To Find an Austrian

In a very "Resistance is Futile; Prepare to be Assimilated" sort of way Von W. and I  packed up the C&G band wagon and went on a pilgrimage to bring the light of our new rules to our resident Austrian.  The travails of life had us all in the mood for a nice relaxing Saturday with a small miniatures game.

And thus the stage was set... an errant Austrian commander had overextended himself.   A reinforced French division was poised to overrun the Austrian command holed up in a local village.  Apparently this particular commander was also an Imperial Eaglet and for political reasons the nearest allied force, a Prussian infantry brigade was dispatched to extricate the Austrians. 

Hapless Austrians.

The French out scouted the Allies (per C&G resolution) and were able to setup after seeing the Allied dispositions.  Gen. de Bde. Bruno's cavalry brigade with Gen. de Div. Jacquinot in tow is pushed up on the French left while the infantry come march up the center.  In an odd move, Jacquinot was seen cowering before the skirmish fire of the enemy... such conduct was unbecoming an officer and his action affected his men!   

Meanwhile, GdB Charlet was showing exceptional courage at the head of the leading battalions of infantry.

Von Thumen and the 2nd (Silesian) Uhlans spoiling for a fight with the French 7th Hussars and the 3rd Chasseur

Silesian Schutzen open order screen charged by French Infantry

Schutzen left of a light volley and hot foot it back behind the Fusiliers of the 25th Line

French columns going straight in.....  Guns not even unlimbered.  In the woods the Westphalian landwehr dig in with some light works.

French try to force the issue on the left... Jacquinot goes in with the Chasseurs and finds a mortal lance blow waiting for him.  The 3rd Chasseurs suffered only minor set back.... but that turned into full retreat with the fall of premier light cavalryman of the Empire. 

GdB Bruno and GdB Gorbrecht frantically try to recover the situation.

Full table 3 turns in

The center... the French are taking a pounding from the Allied artillery.  The converged Austrian 3lbers are doing significant damage at the close range.

French infantry cross the stonewall.....there was some discussion about the prohibition of infantry moving toward cavalry within their charge arcs.  The cavalry promptly charge.

Landwehr run from the wall without firing a volley. (I think perhaps the French should have instead continued into the landwehr battalion or the Austrians in the built up area. Both were likely valid charge targets at the beginning of the charge.  Allowing the French to penetrate so deeply might have been contrary to the moving between enemies w/ 50 paces on all sides rule [it would have been close].)

D'Erlon joins the party in attempting to keep the 3rd Chasseurs on the table.... and succeeds in bringing them back into good morale!  We had a further snafu when the 3rd lanciers were deleted from the games OOB (i was checking their status in the middle of a charge check and there after the unit could not be located). 

Round 2 and the II/Westphalian Landwehr lasts long enough to let off an ineffectual volley, then promptly retreats

The French are taking significant casualties, Gen. de Bde. Charlet is in now under compulsory retreat orders. 

In order to recover the situation the 3rd and 11th Hussars are launched against the French right.... unfortunately the for the Prussians the French all make it into square or close column.  The fights are surprisingly bloody (most rules cavalry vs square is just deadly to the cavalry...) in both cases the cavalry and the infantry take 70 to 100 casualties. 

 The cavalry take the worst of it and retreat

The morale status at games end

The Allied player decided his position was untenable with the loss of the woods and the disastrous/ inconclusive cavalry results on the wings.  Battle Honors to the 2nd Uhlans.  French took the field and the objective (the built up area), but at a cost.  

Some End of Game Shots:

Not bad for a small test game.  Again not much narrative in the report for which I vaguely apologize to my limited readership!  Its been a long few weeks at work.

Loss of Control

Time constraints of life necessitate that this report be somewhat curtailed.  Narratively not much happened, we smashed two Prussian Brigades with some attachments into D'Erlon's I Corps (equal points each side) doing a Carnage & Glory II group test run.

Overall we played 5 turns with R. in command of the French and von W. taking the Prussians with me on the computer.  R. had to abandon his post at the end of turn 4 so I took over.  5 turns represents an hour and 15 minutes of "battle time".  The first 4 turns were played out with about an hour and 10 minutes per turn, including me having to stop and explain the rules.  By the end of the 5th turn we seemed to be nearing a "decision" in that the Prussians were had many units retiring off table.  It would have been interesting to go one more turn, however, as the "cautionary" brigade integrity warnings were equal/more heavy on the French side and both sides had 2 or 3 units in full rout.  In the hour and 15 minutes ~5,000 hors de combat (in Empire terms 83 figures).

French taking the field.

Prussians and British

Cavalry scrum develops on the right.  The 3rd and 4th Lancers in line face off against the Silesian Uhlans in squadron column, the Prussian get the better of these encounters.

Prussians advance toward their objective, the built up area in the top right corner.  The fusiliers of the 26th Line in open order keep the defending French columns under musketry fire. Von W. focused his fire, as much as the angles allowed on one of the center battalions of defending the wall.

2nd Uhlans are successfully start to force back the French lancers

The victorious 1st and 2nd Sqns of the 2nd Uhlans.... overextended with their flank exposed to a charge

3rd Chasseurs launch an assault on the over extended 2nd Uhlans who evade.... uncovering the 95th Rifles who stand manage to stand, but can only fire at 50% effectiveness due to the 2nd Uhlans retreat.  The rifles are saved by the supporting fire of the 52nd which staggers the Chasseurs (and an error of the umpire didnt properly reduce the 52nd's fire).

Rest of the Prussian cavalry making use of the significant move distances to quickly strengthen the Prussian right.  The first command and control issues start to surface.... the remainder of the 2nd Uhlans refuse to charge.

French 4th Division in the foreground with 3rd Division to the right of the church.  Both antagonist's heavy artillery are in the center engaging in an artillery duel.  The Counter-battery fire of French significantly affects the Prussian artillerists.

D'Erlon at start of the match placed 1st Division on a defend order protecting their objective (the church), then changed the order to attack.  R. also changed the orders of 2nd Division.  Hilarity ensues as the ADC to 2nd Division left without the orders (and another ADC had to be dispatched).  When the orders to Quinot (1st Div.) arrives, Quinot finds them contradictory and chooses to remain on his previous defend order (limiting the divisions charge ability)!  

The I/9th Line with their regimental commander Major von Schmidt attached are ordered to assault the church....except von Schmidt decides the enemy positions are too well prepared and maintains his position instead.

Rout of the 3rd Chassuers; Off camera the Prussian 3rd Hussars charge with their brigader von Sohr... and are roughly handled by the 3rd/4th Sqns of the 3rd Chasseurs and von Sohr takes a mortal pistol wound throwing the Prussian Hussars into further disorder!

The charge of the I and II/26th line causes one of the battalions defending the low stone wall to retire (the battalion that had been the focus of the Prussian skirmishing).  Von W. follows this up with two battalions of fresh landwehr and the French battalions defending the wall fall back in face of these fresh troops.

End result in the middle.  On the right you see a battalion of French deep in Prussian lines.  The Prussian charge falter, and the commander tried to shake out into line.  The French battalion seized upon this disorder and charged the Prussians who retreated... and the French followed up in pursuit, now largely unsupported amongst the Prussian lines.

End game on the left with Prussian battalions routing in the background.

Endgame in the center.  The Landwehr have the wall, (and in fact two of the French units that defended it have routed), but the rest of 3rd Division is waiting to take the wall back.

Final Report

The Prussians came on strongly, partly as this was a test game and got bloodied for it.  The command and control issues on both sides were present on both sides.  The French had a better officer ratio and slightly better officers (in making the army lists I believe I left the French on the default inspirational, whereas the Prussians were ordinary) and it seemed like the French had more success in rallying the troops.  The above report I dont think captures the "fog of war" that C&G creates.  The players were never sure of the exact standing of their units at any time.  Units did not always react as expected.  Staff orders we mishandled. I think it gives a very different "feel" from the standard wargame commanded by two omniscient generals, that always know their odds of victory or defeat before any  single encounter occurs.

Time wise I felt as the umpire that I had some downtime, where each player was still deciding what they were doing so we could have moved somewhat quicker if we had more players pushing lead (in this fairly large game, the French had 336 figures on the table in just infantry). All and all though a decent test game! If C&G becomes a staple we will need to come up with some solutions for the various markers.

Carnage & Glory II: First Impressions

Von W. and I had a small little game this past Saturday... perhaps not really a game so much as a quick field test to determine whether I could bring myself to learn (yet) another set of rules.

Despite some initial installation problems (I believe they were actually with my comp, preventing C&G from saving files correctly), we got an OOB loaded and smashed a Prussian Brigade into a large French Division.

The "game" was a lot of... what happens if we do X! and button pressing.  In C&G's favor was the individual tracking of casualties, morale, fatigue, and ammunition.  I was also personally impressed with the devastating power of prepared close range volleys and the relatively ineffectual firing outside of "effective" range (75 paces).  I was previously concerned C&G might not scale well for large games (the computer/umpire being a bottleneck), but getting the resolutions and inputting data/combat resolution was all very quick--could potentially bog down with lots of formation changes in the movement phase.  Faster than either Flint and Steel or Empire V for combat resolution.

On the less attractive side Von W. and I were somewhat surprised by the physical table space required by the movement/compulsory movement system.  We used the recommended 28mm ground scale of 1" = 25 paces.  Infantry in each turn (represented ~15 minutes of battle time) could move up to 18 inches in column (450 paces) and over 20 inches if charging, and then might get sent reeling from bad morale results 6 to 12 inches.  Our gaming tables are only 6' wide so moving this significant distances makes the tables feel quite small.  On the flip side, which we did not test in our small 2 division game, is that this could make for a very dynamic battle field, with reserves from a central location able to quickly be mobilized to exploit an opportunity.  For example heavy cavalry can move up to 30 inches and charge for up to 36 inches  (~750 to 900 paces).

The blessing and curse of C&G has to be its rating system.... which appears to give you lots of control to model everything from moral, training, weapon quality, fire discipline, close combat.... but gives absolutely no guidance.  Much like C&G in general it is a black box that you give inputs and get outputs, without seeing "under the hood".   The manual does not give any indication the combat effectiveness difference between a trained unit or a conscript or poor or average fire quality.   This would not be a big deal if there were extensive "official" ratings, but the website only has OOBs for 1806, 1812, and 1809 Peninsula.

This last point is very difficult given the range opinion on the quality and capability of various armies and units in this period.  Combat effectiveness ratings of 10% can engender drawn out debate or the ability to use or not use a formation may go for 5+ pages of posts on the TMP forums.  Such freedom (and lack of guidance) to control the ratings is both blessing and curse.

All things considered.... I'm probably going to be slogging my way through another rule manual...

For the Rebels

Some of the gaming group are being terrible Napoleonic dilettantes and are building up a collection of Civil War figures in 28mm.

Even though I shy from the thought of gaming this period, I thought the below might cheer the Resident Rebel Commander.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/video/What-Did-the-Rebel-Yell-Sound-Like.html

The Bremen Volunteers, Part One

Links to Part Two and Part Three

A teaser for a more lengthy post when the 6th Uhlans are done:

The 6th Uhlans created special issues as there were no figures available for Lutzow's Legion cavalry or the Bremen Volunteers (part of the Hanseatic Legion).   The Bremen Volunteers were especially troublesome as they don't even wear standard Prussian kit... and thus my first steps at conversions....

First a shot of the base metal.  The two figures in the middle are Front Rank...French Lancers (its been so long I dont remember if they are from the French or Russian lines) which will become the Bremen Volunteers.  The outside two are Calpe Landwehr Cavalry which will be used for the two squadrons of Lutzow's Legion Uhlans.

And what I am trying to create:

And without further ado... the Green Stuff.

The Calpe Landwehr get built up shoulder boards and pickers and chains.

The Front Rank figures have had their bardin-habit veste-thing sliced off and buttons removed.  Some green stuff to smooth out and added in a Prussian cut double breasted coat-line. 

(In the background can see the Calpe Hussar, waiting for their picker and chain and join the unit as Lutzow's Hussar Squadron.  The 3rd [Brandenberg] Uhlans are also on the painting table in the background.)

Note, I cant take much credit for the success/failure of these troops, the live-in Painting Assistant and Artist Extraordinaire took over when I threw down the sculpting tool in frustration... 

The horse hair tassel/poms on the Bremeners was absolutely 0% of my work/imagination... I was thinking of just cutting the bottle brush of entirely.

Better angle to see the pants alterations.  The Front Rank figures are in a waist coat, so we gave them green stuff down to their knees to model a proper Prussian Litewka.  

The Front Rank saddles/shabraque are completely smooth and plain (correctly or incorrectly, I claim no knowledge of French/Russian cavalry), and are a stark contrast with Calpe's models.  It was difficult even getting the green stuff to stick to the metal was so smooth (figures were washed prior to alteration of course).  Added in a border to give us something to paint red and hopefully break-up the otherwise smooth metal. 

Calpe Squadron Officer having his kollet filled in to become a Litewka

Stay tuned for future installments, the figures are base coated now.  I've been hinting to the live-in Painting Assistant and Artist Extraordinaire that the Bremen Volunteer conversions could be considered her Masterwork, as there isn't anything left in the Corps that can really compare in difficulty.  

Click Here for Part Two

Recent Acquisitions

Classic Painting References

A GREAT Campaign game!

And some food for thought on future Campaign Gaming.

Not a bad catch for ~$8.50 a book.


(EDIT: Just noticed this post was supposed to go out months ago.... so here it is now)