My wargaming club played the Battle of Froeschwiller (1870) using the Bloody Big Battles rules this Sunday. I played the Prussian left wing. My freind Rob made two dimensional bases with top down pictures of the 3D town models I have. This looked great and made battles in the town a whole lot easier as far as moving troops in it went. We put the 2D model of the town under the 3D model of it. When troops enter the town, remove the 3D model and the troops can move easily through the town and the table still looks good.
Pretty neat huh? This will serve us well for many battles to come. Here is a picture of our initial deployments. The Prussians are actually outnumbered at the start and feed into the battle piecemeal which presents a lot of problems for us trying to mount a coordinated and decisive attack. We have ten turns to capture Froeschwillen and Riechschoffen (these are the two towns with the French control markers on them).
This next picture show the French and Prussians battling it out for possession of Woerth. Control of Woerth is critical for Prussian control of the roads leading to Froeschwillen.
Here is a wider view showing the Prussian deployment as they try to put pressure on the flanks to keep the French from reinforcing their center.
Poor movement rolls hamper my efforts to launch a coordinated attack on the French left. One of my batteries has caused a casualty but became low on ammo doing it.
The French heavy cavalry has a healthy disdain for the fighting prowess of the Bavarians and launch an ill-advised assault which ends in disaster for the cavalry.
Prussian fire and assaults while piecemeal are beginning to have an affect. This poor French division is decimated and is now disordered and spent. The supporting heavy cavalry is in no hurry to rush out and attack a Prussian infantry division after they saw their brother division get destroyed trying to do that.
The Prussians and Bavarians on the right and in the center are finally beginning to build up their strength and put a lot of pressure on the French. I am still struggling to get an attack going on the left.
The Prussians in the center are taking it on the chin but finally clear the French out of Woerth and begin to advance on Froeschwillen.
I manage to finally get something that resembles and attack going and begin pushing the French back on their center and Riechschoffen.
Very much like the actual battle, the Prussian reinforcements continue to pour in and the weight of the attacks all along the line are beginning to wear down the French.
On turn seven (its a ten turn scenario) , Rob manages to capture Froeschwillen, an important objective for us.
By turn eight the French are in real trouble. My opposite number has fought a very successful rearguard action and has joined up with the French center but one of the French victory conditions is to keep four or more infantry units in the field and they are down to their last four.
The French manage to stave off three major Prussian assaults with their four divisions intact but it is a near run thing and they have to hold on for two more turns. Its starting to look grim for them.
On turn nine the last bit of French luck runs out as Rob manages to knock off one of the French divisions and enters Reichschoffen. The town is still contested but the handwriting is on the wall. We have 3 of the 4 victory conditions at the end of turn nine so there wasn't much point in fighting turn ten. The French concede defeat. All in all, a very fun battle. I look forward to fighting another battle soon. The big question is what period and battle. I have troops for Franco-Prussian, Crimean War, Russo-Turkish War and American Civil War. Just have to pick one and start preparing the terrain mat for it.
Dave
gets his hands on some fields and fences.
