The Corlears Hook Fencibles played a game of the 1870 battle of Coulmiers, the only French victory in the war that I'm aware of. Rules used are Bloody Big Battles. Bill is out of action for a while so we had a three player game, which ends up taking as long as a two player one. Rick was the Bavarian von der Tann, Ken was d'Aurelle (commanding 15 Corps and the army) and I played Chanzy, commanding 16 Corps and the lone French cavalry unit. Rick opted not to put one of his 4 infantry units in a forward position. Per the scenario rules, the French started 12 inches in from the west edge of the table as a result. The Bavarian army is much better than the French but there are twice as many French and the Bavarians are mighty thin on the ground.
The French surged forward with pretty good movement rolls, save Ken's artillery who decided it was time for a rest. Ken's corps was smaller but included the only trained infantry we had.
The French cavalry formed up in front of the Bavarian cuirassiers, which were promptly shot down by sharpshooting Gardes Mobiles. The surviving Bavarian horsemen scattered.
Bavarian fire dice were hot. Two raw French infantry units took a hit and became spent, one in my corps and one in Ken's. One of my Mobiles units became disrupted in front of Coulmiers. Worse things awaited them. You'll see.
My mitrailleuses silenced the Krupp guns jest north of Coulmiers and scored a hit. A raw regiment du marche charged them. We were joking that the regiments du marche were where you could find Sergeant Bilko and his crew. For those not of a certain age, this was an ancient TV sitcom that featured a conniving supply sergeant who ran the motor pool. This group of chair-borne warriors would distinguish themselves. The French cavalry moved through Champs (taking an objective) and faced the Prussian cavalry. The Mobiles moved up through Cheminiers (taking a second objective) and fired into the flank of the Prussian cavalry. This nailed one stand and the other fled the field. Meanwhile the depot warriors rolled high against the silenced Krupp guns and wiped them out. They exploited into the front of a Bavarian line infantry unit. Another high roll saw them just drive the Bavarians back. Von der Tann had to jump into a road side ditch to escape this charge. The unit labeled French infantry in this photo is the heroic outfit.
Meanwhile the garrison of Coulmiers stood against a hail of bullets. My dice refused to go above mediocre against the town.
The Bavarian firing dice lit up and one of my Mobiles units took 75% losses in one turn, the survivors fleeing. You can see the three dead on the right of the picture.
Ken traded fire with the Bavarians on our right.
Back on our left, the shooting continued.
The Bavarians fell back in front of our right. The move started when some of their artillery was silenced and the infantry fell back too.
Back on our left the French cavalry charged the flank of the Bavarian infantry facing our regiment du marche, rode down a stand and chased the rest back some way. Von der Tann, who had just climbed out of his ditch jumped back in. The cleaning bill for his uniform will be steep.
Coulmiers still held on, but their time was coming.
Ken pushed forward on his flank.
The French cavalry was looting the dead or something like that. The Krupp guns wheeled around and the infantry they had beaten returned and fired into them.
One of my regiments du marche units which had taken a hit immediately and then hugged the ground in front of Coulmiers finally shook themselves together and fell back a distance, unmasking one battalion of French artillery.
The regiments du marche unit that had overrun the guns got themselves together and turned to fire on Coulmiers. Two artillery battalions, one of mitrailleuses and two infantry units combined for one huge attack on the town. I rolled a 12 on 2D6. My firepower was 25. The defensive value of the town reduced the firepower to 16. The high roll was still enough to nail two bases from the garrison.
Adding injury to injury, Ken charged forward with his lone trained unit against a Krupp battalion. They were disrupted by defensive fire but came on. They rolled high with their own pre-assault fire and got a hit and silenced the guns. They needed every bit of this. They rolled low on the assault and just managed to get a tie, which saw each side lose a base and the guns wiped out. Ken's artillery finally obeyed repeated orders to advance and decided to limber up. This was their first move of the game.
It was Rick's 4th turn. He started making some moves and then decided it was time to call a general withdrawal. With one of our seven infantry units gone, two more spent and most of the others disrupted, we thought it best to let him go and claim the victory – a rare thing in 1870 France. We had played an hour and 50 minutes. French losses were some 7,000 while the Germans lost 5,000 and had 48 guns knocked out or overrun. We only had two objectives when the game stopped but in three more turns were likely to grab Coulmiers (worth two) and one of the two unguarded ones on each flank. We decided to roll to see what the optional reinforcements on turn 5 would have been. We would have got a brigade of raw infantry on our right where it could have moved to grab an unguarded village. Rick got a lousy roll, in keeping with his late game dice and got nothing.
The game was a hoot. In spite of that I hope not to play it again until we start a Franco-Prussian campaign. We'll wait for Bill to be back with us, since the Prussians are his.
is back from Council of Five Nations.
