Game 81 : Marengo June 13th 1800 : part I

We are back to northern Italy in 1800. The French have attacked the advance guard of the Austrians. This is where we start the game. The French will attack, then be counter-attacked as the Austrians are heavily reinforced. The game will continue until the French arrive to hopefully reinforce their own, now isolated, advance guard.

The game will be fought over 2 weekends. This is from the 1st weekend where we played until the initial French forces were driven back, essentially to their start lines and have now been reinforced by the rest of their army.

This is looking along the battlefield from the south. The French advance from the right of the picture, the east. The Austrians start with 5 btns of light troops, an artillery battery and a regiment of cavalry. The French arrive with 16 btns of infantry, 2 artillery batteries a single regiment of cavalry.

This is looking directly at Marengo. The French advance will be on this road (from the bottom of the pic). The Austrians are spread very thinly, the Marengo garrison consisting of a single btn of Grenz.

To the left of Marengo are some vineyards where French light infantry advance to try and close the flank down. They were opposed by Austrian jaegers. The French had the numbers but the Austrians did not break until they had lost nearly half their numbers.

As the French advanced on Marengo, someone shouted "boo" and the Austrian Grenz fled after firing a single volley! The French are pursuing, to the stream wondering what to do next.

Austrian reinforcements pour onto the battlefield from their single entry point at the western end of the road and immediately attack Marengo. The French are eventually forced to relinquish their hold as volleys from 3 btns slowly dwindle their numbers.

The French are in full retreat and Austrian troops take up position to the right of Marengo. It is at this point that the French start to reinforce their long awaited for reinforcements, literally back at their start positions. We've now reached the end of the weekend and the first part of the battle. These games play out very differently to pitched battles with huge armies. This battle was played from first contact with very few actual formations in contact and fighting. It slowly escalates, flanks get turned, numbers tell and "hey presto" the games seem to play the same way as the battle occurred historically. We must the doing something right!!

French Formations	Losses %			Austrian Formations	Losses%
	Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery		Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery
				Melas
Victor	-	-	25	O’Reilly	-	-	29
1st Brigade	11	-	-	1st Brigade	8	-	-
2nd Brigade	11	-	-	2nd Brigade	29	-	-
3rd Brigade	24	-	-	Cavalry Brigade	-	4	-
4th Brigade	-	3	-
				Ott	-	-	4
				1st Brigade	4	-	-
				2nd Brigade	0	-	-
				3rd Brigade	0	-	-
				Cavalry Brigade	-	20	-

The casualties above represent those suffered during the first part of the engagement. ASs both armies have separated, with reinforcements tasking position in their respective lines, both armies have retrieved stragglers so using our rules, units have turned to their starting strengths (really view it as -have recovered their elan).

 Normal crowd of willing Generals to the slaughter. Next up is the continuation of the battle.

Game 80 : Gettysburg!

This is all new and a first. Gettysburg, in 15mm, from first contact! This project was started in 2010. Gordon already had a collection of ACW figures and he wanted to increase it to use at the Situation room. Bryan & Graham also had smaller collections that did not get much use and these were kindly donated to the project. This game was the first outing.

Never one to do small scale, this was Gettysburg on a scale of about 1:25. It is large! The scale is Regimental, the Regiments going into Brigades, Brigades to Divisions and so on. The command and control rules cover all of this interaction.

We started from first contact for a couple of reasons. One was that it had never been done by us, the games were always some cameo within the larger scale battle and it also allowed players to get used to the rules again with out being overwhelmed with numbers. It had been about a decade since any of us had played ACW.

We use rules based on Fire & Fury, but heavily modified. I find the original rules too inflexible in some areas, such as command & control. We used modifications we had used since 1995 and I altered them further by introducing 5 classes of troops, comprehensively within the system, and many more weapon types.

So enjoy the few pics. We hope to continue the development of our fun and see that the ACW get the outings they deserve as they do look spectacular!!

This is where Early would arrive, to the north of Gettysburg itself. The hill behind Gettysburg is Cemetry Hill.

This is towards the southern end of the battlefield and shows the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield and Little Round Top in the back of the pic.

The first moves. I had to be inventive about the first contact to give the Union Cavalry space to do a fighting withdrawal. I used the other end of the battlefield and made this up to represent the area around MacPherson's ridge (if my memory still works!). Heth arrives and find Buford blocking his way.

Buford slowly gives ground, but Confederate numbers and the eventual outflanking force Buford to yield the ground.

From the south, I Corps is marching to aid Buford. When they arrive, necessity forces them to be committed piecemeal. In fact the committing of troops by both sides takes some disciplined planning or you will find that traffic jams become the norm and the flanks especially become vulnerable.

Now on to the main table. Heth is fully deployed and advancing. Pender will arrive shortly. Behind the cavalry (left on the pic) I Corps, specifically the Iron Brigade, is deploying to block the advance.

The Iron Brigade is deployed. Heth decides that a frontal assault is foolhardy and premature. Hill orders Pender to start flanking the Union positions. The Union also receive intelligence that the Confederates are also arriving from the northwest to the right of their position. Need more men!

Union I Corps is now facing off to the north and west. Rhodes is advancing through Gettysburg itself which hinders both sides. Hill is shaking out Pender into the battle line and moving Heth further to his right. Ewell, with Rhodes is pressing from the northwest and Early is also about to arrive.

Pender decides to advance directly on Cemetry Hill. Progress would be stymied by the Iron Brigade and second division of  I Corps. This attack would be called off until more preparations were made.

A view of Cemetry Ridge where most of the artillery from I Corps now has a firing line. An artillery duel would take place with the Confederates who currently held artillery superiority as Longstreet had also arrived with his artillery.

This is the to extreme right of the Confederate line, to the south. Here Cutler & Rowley, from I Corps are forced back by 3 brigades of Heth who have re-deployed to attack and open up this flank and drive the Union troops to the right of pic which would take them to the southern end of Cemetry Ridge.

Then we stopped. We had fought to about 4.00pm on July 1st. The Union III Corps was about to arrive from the south and the XII Corps had just arrived from the south east. So far the game was fairly historical, not surprising given where the troops actually arrive. On the Confederate side, Pettigrew, from Heth was worn. Hill & Heth lost 2 batteries of guns.

The Union fared slightly worse, as they did historically. Buford was worn, Cutler & Rowley from I Corps were also worn. I Corps also lost a total of 3 batteries.

It is hoped to continue the game from where we stopped with the same core players. More players are always welcome and their is plenty of troops to go around.

The good weather helped as did the free flow of a certain type of beverage!! Next stop is back to Napoleonics in northern Italy, early in the wars.