OHW Scenario 20: Fighting Retreat

With the Cotswold Wargames Day fast approaching, I thought I'd better get a game or two in to re-familiarise myself with Black Powder II, the rules I'm planning on using for the day. Looking back at my AAR's, and its been about year, maybe a tad more, since they featured in a game! Keeping things simple and an excuse to use my new river sections, I turned to the ever useful One Hour Wargames scenarios to come up with a game. No AI used here I tell you!

Scenario Details

The Blue Army has been raiding Red territory and are making a hasty run for safety to their side of the border, with the Red Army in hot pursuit.

OOB Blue

2 x Brigades, each with: 3 x Line Infantry, 1 x Light Infantry, 1 x Artillery.

OOB Red

2 x Brigades, each with: 3 x Line Infantry, 1 x Light Infantry, 1 x Artillery.

1 x Brigade: 2 x Mounted Infantry, 1 x Horse Artillery.

The Game

The objective was for the Blue Army to reach the safety of a hill, that for Red to take the hill. Simples.

The Blue Army starts on the table on the right hand side, next to but not across the river. The Red Army will arrive at the start of Turn 2 from the right hand table edge.

The Blue Army right flank.

The Blue Army left flank.

The hill that is the objective.

A fuzzy shot of the Red Army ready to roll.

Some gratuitous shots of the new river sections!

Both Blue columns make smart moves across the river on Turn 1.

The end of Turn 2. The Blue Army has already put good distance between itself and the pursuing Red Army.

The Blue Army is closing in on the hill.

The Red Army left flank manages to reach the river as the last of the Blue Army cross the bridge.

The Blue Army left flank column again puts good distance between itself and the enemy, although the Red Mounted Infantry cross the ford and threaten their rear.

The end of Turn 4. The Blue Light Infantry have managed to hold all attempts by the Red Army to push them back from the bridge and the ford. This has allowed the Blue Army to form a very good defensive position on and around the hill.

The Blue right flank.

The Blue centre on the hill.

The Blue left flank.

Outnumbered 3:1, the Blue Light Infantry on the left flank stubbornly refuse to budge.

A similar situation on the Blue right flank.

The end of Turn 6. The Red Army has only managed to force the Blue left flank Light Infantry back 'whipped', other than that, Blue has just waited in a strong defensive position as they have no need to move nor fire.

The Red Army left flank have been unable to force a crossing over the bridge.

The Red Army right flank finally has the way clear to cross the ford.

The gallant and brave Blue Light Infantry are finally forced back 'whipped'.

A view of the Blue Army's defensive postions on and around the hill.

Little Round Top.

End of Game

With 6 Turns of the usual 8 Turns already gone, it was obvious that the Red Army could not move and contest the hill before time ran out, so I called the game as a comprehensive Blue victory.

Post Game Thoughts

Well that was a funny old game to say the least and an unsatisfying one too! Why? Well some thoughts below:

• Despite not having played BPII for a year or more, it all came back to me, with the QRS being used for most of the game and with occasional reference to the main rulebook, which has a brillaint contents page, which makes this a very easy thing to do.
• Originally I had the Mounted Infantry as 2 x Cavalry and 2 x Light Infantry, but after the first moves, it was obvious that I needed to amend this due to the rapid moves by the Blue troops. This was because I use the Glory Hallelujah! amendments that means if a unit moves more than once, it cannot fire. Also I feel it unrealistic for say the Red Cavalry to suddenly arrive on the table and charge the Blue Light Infantry in the rear.
• Aside from some excellent command rolls by the Blue Army, the +2 to the command rolls when in march column and on the road, meant that short of rolling and 11 or 12 on 2D6, the Blue Army could easily cross the river and form a defensive position, making it very hard for Red to then have a realistic chance of crossing the river to contest the hill.
• If I was to play this again, I would add a movement penalty for the ford and the wooden bridge, as well as limiting the march column bonus to a +1 at best. This would still allow the Blue Army a chance to steal a march on the Red Army, but not too much as to spoil the game.
• Both Blue Light Infantry units were simply stubborn and outstanding all game. On the right flank, I was somewhat reminded of the lone Viking at Stamford Bridge holding up the Saxon Army!
• All of the above should be considered alongside the fact that the Red dice rolling for shooting was truly shocking, barely causing any hits and most of those were saved until Turn 6. Even if the shooting had been better, I still think it a tough ask for the Red Army in this scenario.
• To make it a more even or enjoyable game, I think there needs to be a better ratio for Red vs Blue than the 3:2 in the current scenario. That and maybe some tweaks on Reds arrival or maybe to make the river fordable all over, but at a larger movement penalty that for at the ford or the bridge. Plenty to ponder for sure.

What Next?

Ideally I would like to get another game or two in before the CWD to really get familiar with the rules again. Figure wise I am painting more units, but rather slowly, as I don't want to force it and not enjoy the experience. At least I have enough units for the show. Scenario wise still rather up in the air, but at least the fluff is all roughed out.

Thanks for getting this far after a rather bloodless and inactive AAR. As always any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

A Hobby Update Of Sorts

With no prospects of any games on the horizon for a while, I thought I'd do a bit of a catch up on what's been happening on the hobby front. So in no particular order:

Many Rivers To Cross

For years I've been meaning to make some smaller rivers/streams for my games, as many of the Grant & Asquith et al scenario books often require several running across the table. Also as mentioned before, my existing river is a bit too large for some of my Black Powder period games. However I just could not raise any enthusiasm to make the section required, so the project lay dormant until this year, when Pendraken released some road and river sections. Happy Days!

Now I could have just painted them blue and put some simple flock along the edge and 'Hey Presto!' they would have been done. But no I decided I wanted to chafer the edges and build up a bit of a bank on either side, to make them look better to my eyes. A fine idea but good God did it take a long time to do! Many a time I cursed myself for taking this route but, preseverance paid off and a few weeks ago I finally finished them all, as can be seen below.

Each straight section is 10"/25cm long, the longer curves 8"/20cm and the shorter ones 6"/15cm. They are about 1 1/4"/3cm wide. I should have enough to make two rivers across my 4'x4' table, or combine it with my larger one when using a 6' x 4' table to make two long ones.

On my original river I used static grass along the banks which, whilst looking great, constantly sheds bits onto the 'water', which is a real pain to remove. So this time I stuck with fine clump foliage, hardened up with a coat of diluted pva glue.

I still need to paint up a bridge for these sections and probably scratch build another. I deliberately didn't include any ford crossings on these to give me more flexibility on where to put them for a game. Roads leading to them or some form of marker will be enough to indicate where they are.

Built Up Areas

For years I've fancied to doing more BKCII games in BUA's and so have made a start on making more, especially ones that look more suited to France than my generic 18thC mid-European ones I currently have. After a spurt of making the bases, this has ground to a halt, but I did manage to finish an easy one, given that the houses were already painted.

The idea is that this will form a small town square or the like in front of the buildings. As always these can be removed depending upon the rules system in use.

The walls were made from mdf 'sprues' from various buildings I've made over the years. Much easier to use than cutting your own. They were the covered in a mix of fine surface polyfilla (Spackle in the US?) and pva glue and simply painted on in a very random way.

Air Support

Whilst I go a scale down for my buildings these days, for planes I like to go one level up, so 15mm/1:100 when using my 10mm figures. It is surprisingly hard to find affordable or available kits in this scale for WWII. Luckily you can, with a bit of searching and perseverance, find some good diecast options. With the Far East and Pacific War in mind, I added these two planes to my collection for when this project sees the light of day...

A bit of favourite plane of mine as I had the Airfix kit as a kid. The Hellcat would be a more usable plane historically, but this just work for me.

Like I had a 'Zero Zen' but painted it white back in the day. This is a more usable camo scheme for sure. Both kits are very heavy, so I need to take care when tweaking the base supports to go onto to my normal flight stands for BKCII games.

Books

Even if gaming or painting are limited or on hold, you can always read a good book! So some recent purchases:

Admittedly not that recent, but I've only started reading it a few weeks ago and what a corker of a book it is! It is a big tome but I'm not finding my interest flagging at all as the author writes a good book that keeps you fully engaged. Lots of really useful info for the wargamer in here, as well as other bits I've not come across in other books on the ACW. Highly recommended.

I have a few other 'Source Books', which I've found to be very useful, so bought the one on the ACW to help broaden my knowledge of this conflict.

I'd not heard of this until Norm Smith put it out on his Commander's website. It is a novel based upon the wargame run in the early 1970's by Paddy Griffith et al. This, and the ACW book above, I got for less than the price of a wargames magazine!

A book I used to have or borrowed from the library, but I was reminded of this again by a recent Norm Smith post. An excellent read from memory and more wargaming material for Italy 1944 at some point in the future.

ImagiNations-cum-'What If's'

These days I rarely buy a wargames magazine, as I struggle to find anything of interest in them to be honest. However in the past there were the odd gems to be had, and this issue is one of them. Packed full of ideas I've kept for future reference and the odd spot of bed time reading. Glancing at it a few days ago, it piqued my interest on a few periods, especially one by Barry Hilton and a sort of 'what if?' based around the Glorious Revolution. Whilst I don't have any figures even based up for this, my wooden blocks might get an outing in due course.

Cotswold Wargames Day

I've made a start on a basic British/Canadian Brigade for the day, which can be seen below. Sadly some 1:1 kitchen painting and other real life issues means nothing much more will happen to these for a while. But progress is still progress! At least the background fluff is pretty much there and all that remains is to sort out some sort of scenario to go with it.

What Next?

Whilst a game would be nice, I need to focus on painting the above miniatures and maybe some terrain too, to go with the setting we have planned. No fear of myself having nothing to do, that's for sure!

As always, thanks for reading and any comments greatly appreciated!

TTFN.

The Battle of Eckmuhl 1809 - the Opening Moves

Yesterday I took a trip to Chris Gregg's to play the opening moves of the Battle of Eckmuhl, 1809. Normally the weather has been wonderful, but not this time, as it was 'bloomin' grim' to say the least. Despite that I arrived on time and met up with Paul and Richard, familiar faces from previous games, and Tony a new acquitance. Paul and I would take the part of the Austrians, with Paul in overall command as Archduke Karl (Chaz to his friends), with myself as FML Hohenzollern (Dave to his friends) and in charge of III Corps. Richard was in overall charge of the 'French' as Napoleon and Tony as Davout (?). 

As always Chris had done sterling work on the table, the OOB, maps, info etc, to allow us the players to get out plans in place before the action started. I say 'we', when in fact Paul brilliantly (to my mind) gathered it all together and came up with a plan and deployments for the myriad of troops available. I'm sure Richard did the same. See below the overall map and a detailed section of where the opening actions would take place

The main action for the opening moves took place from A-K and up to row 8, to help give you an idea when looking at the photos below. I was at Ober and Unter Laichling, facing Tony's troops, with Paul at Eckmuhl across to Pfakofer. The mass of Davout's Corps arrived from the South East, pushing towards the gap between the Laichlings and Eckmuhl

To begin with, both sides had the room on their own to familiarise themselves with the terrain, where the troops were (mostly blinds at this point) and to come up with a plan of action. This took some time but was nescessary, given the nature of the terrain and the sheer number to troops involved. Also there was off table movement to be considered, which was controlled by written orders which were passed on to Chris, to allow him to move those units as required before they appeared on the table.

Right, so onto the game itself. Our plan as the Austrians was to hold onto the the Laichlings and Eckmuhl for as long as possible, sacrificing the troops to try and slow the French down as much as possible and to create a traffic jam which would take time for them to sort it out. We only managed 2 Turns, but broadly speaking our plan was working out as we had hoped, but the French were poised to breakout with their cavalry, from the line between the Laichlings and Eckmuhl, into the wide open spaces beyond. However our bastions of Eckmuhl and the Laichlings we still held and so the French troops had the risk of exposing their flanks if they moved past

Given how much time we spent on the game, I snatched photos as and when I could, to give you an idea of the action and the terrain. Most of these are after the first Turn.

A view from the North West table, with the Laichlings in the right angle corner of the table. Richard (Napoleon) surveys the terrain.

A bad shot of Austrian troops in Ober Laichling.

Davout's Corps begins to arrive.

The Austrian gun line with Eckmuhl to the left of the line. Not quite a 'thin red line' ...

Columns of French troops arrive on the Austrian left flank.

A few guns are all that can be seen to oppose them.

Some of Chris lovely terrain and 3D printed buildings. You do get a much better sense of how the terrain affected a battle when you play on a table such as this.

A view from the Austrian left, with Eckmuhl in the centre, with Davout's Corps arriving from top left.

A view towards the secondary Austrian defensive position, but no troops are visible yet, only blinds and markers. This really does add to the fog-of-war.

The final defensive line along a river valley.

More very nice 3D printed buildings.

Clouds of French skirmishers.

The French begin to try and take Eckmuhl. Despite Napoleon's urgings, the troops do not move quickly enough on the first Turn, much to the Austrian's relief!

A worrying sight as lots of French cavalry begin to arrive.

Bavarian (?) troops being to arrive from off table to threaten Ober Laichling.

Skirmishers clash along the Laichling stream, which the Austrians have reinforced with abattis.

The French cavalry charge the Austrian guns and cavalry along the ridge. Amazingly the guns managed to defeat one unit of French cavalry and force another one to retreat, before themselves having to do likewise. Still a moral victory and it did the job of slowing the French down, which was the aim!

A massed cavalry clash, with honours comeing out about even, but the French had plenty more in reserve, wherewas we had none!

The French are in Eckmuhl, but it is still contested by Austrian Grenzers.

The French skirmishers have crossed the Laichling stream, but come up against formed Austrian Line Infantry.

The Austrian position here is very weak and the plan was to make a covered withdrawl towards the next line of hidden troops.

Post Game Thoughts

Well that was fun, but pretty intense, due to the sheer number of troops involved, both on and off the table. As always the game was played in the right spirit, with plenty of jovial banter being bandied about. It was great to play with Paul again and we certianly had the same ideas in terms of what to do as the Austrians. Tony was a great laugh and we had good fun battling against each other by the Laichlings. I didn't get to play against Richard in this game, as his troops were far away from mine, but a wonderful opponent as always. Of course many thanks to Chris from making the terrain, which was glorious as always, and for creating the scenario, getting the forces together etc.

There as still two days play left, so I, like you, will have to wait and see what unfolds. Chris will not doubt put up several excellent reports on his Blog in due course, which I will add a link to on mine as and when they appear.

I hope you enjoyed the above and as always comments greatly appreciated:)!

TTFN.