To further test Bonaparte Waltz, our new Napoleonic rules, we played a scenario loosely based on the 1814 battle of La Rothiere. It might be better to use the film formulation, "based on a true story". The French army had too many conscripts. On the flip side it had three brigades of Old Guards instead of Young Guards. The Allied side had even less relationship to history. No Austrian, Russian or Wurttemburg troops were present. Instead I fielded mostly Prussians with the pair of Bavarian units I've got painted. The proportion of troops was nearly right, though both sides didn't have enough guns. Most of this was the by-product of unseemly haste – I was still putting the scenario together when the guys arrived. I promise next week's game will see a finished scenario.
Along with being semi-fictitious and hastily-done, the scenario strained the rules as played so far. The previous games have seen 20 units per side as the upper limit. This time the French had 29 units and the Allies had 42. It didn't creak too badly, although the game lasted over three hours instead of our usual two. Part of the delay was due to my still putting the Allied reinforcement schedule together in mid-game, part due to just some really big fights.
Rick played Boney, with Tom as Ney. I played Blucher, with Ken as Sacken. Ken's advanced guard arrived early on, facing a line of loop-holed and barricaded villages.
In time the French decided to take out his advanced 30 gun battery with a series of cavalry charges. The first two were driven off, but Ken's infantry supports retreated and the guns were exhausted by the first two charges. A third charge swept in and overran the guns. This left us weakened around La Rothiere and no attack was made on that village during the game. Here I must note that the guns were rolling too many dice in assaults, as all continued to do during the game. This would later help the French out, so I figure it was a wash for this game. Yes, I make mistakes with my own rules. It's what happens when you get old.
About this time Allied reinforcements boiled up from the south table edge. The disordered French cavalry fell back behind their infantry line, though the third wave was caught by Allied cavalry and suffered some losses. After some turns at rest, most of the French cavalry was ready for more mayhem.
Ken put in a first surprise attack on Dienville, the extreme French right flank. His dice were cold and he was driven back. I put in an attack on Mesnil, the French left center with the same result. Rick and Tom were confident. Then Wrede's Bavarian Corps (well at least two brigades were painted correctly) advanced from the eastern table edge, backed by the Wurttemburg Corps (yeah, all Prussians). Their smiles faded. A quick reserve move brought 30 horse artillery guns from their right to their newly threatened left. Ken's second attack on Dienville was thrown back.
Now a wild series of assaults began. Chaumesnil on the French left, Mesnil in the left center and Dienville on the right came under repeated attack. Cavalry and infantry charges surged around and between the villages. Prussian heavy cavalry advanced deep into the French center, catching sight of Napoleon, alone save for his servant Rustam and a couple Guard Chasseurs. But the Prussians were exhausted. They survived the feeble French attempt to eject them and then rallied to disordered. But they were unable to move against the Emperor before the sun went down on this winter day.
We used the weather rules for the first time and snow fell for the second half of the battle, making command and control more difficult. Late in the evening, three attacks were launched at Mesnil on one turn. Rick and Tom worried that it was up, but the third attack's dice went cold and the French held the village by their fingertips. While this was happening Ken stormed Dienville. The French had no troops around capable of immediate counter-attack, all being disordered or exhausted. Ken kept the village. Since the French had abandoned Giberie as untenable early in the game, we held two of the five objective villages. Holding three by nightfall would give us a marginal victory. But as the series of attacks on Mesnil failed, the French team's confidence returned. And rightly so, since my final assaults on their left and left center were all repulsed.
Ken opined that we would claim victory in our newspapers anyway, as both sides did when the result wasn't crystal-clear. Ken was happy; he'd taken and held a town. The French team was happy, since they had a marginal victory. Not much else was available, since Blucher was in reality backed up by two corps of elite Russian infantry (guards and grenadiers) and a corps of Russian cuirassiers that the Allied monarchs withheld from his attacks. I was happy that the game had moved along as well as it did and that the others were pleased. It needs a tad more work – I'm still tinkering with the activation point system. All agreed there were too many available, too predictably during the game.
As of this writing, I'm only aware of having made an error with artillery defending against assaults during the game. And my AB Prussians got to see the elephant again. It's been a while since their last appearance on the table. They sure look better than my (1979-vintage) French, even if they don't fight any better.
Final tally: we played 10 turns in a little over 3 hours, not counting a break for dinner. The French lost about 9,000 troops of 45,000 and the Allies lost over 14,000 of 65,000. The losses in the actual battle were around 6,000 per side. Perhaps my kamikaze-style attacks had something to do with the high losses. Had we been playing a campaign, both sides would be moaning the heavy losses of cavalry, over 4,000 per side.
The final shots of the battle look like both armies are entirely disorganized (yellow markers) or exhausted (red markers).
But a close look revealed that the Allies had ten units in good order at nightfall, while the French had six. I obviously didn't push hard enough.
's motivation to paint Napoleonic ships returns!
