"BBB Franco-Prussian Battle of Mars-la-Tour PHOTOS galore " Topic

Our group played the Franco Prussian War battle of Mars-la-Tour using – for us -- a new set of rules: Bloody Big Bloody Battles. This is just an outstanding rules set. It refights an entire battle at the army level with units representing brigades. While designed for 2 to 4 player we had 8 players. We could have accommodated 10 but there were two MIAs. So we held back a French and Prussian corps.

There were very few modifications to the rules given we were playing on a 12 foot board with 28mm troops. Each player had a corps.

This game is designed to run 12 turns. We played 6. We left things on the field and will finish next month. We will drag in more players.

Uncle Bob and Mike did a great job of laying out the terrain. David and Ben brought the troops. I took photos as usual and cast a few dice. Playing this in 28mm was unbelievably cool. We kept the ranges and movement as per the rules – but given the much larger playing surface there was a ton of room for maneuvers.

The game was an absolute blast. The French had to clear the road to Paris. As expected the fight over the two center towns was bitter. The Prussians captured Vionville but the French held on to Rezonville. The French reinforcements finally arrived on the sixth turn and are massing to attack. However the Prussian cavalry is getting ready for the "death ride" and we shall see how this goes next month when we finish the fray.

Here is the link to ALL the photos. They are in landscape mode. Click on one of the photos to see them one at a time. There is a Video at the end of the show.

HERE are a few photos:

A nice looking game.

Our group thanks you. … Here are three more, illustrating how we handled towns. A building covered the town "footprint. We had a chip with a French flag to denote who held the town. If it changed hands we flip over the chip which shows a Prussian flag. If there are actual troops in the town we remove the building leaving the footprint. The footprint is of a photo of a French town and in some cases the actual town.

hello
very interesting..please may i ask you how many castings did you used for the tabletop battle?

I suppose about 500 castings.BUT the number of castings is purely for decoration. You could have 1 casting if you were short of figures. It is the number of stands that count.

Looks great, may the French win.

Fabulous looking game. What figures did you use?

They are mostly Foundry ….

The collection, however, includes a few Jack Scruby figures from 1967. In the photo below, the "thinner" figures behind the limber are Scrubys:

Excellent AAR. I like the way you handled towns, and easy to denote who holds the town with two-sided markers. Great idea if it is not apparent by the figures. Foundry figures and others look great. Fun group photo, and flats in last photo set stage for next battle. Thanks!

This look really nice

Good show!

Lovely, can you advise me as to your base sizes.

Also the width of your stream/river sections?

As I am looking at this scale for my Polish Uprising 1830 and Hungarian Revolution Games

Marvelous looking game!

Glorious stuff. I enjoyed the duelling anthems in the video! Looking forward to Part II!

Chris

Bloody Big BATTLES!
link
bloodybigbattles.blogspot.co.uk

Fantastic looking battle! Sounds like a blast and looking forward to Round 2!

Our group thanks you. We are looking forward to the playoff next month when each side gets a final large corps reinforcement. Casualties have been modest so far-- lots of pushing and shoving in the melees. As to stand sizes.An infantry stand is 1 5/8" by 2" with the four figures facing the shorter dimension.
An "aggressive" status marker is one mounted figure on a 1" by 2" stand. An artillery piece is on a 2" by 2 3/8" stand. If I had it to do over I'd go 1 1/2 by 2 for the infantry. Streams are 2 " wide counting the banks. The hills are Styrofoam under the mat. The fields are cut up rugs. The rest is felt here and there. The houses are from a dozen manufacturers over 40 years time. BEST darn thing about the rules is the use if 6-sided dice. We blew up the charts to 11 X 17 sheets- double sided. You can see these sheets sitting before the players in the two group shots at the head of this string. Just outstanding set of rules. Bob was heard to exclaim that he was having fun and starting singing the national anthems so I took the video. In playing with him for 25 years he never broke out into song before so I wanted to capture the moment.

and here is Part II
TMP link