and sent in Lapisse's division, to attack the Spanish left, which had no artillery and included a contingent of rather suspect milicias provinciales. The militia boys did rather well, considering, and after some early reverses they managed to drive Lapisse's force back, but it was only a temporary breather.

The narrative should become sort of apparent from the photos, I hope. One important theme was the heroism of General Blake, who seemed to be determined to die in action, but somehow survived. Another theme was that the Spanish artillery was ineffective throughout - that load of cheap gunpowder they got from the Gomez brothers was probably not a good idea. The Spaniards, under the house rules, are in real trouble if they attempt to move and fight at the same time, and the weak cavalry units are a problem.

Having said all of which, both generals conducted themselves very well, the battle was interesting (at least the umpire found it so!), and, though the final score in Victory Points was 8-2 to the French, General Blake comes out of the episode with some personal credit, certainly for his skill at getting in the press coverage. Marshal Victor, of course, won, which is what it's all about in Napoleon's army.

My thanks to my visiting generals for their good humour and enthusiasm, and for surviving an embarrasing collapse of our rural broadband which knocked Zoom out for 5 minutes or so!

Early view from behind the Spanish left and centre - the fighting on the ridge on the left is in a bit of a lull, but - yes - that's General Blake on the right edge of the picture, taking personal command of the cavalry. His staff were overcome with horror. The black square marker next to a French regiment indicates that they are in square (good eh?).

Again, from behind the Spanish lines - this time just to the right of centre - here you see the Spanish artillery, whose performance was - how do you say? - disappointing. The French were very circumspect about attacking this part of the line.

General Blake again, posing for the camera with the Cazadores de Olivenza. This figure, by the way, is an OOP Falcata, and was (whisper it) actually painted by Hermogenes, the man who founded Falcata. There are few known examples of evidence of Hermogenes having actually done something, so this is a rarity indeed. Yes, General Blake does look like Brendan Rodgers - in which role he is almost certainly proud of the spirit and character of his team, who were thrashed again...

More of the same - the French cavalry in the background are obviously intending to do something about this, and this area of the battlefield became a little hectic for a while.

The Spanish cavalry, rather reduced in numbers, pull back for a rest.

At this stage, the French are leading 4-1 - there is a lot of space between the Spanish left and centre, and Victor's men are coming forward.

From the French view - town of Espinosa in the background. Having been forced to give up his spell as a cavalry commander, Blake has now taken command of a battalion of line infantry.

From above the Spanish centre, looking left - yes, Blake is at it again, this time leading the infantry forward.

Still the Spanish artillery have only scored a single hit on the infantry opposite, but the grenadiers in the wood, with a stunning volley of musketry, have done some damage to the French battery on the road.

General view, looking toward the Spanish left flank. By this stage, the game was almost over - the Spanish had lost enough infantry on their left flank, plus their cavalry, to get the score up to 7-2. Then, a final attack on the right by some Spanish light infantry ran into very heavy opposition, and the battle was over - 8-2 to Victor.

This is what remained of the Spanish left at the end - view from behind Lapisse's position.

Coup de grace (French for "lawn-mower") - The Freitag battalion (1/26eme - centre foreground) emerged from the woods at the end to rout the Spanish lights and clinch the victory. Job done.