A Napoleonics game at Chez Dawson

Long term readers will have gathered by now that the one period I have really struggled to come to grips with are the Napoleonic Wars. So it may come as something of a surprise to find me driving to York, last Wednesday, for a game of Shako 2, Arty Cunliffe's rules for that period. This was all due to Paul Dawson commenting on the fact that some aspects of Altar of Freedom reminded him of those rules during our AoF game of First Manassas earlier this year. This was enough to intrigue me and intrigue crystallised into a suggestion that we give the rules an airing at our next get together. Which was why I was off to fight the Battle of Abbach (22 April 1809).

While I understand a little bit about the Peninsula War (thanks to the Sharpe Novels) and something about the 100 days I'm pretty hazy about the rest of the Napoleonic Wars.  So a game set in Bavaria in 1809 is not playing to my strengths.  Fortunately the rules were pretty easy to pick up and for a non specialist like me seemed to give a reasonable feel for the period.  I especially liked the command and control system and the really straight forward combat and morale rules.  The game is set at Corps level with manoeuvre units being infantry battalions, cavalry regiments or artillery batteries (lets call these units).  Each unit has a morale value which is the number of 'Hits' the unit can take and also the base score it has to roll under to pass morale tests and do other stuff.  In this game that value ranged between 3 and 5.  The Austrians also gained a bonus for having large units, not that we had any actual Austrian troops on the table instead Prussians proxied for them.  Large units take one more hit to destroy than their actual morale value and the Austrians have a number of these.  If you want to read a review of the rules by an actual Napoleonic gamer this link will let you do that: Mad Mac's Attic: Search For The Holy Grail - The Best Napoleonic Rules, Part 6 (madmacsattic.blogspot.com) 

The game scenario came from Michael Hopper's "Eagles over Bavaria" which is a set of scenarios for battles in the 1809 campaign written for Shako 2 but actually pretty much rules agnostic.  A French force initially consisting of two commands (which I think were roughly division sized) is on the table.  This consists of Boudet's Division of seven average battalions (Morale 4), two skirmish units and 1 Field Artillery battery and Pajol's Division of 2 elite battalions (Morale 5), 1 skirmish unit and three regiments of light cavalry.  Reinforcements will arrive on turns three, seven and nine.

The Austrians have superior numbers at the start, organised in four Divisions (IIRC).  They certainly had a lot more troops on the table than the French.  In total they deployed 16 Infantry Battalions, 4 cavalry regiments and 4 artillery batteries.

1. The Battlefield.  One square equals on foot on the table

The initial French plan was to defend all along their frontage.  The Austrian's were attacking.  Command and control in Shako means defending units cannot move more than 12 inches away from their formation commander while attackers must move towards the enemy at a minimum of half speed.  Orders cannot be changed without a direct order sent from the Commander in Chief to the formation commander by ADC, who may not get there on time or at all!  Lines of attack must be defined on a map by drawing an arrow showing the route and objective.

When I arrived at Paul's the table was already set up and initial  deployments were being made.  Paul  had also invited a second wargaming friend to take part, who to prevent me becoming confused has cunningly arranged to be called Paul as well!  This latter Paul was commanding the Austrians and I was to take the French.  The French right was deployed on either side of the stream north of the village of Massing with their flank anchored on the village of Poigen.  Their left was deployed around Peising with two elite battalions garrisoning that village.  The centre was lightly held by three regiments of Light Cavalry.  The Austrians were massed south of Seedorf and around Abbach.

The game victory conditions rewarded the Austrians for exiting troops via either of the roads on the south edge of the table, occupying Peising and Poigen villages and destroying French units.  As the French I had to hold the two villages the Austrians wanted, prevent their southern exit and destroy units.  Which, to be honest, looked like a big ask.

2. Battlefield from the east showing initial deployments

Apparently the Duke of Wellington once wrote that "The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.".  I know exactly how he felt as I try to write up this game!  The telling is entirely from the French viewpoint, some of my recollections don't entirely gel with the sequence and time stamps on the photo's and some bits I'm struggling to put into the right point in the game entirely, and that's without anyone shooting at me (or asking me for a waltz).  Still I will do my best to give an outline.

The initial deployments are as shown in photo 2 above, the French are on the left, the Austrians (actually Prussians) to the right.  Units with blue glass markers are 'large' units.  Each turn commences with dicing to determine the order in which divisions move, this is a straight dice roll with no modifiers.  in the case of ties formations with attack orders move first.  The game started with the Austrians surging forward all along the line.  Things are not looking good for Napoleon's boys! In response I placed most of my infantry into line keeping a couple of battalions in column as a more mobile reserve and awaited the coming storm.  Infantry in column move further than those in line but can't shoot but gain an advantage in melee. 

3.  The cavalry and their supporting artillery attack

The first blow was a combined cavalry and artillery attack against my right wing (Photo 3).  I managed to form a hasty square with one battalion but the left most one failed to do this and was swept away.   After which the Austrian cavalry decided to ignore the infantry in square and retired to rest their horses. After one turn of melee become 'blown' and only recover after a turn out of combat.  Being attacked while your horses are blown is not a good thing!  Blown horses are noted by a red glass bead in the pictures.

4.  The Austrian infantry pick up the assault

Hard on the heels of the cavalry charge came the Austrian infantry.  They quickly moved into Poigen village and started a musketry dual prior to a bayonet charge.  This staggered some French formations but did little else.  The French musketry in response was distinctly lack lustre (I threw a lot of ones, I mean a LOT!).

5. Turn three and the first re-enforcements arrive

Meanwhile on the left the Austrians held a huge numerical advantage and pushed cavalry and infantry south down the road out of Abbach.  I moved one of the cavalry regiments in the centre to the south of Peiping with a view to launching a spoiling attack against the rapidly advancing Austrian columns.  I also moved one of the elite battalions out of the village to hold off the Austrians moving south towards the central sector of the battlefield.  Although they slowed the advance doing so allowed the Austrians to slip a battalion into the southern half of the village.  The French also gained much needed re-enforcements in the shape of two light cavalry regiments entering in the South West corner.

6.  The French centre is now wide open

However, that left the centre looking distinctly under garrisoned!  One battalion of infantry is having to hold off three Austrian ones and having sent one cavalry regiment to support my left wing I had precisely two remaining cavalry regiments in support.  Following a round of combat with the Austrian Dragoons opposite me that quickly dwindled to one regiment, as shown in Photo 6.  My remaining cavalry are blown and staggered.  Staggered is the equivalent of disrupted or disorganised so far as I can make out, certainly a staggered unit is at a large disadvantage.

7. The Austrian infantry pressing forwards on my right

Over on the Right the Austrian Infantry continued to close on my defensive line (Photo 7). I'm unclear how many turns of musketry occurred or if they attempted to close to melee but overall things were looking pretty shaky on this wing.  In a desperate attempt to reverse the tide of events I decided to go for it and attacked all along the line.  Austrian volley fire failed to prevent my infantry getting into melee and a series of poor Austrian rolls and good French rolls saw Austrians fleeing to the rear in large numbers.

8. The Austrian push around and into Peising village

Things were even more desperate on the left side of the battlefield.  Although so far the Austrian's had not been able to make their numbers tell, but it was only a matter of time before they did.  My elite battalion which had left the village was not just holding it's own against the Austrian assaults but was actually beating them.  I was in serious doubt as to how long that could be maintained though as Austrians were poised to leave the village to their rear.  The light cavalry re-enforcements plus the regiment diverted from the centre launched death or glory charges to hold the Austrian's back and had some success but at a cost.  I was beginning to look for the next set of re-enforcements arriving to rescue things.  In an attempt to hang on until then  I abandoned the village and moved the second Battalion of infantry out to support their colleagues facing the enemy.

At this point we broke for lunch; I'd like to claim that this was taken in the saddle surveying the field of battle, but in fact it was taken sitting very comfortably in Paul's conservatory discussing the pros and cons of domestic solar panels! Very nice it was too. 

9. The aftermath of the French close assault on the right flank

The French counter attack around Poigen was far more successful than I had hoped (see photo 9).  In fact the Austrian's were even worse off than the photo suggests.  Shako 2 has a cascade morale failure rule.  When units reach set levels of troop loss their chance of passing morale tests declines dramatically and entire divisions can simply melt away.  So it was for the Austrians.  Over the course of two turns both Divisions on the French right failed tests and were removed from the table.

10.  Fighting is still continuing around Peising

Back at Peising the fighting was continuing the second Battalion had deployed from the village to shield the rear of Battalion which was already engaged but at the cost of abandoning the village which the Austrian's quickly fully occupied.  The Austrian attacks to the east of the village were starting to falter as they were unable to make headway against the better quality French.

11.  Two regiments of my light cavalry holding Austrian columns at bay

Ignore what looks like Austrian re-enforcements at the top of photo 11, those are some of those troops who are no longer 'combat effective'.  There are still eight battalions of Austrian infantry and a regiment of medium cavalry in play though most of which are in good shape.  Facing them are around half that number of French.  This would be a good time for additional French troops to arrive, which they do in the shape of six battalions of infantry, 2 skirmisher bases and a battery of artillery all entering south of Peising (Turn 7 of 12).  These are not the greatest of quality but hey, quantity has a quality all of it's own as someone once said.

The newly entering troops slogged forward through the woods, to enter the open ground effectively blocking any chance of the Austrian's exiting the table at this end of the board.  

12.  The situation around Poigen at the start of turn 8

Things had now turned around quite dramatically  Over on the right I was able to occupy Poigen and despite still being on defensive orders at least start moving units towards the centre of the battlefield.  Orders were sent from the C in C to change orders to attack  which would free them to move to support the left wing in the next turn or two.  The situation over on the left was now looking to be more stable anyway and had a decent counter attack developing all on it's own.  A quick tot up of victory points showed that the Austrians were a long way behind and had no chance of pulling things back.  On the plus side they controlled both sectors of Peising but against that their losses were substantially higher than the French and the exit points were both under French control.  Accordingly at the start of what I'm almost certain was turn 9 we called the game as a French win.

This was my first Napoleonic game against real live opposition in around thirty years and I have to say I enjoyed it and not just because I was on the winning side!  The rules played well, although as always I could see a couple of areas where a house rule might make things more interesting.  The game see sawed and for most of it I was convinced I was going to loose, and it was sufficient to have me trawling that electonical inter-web thingy to see if I could find a copy of Shako 2 and the scenario books for the Peninsula War.  Well I got given some figures for the peninsula a couple of years back so I may as well use them I suppose.  All in all a great day, with nice people, what more could you ask for.  Thanks to Paul Dawson for putting the game on, advice on the rules and providing lunch plus to his friend Paul for being good company and not laughing too much when my dice seemed to only have ones on them.

The next get together will be back to my place for an ECW encounter using my homebrew rules, which should be interesting.