Napoleon versus Graf Von Grommitt?

It is not unusual for ancient wargames to feature armies which could not have met in historical fact; Ancient Egyptians against Celts, Macedonians against Mameluks etc.  This weekend my grandson visited and asked if his soldiers could fight mine.  His soldiers are 25mm Napoleonics, chronologically, the nearest 25mm figures I have are Grand Alliance, so casting reality aside two small forces were arrayed on the table. 
The Napoleonic French were defending an enclosure with a wooded hill to their right and open terrain on their left, this is where my grandson deployed his cavalry.  He placed his voltigeurs were in the woods and 5 battalions held the central enclosure, supported by a field gun.

I deployed my cavalry on my right, with 3 battalions and a field gun in the centre.  My main attack, of 3 battalions, would try and move round the French right and then attack the enclosure from the flank.

The French centre

 My troops began their advance and with artillery support made good progress.   As the battalions in the centre reached musketry range my grandson, eschewing the 'whites of the eyes' option began blazing away.  Soon the ranks of my infantry battalions began to thin, whilst their French opponents seemed to have charmed lives.  However, my flank attack was making progress, pushing back the voltigeurs by sheer weight of numbers.

The Voltigeurs skirmishing in the woods

 By mutual consent the two cavalry forces charged into melee.  On my far right the Erbach regiment took on the French lancers.  In a short conflict the French lancers shattered their opponents and pursued the remnants towards my baseline.   The other cavalry melees were undecided and continued over the next two moves

The French cavalry advance

One of my infantry battalions in the centre, Erbprinz, had the misfortune to advance into short range artillery fire and was soon forced to retire with over 50% casualties.  As they approached the enclosure my infantry tried to charge home, but failed the morale test (due to casualties received).

It was at this point that disaster befell my forces.  The French lancers, having driven Erbach from the field, succeeded in rallying from pursuit, reforming and were then in an ideal position to charge my remaining cavalry as it fell back from melee.  (After three rounds of melee if there is no result, both sides fall back to reform) .  Caught at a disadvantage my cavalry were destroyed and this left the infantry with their flank in the air.  The reformed French cavalry now charged again and my centre disintegrated

Happy days for the French cavalry

The day belonged to the French. 
   

London trip

I have just returned from a short break in London.  The weather was pretty good, no rain, which was a relief.  We took advantage of the sun to walk along the embankment and look at the memorial to the RAF and the Battle of Britain.

Our destination was the Household Cavalry Museum and on Whitehall is the memorial to the Women of WWII

The museum is pretty small, but has some quite interesting displays.  Alongside the helmets and ornamental 19th century armour was this plug bayonet; which I assume related to the Royal Dragoons in their early role as mounted infantry.

The gauntlet in the background formed part of a collection of classic "harquebusier" equipment, with front and back plate and helmet, you could clearly see the 'proving' mark on the breast plate.

Austrian infantry

With family  and other priorities, Steve and I have not managed to meet for a game for two weeks and with half term that is likely to extend to three weeks.  However, I have managed to find my paint brush and fight my way to my painting table to finish the first unit of Austrian infantry for my Grand Alliance collection.  The figures are Wargames Factory plastics and work out pretty good value, plus with all the options available in the box all sorts of units/nationalities can be created.

I decided to paint the figures as Regiment Furstenburg, like the majority of Austrian units they had pearl grey coats with red facings. The Pike & Shot Society publication on the Austrian Army by Robert Hall and Giancarlo Boeri provides all the uniform and flag information via its excellent plates. In the introduction, mention is made that the Austrians fought two different types of opponents during this period, the Ottomans and the French and their allies. For the former they discarded their pikes and relied more on firepower, therefore I painted up an extra two figures of musketeers so I could swop out the pikes for the campaigns in the east.

 For the western theatre I can retain the pikes and swop the extra musketeers for the grenadiers and then group the grenadiers from several battalions into a composite battalion

Gentlemen Pensioners Vapnartak weekend

A double-header for last weekend, a reprise of Brandywine on the Saturday,followed by a trip over the Pennines to York for Simon Chick's Cravant game.

We drew cards for commands on Saturday morning and once again I commanded the British left flank.  One change in the deployment was that Mathews elite brigade was put on the far right, by the fords to lead the attack, rather than get tied up in the fields and fences in the centre.  As often happens in larger multi-player games I had little idea what was happening on the opposite flank as I was soon involved in a a protracted struggle to secure the crossroads by the Meeting House.  Grey's brigade advanced against the Virginia battalion defending the crossroads

Ian, my opponent was struggling to get his reserves forward, but this lone battalion bought him the time he needed and although pushed back to the meeting house, rallied and took their place in the line again.

Von Donop's brigade made swift progress at first but once they reached the turnpike they struggled to push on and their delay gave the American reserves enough time to march onto the table and deploy.

Over by the fords the American infantry (commanded by Phil), were fighting manfully to halt the British advance but were hampered by low 'action' rolls which often allowed the British to pre-empt any of their manoeuvres.

The British right hook swept forward and cleared the fords, destroying two American brigades in the process. However,  in the centre and left the British were not having everything all their own way.  Von Donop had eventually got his German battalions sorted out and moved forward once again.  Attempting to clear some American skirmishers one of his units was hit by fire from a farm and then charged by a battalion of infantry. In the ensuing melee the the Germans were defeated and driven from the field.

On the British left, the light companies were attempting to work round the American flank.  As they neared some woods they were met by fire from American riflemen and driven back in confusion. This unit is developing a name for itself as an 'unlucky unit'; the last three times it has taken the field it has been wiped out twice, when on both occasions it had the advantage over its opponents.

One bright spot was that another of Von Donop's battalions was defying the odds and managing to hold its position against fire from two American battalions and a battery.

As the slugging match around the meeting house continued the Virginians were eventually worn down by the casualties they received from the British, but before they were driven off Ian had managed to get reinforcements forward.

Things were beginning to look a little bleak for the British left, both brigades required morale tests because of the casualties they had taken.  Fortunately, Chris, the commander of the British right had by now secured the fourth objective, a hill overlooking the American centre and was poised on the flank of the American line.

Led by the grenadiers this manoeuvre signalled the end of the American resistance.

Up early on Sunday morning  we travelled over to York for the Vapnartak show.  This year's show was up to the usual high standard with plenty of games and traders attending.  Here are a few examples

Justice Mills by M Wheatley

Wake Island 1922 League of Extraordinary Kreigspielers

WW1 North Hull Wargames Club

A Panama Game from the League of Augsburg using their new Donnybrook rules

 As I mentioned in my previous post the Lance and Longbow Society were showcasing Simon Chick's Cravant game.  Here are a few photos of the excellent terrain and figures.

The game followed history with the joint English and Burgundian force raising the siege and driving off the Franco-Scottish army.  My own unit of Scottish pike managed (eventually) to defeat a unit of longbows in melee (after losing two-thirds their strength).  As they struggled up onto the enemy bank of the river they looked back to see their fellow Scots  fighting for their lives against a block of English foot (the ones seen crossing the river above).  Reforming, they re-crossed the river but were too late to save their compatriots.  In the ensuing melee they were driven from the field.

An excellent weekend.

Impetus rules

We are off to the Vapnartak show next weekend and the Lance and Longbow stand will be featuring the Cravant game which Simon Chick took to the Salute show last April.  Will featured it on his blog at the time and looking at the photos, Simon has produced an excellent game.  His Harness and Array blog also features the game at Salute.  Steve and I are not familiar with the Impetus rules and so we decided to download the basic rules (link).  We used a selection of Steve's Italian Wars figures for an imaginary Franco-Spanish encounter.

This shows the terrain we set up, in retrospect it may be a bit too cluttered as manoeuvring the pike blocks and gendarmes slowed things down.  I commanded the French and massed my Swiss pikes and French Gendarmes on my right (area nearest the camera), with the aim of defeating Steve's left and then attacking his centre in the flank.  The remainder of my troops were to to defend and then (if possible) assist the final attack on the Spanish centre.  Steve massed his landscknechts on his right, planning his own 'right hook'.  His forces were stronger in pikes and arquebusiers, whilst mine had more gendarmes.

Spanish centre

French gendarmes driving off enemy cavalry

The solid mass of landsknechts

The landsknechts drive off the French pikes

During the day we felt our way with the rules.  They are easy to pick up (at least in the basic form) and once the turn sequence is mastered , ( initiative is decided each game turn and the winner then does all their actions, movement, firing and melee, before their opponent does the same), they flow quite well.  Once or twice we managed to forget if it was the end of a game turn (ie we had both moved since the last initiative roll), but that may be down to advancing years.  

The army lists (also available as downloads) seem to make the gendarmes very powerful.  During the game my six units of gendarmes were all involved in melees and yet at the end none had suffered any casualties.  They had attacked units of pikes and although losing their impetus bonus they nevertheless seemed to prevail with little difficulty.  Even if the pikes had a supporting unit of pikes they only rolled the same number of dice as the gendarmes.  The main difference was that the morale value of the gendarmes was 7 or 8, whilst the pikes were 4 or 5.  Any casualties were deducted from this morale value and then one had to roll equal or lower to pass the test.  (a 6 is always a fail).  So, if both sides had 2 casualties in the melee the gendarmes would pass on anything but a '6', but, the infantry would need, at best a 3 or less, a 50% chance of failure.

Also, in the morale roll the difference between the number rolled and number required become causalities.  Therefore, if a three or less is required and a '6' is rolled then 3 casualties are suffered.  So a few bad die rolls (in this case high is 'bad') can be disastrous.

On balance, I think that a few more trials will be necessary before a decision can be made on whether we take up the rules as our default set for the ancient/medieval/renaissance periods.

Merxem, 13th January 1814

Our battle this week comes from 1814.  The actions on the northern front attract little attention, indeed most of the troops initially stationed there were soon moved to take part either in the battles on the approach to Paris, or, in the case of the British, the campaign in America.

The action at Merxem, near Antwerp is listed by Digby Smth ( Greenhill Napoleonic Wars data book) as a 'clash' rather than a full blown battle, but the forces involved (c10,000) per side provide sufficient units for an evening's game. For the French, commanded by General Maison, the objective is to keep the Allies away from Antwerp for as long as possible.  The Allies, (particularly Britain), would like to secure Antwerp and the river estuary as a supply base. There is a book on this campaign, but I don't have a copy.  I also came across a book by Michael Leggiere through google books. For the detail on the British forces involved the Napoleon Series provides plenty of information.  "The Memoirs of Thomas Morris" (ed Selby) also provide some information.  The terrain for the battle is not based on any actual maps, but scraps of detail gleaned from the sources I found, so my apologies to those who feel that the result is a travesty of the facts.

General Maison has 10 battalions of infantry organised into two divisions; that of General Gilly has four battalions of regulars, veterans from Spain, but all the battalions are under-strength.  General Ambert has six battalions of raw conscripts, stiffened by a battery of artillery.  General Castex commands the cavalry (Smith says it was not engaged, but I included it), which comprises two under-strength light cavalry regiments.  General Gilly's division holds a chateau and orchard across the road which is the Allied line of advance.  General Ambert is held in reserve at Merxem.  Behind the village is Castex.

The Allied forces under Bulow are  in two brigades.  Gibbs brigade of British line has three battalions (not having any British troops in my Napoleonic collection I used Prussians).  Thumen's brigade has 8 battalions of infantry, 2 of regulars and 6 of landwehr and reserve infantry.  Thumen also has an artillery battery.  The Allied light cavalry under Oppen comprises a regular Hussar regiment and two landwehr units.

The action took place in winter and contemporary accounts stress the very cold conditions, therefore the ditches are deemed to be frozen.  However, in an earlier action a French unit when forced to retreat found that the ice broke beneath their weight.  We therefore included a die roll when a unit crossed one of the ditches, a 5 or 6 meant that the unit became disordered.  This seemed to work well, causing some disruption to the Prussian attack, but not enough to unbalance the game.

Steve took the part of Bulow and decided to use Gibbs' brigade in a flanking manoeuvre whilst attacking the chateau and orchard with the Prussians.  He advanced on a broad front, taking the chance that the ice would hold and in the majority of cases it did. The skirmishers from Gibbs and Gilly's formations were soon in action, but the French were unable to old back the formed British(ie Prussians from the 1st Pomeranian regiment) battalions.  Gilly ordered the 2nd battalion of the 54th line to advance and support the skirmishers.  Doing this they found themselves faced by the Fusilier battalion of the 1st Pomeranian regiment.  After firing a volley, the 54th charged and bundled the fusiliers back over the ditch.  However, their success almost proved their undoing.  The 1st battalion of the Pomeranian regiment was now to the rear of the French.  Not pausing to fire a volley, the Prussians charged hoping to catch the Frenchmen unprepared .  Fortunately they must have spotted the Prussians because, against the odds, they won the ensuing melee and drove off their assailants. Perhaps overconfident, the Frenchmen now charged a militia battalion, only to be stopped in their tracks by a volley.  As they tried to recover, the Prussian jaeger moved round their flank and  began to snipe at the officers .  Although reduced in numbers, the major of the 54th led his men forward again, but the militia stood firm and inflicted such heavy losses that the battalion took no further part in the battle.

Thumen had deployed his artillery to fire on the chateau complex in support of an infantry attack.  However, the guns had no discernible effect on the defenders.  On the road, the 2nd Pomeranian militia regiment attacked the barricade held by 2nd battalion of the 8th Legere.  The melee was short but bloody; the French veterans, although outnumbered, drove off the Prussians with heavy losses and the militia were finished as a fighting force.  Thumen now organised a co-ordinated attack with his two regular Brandenburg battalions attacking the barricade, whilst three landwehr and reserve battalions attacked the 1st battalion of the 8th legere which was defending the orchard.  The French in the orchard fired with a will and their volleys managed to stop each of the attacking battalions before they reached the hedge bordering the orchard.  At the barricade, the French found the Brandenburgers stiffer opposition than the militia.  Ignoring the mayhem to their left, the Prussians closed up to the barricade and by sheer weight of numbers forced the French to relinquish control of the obstacle.  One backward step became two and as the Prussians broke through the barricade, those few Frenchmen who had survived ran back towards Merxem.

Seeing the pressure Gilly was under, Maison ordered Castex to advance with his cavalry and threaten the Prussian flank.  As he advanced, Castex became aware of Oppen's cavalry, which had previously been screened by the Prussian infantry.  He decided to attack before the Prussians could deploy their superior numbers. The French 2nd Hussars clashed with the Prussian Hussars and came off worst. Perhaps they had too many raw recruits in their ranks, perhaps they could not match the elan of their opponents, or perhaps Maison's die roll could have been higher?  In the end, the French hussars were driven from the field.  Their less flashy comrades, the 4 th Chassuers quickly overcame their landwehr opponents, but did not rein in to recover their order (unlike the Prussian Hussars) and instead charged a supporting landwehr cavalry unit.  The melee was much more even, but eventually, the French had to retire to reform and give time for their blown mounts to recover. 

With no active cavalry remaining to threaten his attack, Thumen ordered a second advance on the orchard.  Maison,for his part, ordered Ambert to support Gilly.  Ambert sent two battalions of the 2nd Line forward on his right and two of the 23rd Line on his left, retaining the two battalions of the 3rd (Irish) Etranger in Merxem.  The second assault on the orchard was no more successful than the first, the volleys from the 1st battalion 8th legere again stopping all three Prussian battalions.  An attack on the chateau also failed to gain any ground.  With time passing, Thumen organised a third attack on the orchard.  This time it was led by the 2nd battalion of the Brandenburg Infantry regiment.  These more experienced troops ignored the losses from the defenders' volleys and charged home.  Driven back by the impetus of the Prussian charge, the French infantry relinquished the line of the hedge and this allowed more Prussians into the orchard.    Heavily outnumbered, the French broke and the survivors ran towards Merxem.

Gilly's sole remaining battalion, the 1st 54th Line was in danger of being surrounded and reluctantly abandoned the chateau and fell back toward Merxem.  This sudden collapse of the forward position caught Ambert's advancing battalions in 'no mans land'.  As the fugitives from the chateau and orchard headed for Merxem, the battalions of the 2nd line formed square, wary of the advancing Prussian cavalry.  On the left the 23rd formed line supporting the artillery and facing Gibbs Pomeranian infantry.
Ambert recognised he needed all the troops he could muster to hold Merxem against the advancing Allies.  He therefore ordered the battalions of the 2nd and 23rd to fall back.  The 23rd managed to do this, but the 4th battalion of the 2nd line was too close to the enemy cavalry and had to stay in square. the 3rd battalion was able to obey their orders and left their comrades to their fate.

  

Pinned in square by the Prussian cavalry and with their own cavalry too weak to intervene the conscripts awaited the Prussian infantry.  Thumen deployed two battalions of the 4th Reserve Infantry and they poured volleys into the huddled French conscripts.  As the square dwindled the commander of the 3rd battalion of the 2nd Line felt he had to do something and ordered his men to advance to the aid of their comrades. Before the furious Ambert could send a counter order the advance began.  Their prayers answered, the waiting landwehr cavalry swept down on the hapless French.   The French officers desperately shouted for their men to form square.  Before that could be achieved, the Prussians were on them, their lances doing deadly work.  The battalion disintegrated and its eagle was carried back in triumph by the jubilant Prussians.  All this had been in vain, as, whilst the 3rd battalion was being butchered, the remains of the 4th battalion were overrun by the Prussian infantry.

On the left, the 23rd was holding the line and even counter attacked.  Driving off the 1st battalion of the Pomeranian infantry.  This stalled Gibbs whole brigade and they had to fall back to reform.  However, this French success was short lived.  Thumen's advancing battalions raked the conscripts with volleys and then charged.  The French left disintegrated, fleeing for Antwerp.

Led again by the Brandenburg infantry, the Prussians closed on Merxem.  The Irish, who formed the garrison saw the mayhem around them and decided that they too would head for Antwerp.  All Maison could do was request that Castex use his remaining cavalry to cover the rout.  Merxem had fallen, but too little daylight remained for an Allied advance on Antwerp.

The battle followed historical events.  The Allied attack was successful, but, fire from the guns of Antwerp disuaded the Allies from any further advance.  Over night Bulow pulled Thumen's men back, anxious that his lines of supply were threatened by MacDonalds forces.  Merxem was therefore abandoned and had to be attacked again a few weeks later. 

Ceresole 1544

A belated Happy New Year to you all. Many thanks for your continuing interest in my posts on our battles.
Our first battle of the year comes from the late Italian Wars.  Ceresole was fought between the French, under the Count of Enghein and a combined Spanish and Holy Roman Empire force commanded by Alfonso d'Avalos.  More detail of the forces can be found on this Wikipedia page .  The terrain for the battle is very simple, the French occupy a ridge (a gentle slope not impeding movement) and the Imperial forces line up opposite them.  The small village of Ceresole was represented by a couple of buildings.

Here is a rather blurred photo of the table, the French forces on the left. The forces were deployed historically, with light cavalry on the wings, infantry blocks and gendarmes in the centre. Each side had a reasonable number of guns, although they began the battle out of range of their opponents.  We used Steve's 'in-house' rules which are a modification of the DBx type. The crucial difference being that elements of each unit can be 'pushed back' by adverse reaction to missile fire and melee.  These elements then cost 'pips' to move back to the parent body; giving the commander the dilemma whether to push on with attacks or regroup first.

I took the part of  Alfonso and began a steady advance towards the French.  The intention was to drive off the opposing light missile cavalry, threaten the flanks and then drive forward with the landsknechts and gendarmes.  All went well until the Florentine cavalry on my left charged into their opponents.  In the ensuing melee they lost half their numbers and inflicted no damage to the French.

This of course meant that my flank was now under threat and the Salerno arquebusiers had to move away from supporting the landsknechts against the opposing French and Swiss infantry to covering the army's flank.  On the opposite flank, the Neapolitan cavalry charged Dampierre's light cavalry and achieved exactly the same result, ie they lost half their number in the melee.  Fortunately, some Spanish arquebusiers were in close attendance and their fire disrupted the French formation, giving the Neapolitans time to recover.  I was also helped by Steve's 'pip' dice which meant that the Italian infantry supporting Dampierre were only moving forward very slowly.

Leaving the Neapolitan cavalry and Spanish arquebusiers to contain the French left wing attack, my Spanish and German pikes moved to the left of Ceresola towards the Gruyere infantry and French Gendarmes.  The French had a superiority in heavy cavalry and had detached a second unit under Boutieres to support Des Thermes on their right.  Des Thermes had continued to push forward against the depleted ranks of the Florentine cavalry and although some of the Imperial artillery was firing at them it was having little effect.  In a last desperate attempt to wrest the initiative, Baglioni, the commander of the Florentine cavalry ordered his men to charge the French.  This they did, but bravery can only do so much and outnumbered three to one the cause was all but hopeless.  Following the melee the few surviving Florentine cavalry were driven from the field.

By now I had ordered the Salerno infantry to reform and resume their support for the advancing landsknechts.  As the arquebusiers moved forward the Boutiere's gendarmes arrived, with perfect timing, on their flank. Caught at such a disadvantage, the arquebusiers lost half their number before the rampaging cavalry were at last stopped by a determined stand by the veterans surrrounding the unit flag. The cavalry pulled back and then had to fall back further before the advancing pikes wielded by a unit of landsknechts.

Whilst all this activity had been going on on the flanks the two centres had been advancing towards each other.  As the distance closed the French arquebusiers began to fire at the advancing landsknechts. The ranks of the imperial troops began to thin under this sustained fire.  However, the Swiss suffered no comparable loss because most of the Imperial arquebusiers had been pulled away to take on the light cavalry on the flanks.

With the push of pike imminent, Enghein ordered forward is gendarmes.  They outnumbered Gonzaga's gendarmes by two to one and anticipated an easy victory.  It was not to be.  The Imperial heavy cavalry moved forward and won the initial contact.  As the melee continued a body of landsknechts moved towards the French gendarmes.  Before that hedge of pike points the cavalry had to give way.

To the left of the cavalry battle the pike blocks came together. Although weakened, the landsknechts gained the upper hand and began to push the Swiss back.  Near Ceresole the Spanish and German pikes were in melee with Gruyere and were also gaining the upper hand.  Beyond Ceresole, the Italian infantry had charged the Spanish arquebusiers and had been driven off.  The reformed Neapolitan cavalry had succeeded in neutralising Dampierre's light cavalry and even a desperate charge by Dampierre himself was not able to disorder the Spanish infantry.

It seemed as if the Imperialists may gain the victory, but Des Thermes light cavalry saved the day for the French.  After defeating the Florentine cavalry they then overran some Imperial artillery and were poised to attack the rear of the landsknechts.  The Imperialists had no reserves to meet this threat and although they had almost broken the French centre, they would be hard pressed to effect an orderly retreat.

A good evenings battle with fortunes swinging back and forth.  This period has a good range of troop types and also no 'super' troops.  Given the right conditions, arquebusiers can defeat pikes and although they may think otherwise, the gendarmes cannot charge around trampling everybody else underfoot.