No French Napoleonics

Saturday I loaded my Bavarians, Russians, and Prussians into Electrical Pete's KIA and with Handyman Huw, we trekked south of the 401 for a Big Napoleonic game at Scott's. This is hopefully going to be an annual thing.

Scott's Austrians joined my Prussians and Russians to fight his Wurttemburgers, and Italians, who were seeing dice rolled in anger for the first time. The Wurttemburgers and Italians were assisted by my Bavarians and Curmudgeonly Don's Dutch.

Russo-Prussian Grenadier Brigade 

Italian division

Wurttemburger Brigade 

Dutch Brigade 

Allied Light Cavalry Brigade 

Allied Reserve Artillery on a ridge with Corps Commander 

L-R: our host Scott, Handyman Huw, Curmudgeonly Don, and Electrical Pete. Huw and Pete are totally new to Napoleonic gaming after years in 40k. But they are building armies, so I thought they'd like to be in a big game.

Prussian Divisional Artillery

Italians assaulting the village on my left. My battalion of Fusiliers threw back four assaults before they needed to be relieved

Italian Artillery 

Prussians holding off Italian assault

Austrians arrive. Cavalry reinforces my left. Infantry move up in the center behind the big building.

Imperials moving forward 

Imperial Cavalry Brigade has pushed back my Prussian Reserve Brigade. The Bavarian Cheveaux-Leger did me proud putting in a good charge, even if they were fighting against me that day. 

Bavarian Division assaulting my center and making a dangerous hole, but I've been thrashing the Bavarian columns with fire from three batteries

Austrian Division arrives. Brigade of Grenadiers and brigade of infantry.

My Allied Dragoon Brigade hovered about menacingly, keeping these guys from sweeping around the village

Huw and Don contemplating options

Womp womp! Used two scarce ADCs to put "Artillery Assault" on my 12 pounders to roll abysmally and put a fatigue on myself. Instead of trying for other brigade orders our few ADCs (because we kept duffing our ADC availability rolls) were allocated to command rerolls to keep as many brigades as possible from being hesitant. So this was rather disappointing.

You can see the Austrian Grenadiers on the flank of the big building stopping the Imperial Cavalry from going any further

A view of the right. The skirmishers are potting at each other. The Allied Light Cavalry Brigade has retired behind the hill to get away from the Wurttemburg artillery.

My Prussian battalion on the flank of the village has been bundled back, attacked in front by Italians and in the flank by Bavarians. Fortunately they rallied.

We called it at 7 o'clock. The Bavarians were in bad shape having been hammered by the Allied artillery and the Italians had shattered a brigade against the village, so the Imperial side had two brigades on the cusp of collapsing. My Prussians were still holding on by their white knuckles, although it would only be because the Italians and Bavarians were going to break first.

So, maybe a winning draw for the Allies? Schwartzenburg will herald a mighty victory, Napoleon will blame one of his Marshalls, we went and ate pizza. Fun had been had.

It was a grand spectacle, if somewhat slow moving. General d'Armee is very detailed but the command and control really only starts to shine with a couple of divisions per side on the table. Unfortunately, I think the rules really need a dedicated club with big collections who can play it a lot to get the most out of them. I wonder how this game would have played if we had used Shako II? I am also contemplating the feasibility of making sabot bases to use my 28mm miniatures for Blucher.

This was my 22nd game of the year!

Russian Jaegers (and Other Green Things)

While waiting for the next group of Quar to be assembled, primed and undercoated, I pushed on with some Russian Jaegers that had been waiting patiently for ... well a long time. I started trying to use contrast paints and didn't like it and got frustrated, so they were put aside.

I think these are Warlord, I'm not sure to be honest. I got them second hand already assembled without any command group. Turning them into Jaegers seemed appropriate since Jaegers shouldn't be carrying flags in the field, and the Russians fielded entire divisions of Jaegers.

This brings my Russian army up to 7 battalions for General d'Armee; 2 Jaeger, 3 Grenadier, and 2 Musketeer. All based on 4 figure stands so I can make 8 figure groups for Sharp Practice. 

While slapping around green paint I did some markers for the mines, traps and IEDs that Gloam-Hyyn trappers are allowed to deploy. I just used spare artillery shells, packs, tank stowage boxes and things that looked vaguely like mines glued to mdf disks.

I'll put numbers on the bottoms and the player can secretly designate which is an anti-tractor mine, booby-trap, or dummy.

I also got these lovely resin Supply objective markers/Jump Off Points from Ironclad Miniatures by way of apology for getting my order out late. A neutral green-grey and khaki drab paint scheme will make them nice things for Quar Trench Raiders to try and blow up.

Big Pat and Rabbitman's Grand Day Out

My horse and musket era loving friend, Scott, has always come to my house to play, when his work and mandatory overtime permit. But he's been quietly building a nice comfy wargaming room in his house in deepest darkest southern Ontario. He's ony 40 minutes away, but he's south of the 401, and that is Here There Be Dragons land in my mind.

But he invited Big Pat and I down for a big Napoleonic game last Saturday. We would finally have a chance to fully enjoy Scott's preferred rules, General d'Armee 2e, and, of course, beer and pizza together.

I was a wild man, and two beers.

We played the Plancenoit scenario from the 1815: the Hundred Days scenario book. Scott built his Austrians in the later shako, instead of the helmets, to match his Waterloo campaign uniformed French. So we just assumed Napoleon had beaten Wellington and Blücher, and was now facing the Austrians and Russians along the Rhine, or we were somewhere in Saxony in 1813.

Our congenial host and Game Master, Scott in foreground,  and Big Pat on the right. The table is 12 feet by 7.5 feet.

Austrian Landwehr 

French holding the town. My objective is to capture 2 out of 4 Built Up Areas. 

The church counts as 2 BUA

Austrian horse artillery 

Austrian cavalry 

Young Guard and Guard 12 pounders dispute entry to the town 

French artillery moving to the flank.

Austrian CiC and caisson for those "Out of Ammunition" results 

Landwehr attack on French center building up

Austrian pinning attack on left. Brigade of Grenadiers in column moving forward 

9 battalions of Landwehr assaulting flank of Plancenoit church

Austrian left wing

Austrian center 

Austrian right. Cavalry charged. Crossed sabres and recoiled. Then stared at each other for the rest of the game. 

My Austrian skirmish line actually won the firefight! Pushing a little harder on my left.

Reserves arrive. Battery of 12 pounders and 6 battalions of line. They kept rolling 'Hesitant' so I never got them up to make another attack in the center 

Landwehr charging Young Guard behind a thick hedge. Lost the fight, recoiled, rolled badly, entire brigade of 6 battalions evaporated!

French reinforcements propping up the center 

Overview Austrian right wing close to Game End

Grenadiers pushing into town. 

When your Grenadiers have 'Glory!' and 'Elan'

Some of the pictures are out of order, because of how Blogspot uploads them, if you're wondering why troops seem to be moving back and forth. But you get the idea.

Game end, Austrian left wing

A battalion of Landwehr had broken into the church, but then got pushed out before I could capture a second BUA with my Grenadiers. The Grenadiers drove into the town, pushing Young Guard in front of them. At game end I was in a good position to attack the house in the photo above from 2 sides, but it would have been too little, too late. 

It took us about 8 hours of playing to get through 14 or 15 of the 16 turns for the scenario.  It was just super to actually have enough maneuver room and big enough forces to really get the most out of General d'Armee. 

Scott is hoping that this will inspire me to get some more Russians done.