Games 101 & 102 : Plancenoit 1815

This was an attempt to play Plancenoit as a standalone game. We used the arrival times of the Prussians as per Waterloo along with the French forces assigned. The Prussians would be Bulow, followed by Pirch. Ziethen is deemed to have the Waterloo battlefield and Thielemnan is holding off Grouchy. The French defenders comprise of Lobau and the reinforced by Duhesme's Young Guard and lastly by two Btns of Old Guard.

It didn't quite go to plan. The first attempt saw a lot of fighting and a lot of manoeuvring. We played over 30 turns and the game ended with an impasse that was unsatisfying. 

So we left the game up and did a fictitious day two of the battle. That worked fine and we all enjoyed it. This results in pictures from the two games and the casualty table is from the second game as casualties in the first battle were light.

The village of Plancenoit is above, looking at it with the southern edge at the bottom of the pic. The Prussians arrive via two eastern roads, one directly east of Plancenoit and the other further north to the right of the low plateau. 

Bulow's Coprs arrives en masse. The cavalry is at the top of the pic and you can see half of Bulow's infantry as it advances and shakes itself out into an attacking formation. Just at the bottom middle of the pic you can see the spire of the church. 

The other half of Bulow is advancing directly on Plancenoit. The lead part of the village would quickly fall, but then advances were like trying to advance through treacle!

By now, Duhesme has arrived as the main Prussian attack commences. Pirch has also arrived and is manoeuvring to the south of the Plancenoit and also providing reserves to allow Bulow to commit all four infantry Brigades. This type of fighting becomes protracted. The French were being out skirmished, highly unusual, and finding space to tactically deploy was a nightmare for both sides. 

The above shows Pich deploying to advance for a south-eastern direction. It was at about this time that we completed over 40 turns and the battle drew to a close

The pics that follow show the action from the 2nd day of battle. You'll see that they have more figures but otherwise they remarkably similar. We redrew the front lines for both sides and both sides were reinforced. Thielemann arrived for the Prussians and the French were reinforced by a Cavalry Corps, nominally Exelman and the infantry Corps of Gerard.

The fight starts immediately and was intense. The French launch the Old Guard Btns into Plancenoit to clear the Prussians from the village. Although the fighting lasts a long time, eventually they clear virtually the whole of the village, throwing back two Prussian Divisions in doing so.

Duhesme is in Plancenoit supporting the Old Guard whilst Lobau tries to advance on the French left. It nearly worked until a Prussian Hussar Regt rode down two French Btns!! But you can see the size of the engagement.

Bulow's cavalry and Thielemann's Corps are trying to undertake a Prussian right hook against Lobau. It would go backwards and forwards over many turns and then both sides would stop roughly where they started.

Gerard is to the right of village and finds it tough going in trying to force the Prussians back. Further to the right, both sides look at each other, that would be half of Pirch with his cavalry and an infantry division from Gerard plus Exeleman

The pic speaks a thousand words. The fighting was like this for two solid days and about twenty turns. The reduction in game turns is the direct effect of virtually continuous combat. We're all mad but we had a great time.

 

French Formations	Losses %			Prussian Formations	Losses%
	Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery		Infantry	Cavalry	Artillery
Imperial Guard : Drouot				II Korps : Pirch I
Friant	30	-	-	Tippelskirch	6	-	-
Duhesme	15	-	0	Krafft	21	-	-
				Brause	0	-	-
IV Corps : Gerard				Bose	1	-	-
Pecheux	11	-	50	Jurgass	-	3	-
Vichery	7	-	40	Rohl	-	-	11
Bourmont	8	-	100
Maurin	-	2	0	III Korps : Thielemann
IV Corps Artillery	-	-	50	Borcke	5	-	-
				Krausneck	0	-	-
VI Corps : Lobau				Luck	0	-	-
Simmer	20	-	100	Stulpnagel	8	-	-
Jeanin	12	-	47	Hobe	-	0	-
Domon	-	22	29	Monhaupt	-	-	0
Subervie	-	7	4
VI Corps Artillery	-	-	23	IV Korps : Bulow
				Hake	14	-	-
IIC Cav Corps : Exelman				Funck	17	-	-
Soult	-	0	0	Losthin	11	-	-
Chastel	-	0	0	Hiller	5	-	-
				Prince William	-	6	-
				Braun	-	-	0

It wasn't a good battle for the gunners!!  As usual, each game ended with the players indulging in good beer and food in a local hostlery where the game was discussed in detail and the next jaunt planned! So it will be back to 1806 for the next game, a variation on Saalfeld.

Rogues' gallery showing all the young, fit, enthusiastic generals!!! Until next time.

Game 100 : The Relief of Khartoum

 This is game 100 and a milestone. Bizarrely it wasn't in 10mm. It was 28mm Sudan fighting using the "Sands of Sudan" rules by Carlo Pagano who spent a lot of time collating all the old bits of information of the original rules by Peter Gilder.

The figures and terrain are all from Dave Docherty's collection, nearly all of it was used to play the game. Dave and his friend Martin were the umpires. The table, as you know, has 2 x 24 feet lengths. A column would march down each, Omdurman being the ultimate target at the other end, plus the relief of the Egyptians and the retrieval of the wives!

They are certainly alive and kicking. Briefly, the players are the colonialist forces trying to relieve Gordon, and the bad guys are card generated and played by the umpires. The Colonialists have to advance 24 feet along the table to Omdurman. Near to Omdurman is a forward base garrisoned by 2 Egyptian btns. They would need rescuing. In addition, the Officers wives have wandered through the desert to this base for a "jolly outing". The main column also has reporters who will obviously exaggerated both success and failures.

Many pictures were taken, here are a few to enjoy.

On my table length, Graham and myself were being umpired by Martin. Here you see Omdurman at the end of the table and the "isolated Egyptian btns". There is a wadi that crosses the whole table. Also on our side at the other end was the Suakin railway with engineers busily laying new track.

The Egyptians cam under almost immediate attack. They would survive 3 major attacks and then were running perilously low on ammo. This meant an attempted breakout towards the relief column led by the Guards. One Egyptian btn escaped whilst the other succumbed to overwhelming attacks.

On the other table were another of Dave's group, Steve, and Bob who is a regular. They had to take this unnamed Mahdi town. Immediately to their left is the River Nile and we did have gunboats!

Mahdist mounted troops getting cut ti ribbons by infantry and artillery fire and the despatched by the Bengal Lancers.

Controlled volley fire from front and rear drives off Fuzzi Wuzzi attacks. The colonialists tend to be safe providing the y are not caught in flank or rear or are heavily outnumbered frontally. Even then, the baddies have only about a 1 in 9 chance of withstanding withering fire.

The ultimate cauldron with the Mahdists managing to get surrounded on all four sides. The rules do assume that all fire is directed correctly, so no friendly fire!! The above action saw the end to part one of the battle. The colonial columns had been deemed to have reached and taken their objectives and now the next action would be the relief of Khartoum.

Khartoum with its garrison. All the Mahdist forces are present and all are deployed. There is also a replacement system for the Mahdists, essentially all losses are recycled at their rear lines on the opposite flank to where they started.

This is Graham & myself facing the strongest attack we had yet encountered. We were somewhat lucky, the artillery on drove off the Mahdists after a second round or melee, as did the Guards. If either had gone another round, it is quite likely that both units would have been wrecked. The Indians brigaded with us were having a rather good day of it. Two complete firing lines were wrecking any attack the Mahdists tried to mount well in advance of their position.

The Indians create slaughter on the Mahdist attack. The Guards behind them to the right, volley awat Mahdist cavalry at the last moment.

On our right flank, Bob & Steve have the river boats moving along the Nile. Eventually, Khartoum would be relieved from the Nile whilst at the same time the Mahdist position in the centre would collapse. 

This shows the final position. The Nile riverboats have troops entering Khartoum. Graham & my forces now have no enemy between us and the gates to the city. Khartoun itself has held out against various assaults and Gordon stands ready to welcome the relieving troops, off course along with the reporters!!

Rogue's gallery. We also had a visitor, another Steve, who was testing out our new entrenchments in front of the Situation Room. Game 101 will se us back with 10mm Napoleonics, we're fighting Plancenoit as a stand alone battle. Looking forward to it!!!!