"The Battle of Zamora" Topic

Chaps,

As some of you may be dimly aware, I've been painting Napoleonic figures for about 20 months now. I've made it two-thirds of the way through my intended project [about a 1000 figures] without actually using them. This weekend just past I finally cracked and the lads made their debut in a game of LFS in my living room.

Here is a picture of the table without figures/blinds. I wasn't sure how much scenery/terrain features to use so opted to keep it fairly sparse:
link

The terrain boards are by Eslo, the roads and rivers were made several years ago by James Morris of Age of Arthur fame. The buildings are by Conflix and the trees from S&A. This terrain set is designed to be man-portable and most of it fits into four cut-down A4 paper boxes inside a large holdall.
Here is a map of the table with objectives highlighted: link

I've been reading a book about Salamanca, and whilst trying to come up with a simple scenario I was reminded o f Hill's raid on Almarez. This became Allied attempts to prevent a key bridge falling into French hands, with other strategic points like the town of Zamora being up for grabs.

Here are the Allies – 17 line battalions, mostly British with some Brunswickers, Portuguese and a single Spanish battalion. Two light Dragoon regiments, one of Hussars and one Dragoon plus four batteries. Infantry are based 4 [2x2] on a 40x30mm base with four bases per battalion. Cavalry and artillery is two bases of 80x60mm. 330 figures – doesn't look like much does it?: link

Here is the ‘army list' for the Brits: link

Here is the French list:
link

And here are the Sans Vernis: link

Again, doesn't look like much does it? Is the rough equivalent of 2-3 WAB armies ~330 figs in the same rough proportions as the Allies – Bavarians there with three Battalions. When I've finished the initial stage of the project I'll have 24 battalions, 6 regiments of hoss and 6 batteries per side.

My guest – Jon [posts as Blucher] decided on taking the Brits, making me the French. Blind movement worked quite well – with multiple moves outside 32" allowing rapid deployment of the divisions. Jon used his dummy blind more effectively than me – creating doubt in his mind as to where his cavalry was. Even after most of the figures made it onto the table I still had two enemy blinds outside my line of sight, and guessed [wrongly – see below] as to which represented real troops.

LFS is designed with 15mm as the default setting. Notes on playing with 25s suggest doubling everything. This included the blinds that mask initial strategic movement – making a fully deployed blind a whopping 8x32 inches: link

I made the ‘commands cards' out of spare poker chips – with my scrabble set raided for a bag to draw them from. We doubled all measures from the 15mm standard to keep things simple – being initially tempted to multiple some ranges by 1.5.

My initial plan was to get my cavalry in a position to fend off an infantry assault on the bridge, whilst my strong infantry division advanced to secure it. My division with the weaker Bavarians would loiter between the wood and Zamora and the small division with two batteries would take and hold Zamora and protect my left.

John sent his strong infantry division racing towards the bridge, and my plans were quickly obsolete as he got them there first! His mixed British/Portuguese/Spanish division dug in around the farm, the cavalry were conspicuous by their absence and the Brunswickers plus Brit stiffening held his extreme right.

Our spotting roles were appalling – even with just a ‘3' required on a D10.

Jon having taken the bridge – with the Highland regiment in particular giving me looks of ‘come on then if you think you're hard enough' it was time to change plans. I decided to use the separation between the allies strongest division and the rest of their army by swinging round and having at the rest of the Allied army before coming back to the bridge. I ordered Sarrut to take his infantry to the T-junction and for Curto to bring his cavalry round to meet him there. Brennier was to keep on for the bridge.
Here my deployment revealed its weakness as the card-draw sequence meant that Brennier was on his way before Sarrut – I made the mistake of interleaving his brigades with Sarrut's which was something I came to regret. A turn later and Sarrut's leading brigade made it to the road in columns, but his Bavarians were still stuck back by the wood, not having the pips to go back through the brigade of Brennier's which separated them from the rest of their division.

A British RHA battery caused some casualties on the left-hand battalion, shaking it. Jon's next move was to reveal his cavalry as being on the blind in front of me behind the road-side ridge rather than in the north-west corner and charge into the worried French. Even with support, the column was routed by the fury of his Light Dragoons, with a battalion in Brennier's leading brigade swept away as well – along with a Surrut's sole battery which was overwhelmed by the Light Dragoons as they continued their breakthrough move. Other battalions were forced to withdraw as well, really messing up my structure and command and control.

From one perspective I was traumatised at the impact this well-timed charge had made on my boys – on the other I was impressed by the rules allowing such dramatic things to happen: link

Jon spent the next two turns advancing his Brunswickers against Zamora and making sure both ends of the bridge were in his grasp. I had to spend a lot of pips trying to sort out the confusion and halting the routs between my two big infantry divisions. I advanced my cavalry round in a left-hook to try and dampen Jon's enthusiasm for attacking again in the centre. Meanwhile, my brigade that had made it to the road began to take heavy casualties from having to remain in square because of the near by Dragoons whilst being in sight of Allied guns. I was fortunate with my dice-rolls when it came to bombardments from this and the other guns located with Stewart around the bridge.

Then something strange happened! Jon had a battalion in square at the near end of the bridge and these advanced [slowly] against the Carabiniers rear! I'm not sure the rules handled that well, but the agreed outcome was that the heavy cavalry trundled on towards the Allied edge of the table.

It was my turn for the card-draw sequence to go my way. Having an able/bold cavalry commander was very handy, as in a moderately desperate attempt to regain the initiative I sent in my lancers against Jon's Hussars. Jon opted not to counter-charge and despite the Hussars of being a higher class the Lancers pulled off a victory – sending the Hussars off the edge of the world. We couldn't find what to do in this situation to Jon generously agreed that was the last we'd see of the Hussars – I was fortunate that the Lancers didn't pursue, instead they continued their charge into the flank of the other regiment of Light Dragoons, smashing them as well. I felt a lot better after that, and Jon's aggressive square being within reach of a Ligne battalion: link

We played one more turn and then it was time to finish. I don't think we would have got a result – Zamora was secure, and I had the remains of the Allied cavalry very worried, but I was never going to take the bridge, and the farm was well protected – not to mention that two my two big infantry divisions were in a mess – so we called it an honourable draw: link

A decent game with a few quirks. LFS has no rules for bridges, and I can't tell whether blind movement is affected by terrain or not. In this game this would have been relevant to moving across the bridge. Whilst I may be using 25s, Jon pointed out that my bases/units are not too much bigger [160mm frontage] than the standard 15mm sizes given in the rules, meaning that keeping all measurements as is might be possible – with our doubling, cavalry could charge 32", and even infantry squares could move 4", as my Carabiniers found out. We only had one foot Vs foot engagement during the game, and there was debate about whether or not a column would get overlaps against a square. There is no definition of ‘enfilade' as far as I can make out in the rules. The artillery/morale rules work well I think. The disruption to my cohesion from the successful cavalry charge was appalling and satisfying in a game sense and revealed the errors in my deployment and movement – must be more patient next time and let the front lines move off first.

I would have liked an opportunity for a more involved combat with several battalions from each side, and we never got to try the BUA rules.

One final pic – taken from a precarious viewpoint:

link

We also went through 2 litres of Coke, half a large bag of peanuts and an entire tray of [50!] M&S nibbles – scotch eggs and the like. Ulp! I was packed up in 90 minutes :)

Sounds good fun what are LFS??

Le Feu Sacre – rules from the Too Fat Lardies stable: lefeusacre.co.uk

Michael.

La Feu Sacre, I believe. A Two Fat Lardies rule set.

I rather enjoyed the game though i was disappointed not to get a conclusion. I partially blame this on Mike taking 5 mins to add up the modifiers cos he wouldnt take my word for it.

Its plus two i tell you, plus two!!

Anyway, The distances were are wrong and should probably be changed to 1.5x or even kept normal. This also concerns me a bit though in terms of playing time.

I guess this is only your second game, and my third so we should get faster. All in all a success and the figures looked great. We are having another game a week on tuesday at the club if your interested. Probably Austrians vs turks.

PS We need to try AOE next.

Jon,

I calculate that a standard 15mm unit would have a frontage of 96mm for foot and 100mm for cavalry – mine would both be 160mm.

Should I stick with two guns/bases per battery do you think?

I wanted to go through the mechanisms as I hadn't done it before – it seems to have more subtlety than I had initially expected.

PPS im not so sure the square thing was so wrong btw.

As I mentioned at the time there is no firing in this rules. If you didnt allow an attack it would make cavalry untouchable. I have read that cavalry was always venerable in defence due to their lack of firepower. You have allowed your rear to show and I took advantage. Now all that happened was you took 1 hit and had to withdraw under fire. Is this unreasonable?

Also remember my square took two turns to advance over the bridge so you had warning and I was lucky my move came up before yours too.

Ill admit its not perfect system but the result was fair given the fairly unusual scenario.

Yes to two guns.

I think we should try 1.5x but keep 1 inch distance (minimum) between units. Its a lot imo anyway.

perhaps these points should be taken to the yahoo group they surely know more about such things…

Jon,

I think we need to ask the Lardies for some bridge rules. Also, should blind be affected by the terrain they pass over? Furthermore, what happens to units that recoil off table – should they do that or just move along the edge?

I would suggest that crossing a bridge causes a unit to be disrupted. My cavalry might have been in an illegal place because of the ZOC rules and your unit in square. I accept that confident infantry in square could get 'aggressive' against cavalry and that it was a very specific situation – I read in the book that light cavalry could just withdraw ahead of the slower moving unit – but it says nothing about heavy cavalry.

I suggest you photocopy a ruler and have it blown up by 50%, so an inch on the rules is really 1.5 inches. Glue it to card and proceed without any further changes.