"Massive 15mm Waterloo Game" Topic

After five months, our club just completed the entire 1815 campaign in a series of four linked battles--Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre, and Waterloo. We were using Age of Eagles to run this and each of the four game reports is now on the club website. Waterloo itself took us about 11 hours of game time to finish and we have plenty of photos to go along with the AAR, including some fun speculation of what consequences our campaign would have had beyond the battlefield. It was a great game and we had a blast doing it.

link

That's a lot of minis. :)

Congratulations on getting this done!!

Dave

Very impressed with the linked campaign. I also applaud you for running and completing this campaign!

Are the terrain mats homemade or purchased?

Eric

Thanks. The Waterloo mat is homemade--just a large bolt of plain green felt I ordered online and lightly dusted with brown spray paint. But if you go and see the photos from Quatre Bras, that is a Hotz "European Fields" mat I purchased. Very happy with it, and unlike everyone else I hear complaining about Hotz, I had excellent service and received mine in two weeks without issue.

I enjoyed your report very much.

Hello 6mmACW!

Just a fabulous presentation, well done.

I did read your alternate or different outcomes and maybe some of the following could be the reason. The first is your tables appear to be undersized or under scaled for the battles. The compressed battlefield's always works in favour of the attacker. The second is it seems that your scenarios have also allowed the attackers to utilize all their forces from the get go and choose their own objectives. It also looks like the footprint of your units are very large in relation to the size of the battlefield. If so that's another plus for the attacker.

I might be wrong in everything I've stated but whenever we have had unhistorical outcomes it's generally due to scales, rules or both. So something you might want to consider.

Best regards,

Glenn

Actually--quite the opposite for all four battles. We extended the area of operations to include MORE ground. This was especially true at Waterloo, where we added 12" to the width of the battlefield (5' felt too compressed, frankly). Expanding the tabletop space was likely an advantage to the attacker, giving the French more room to maneuver.

We did not allow either side to choose their own objectives. Each scenario was based mostly on casualties lost with some minor victory points awarded for key terrain features determined ahead of time (at Waterloo, points were earned for holding Mont Saint Jean or Placenoit).

The main issue you raise--allowing both armies to activate/employ their full forces from Turn 1--is a good one. Without fog of war, it's hard to stop gamers from doing this, and in scenario design, I absolutely hate artificial rules that say "you aren't allowed to move division x until turn y." That is so cheesy and lame. Some rule systems do a good job at forcing players to only use parts of their army at once--Age of Eagles is not such a set. You can do anything you want, any time. What we did find in our games, to my pleasant surprise, was that all the players were more conservative with their armies and opted to hold back large segments due to our counting casualties as the main driver of victory points. By prioritizing losses instead of capturing arbitrary geographic locations, the players tended to husband their forces more carefully. So even though we were allowed to utilize everything from the get go, players typically did not (except at Quatre Bras, when the French unleashed everything in a fury). Quatre Bras really is a scenario that screams out for fog of war restrictions!

Hello 6mmACW!

Thanks for the explanation.

I think your tables are probably still too compressed. We fought Quatre Bras and Ligny with 6mm figures on a 9'X 5' table and are about to do the same for Waterloo. Quatre Bras was a good fit, Ligny was too tight and Waterloo is also a little tight but should be okay.

Although expanding the space gives the French more room it generally means they have farther to travel to exploit any opportunities. The added distance increases the chances of things going wrong. It also gives the defender more time to react. I see these as defender advantages.

The three major battles of 1815 are classic examples of TIMING being a critical factor. If players can "do anything you want, any time", it will be extremely difficult to replicate similar outcomes. It seems we both understand that and it was one of my main points.

Thanks again for the detailed explanation.

Best regards,

Glenn