2-by-2 Napoleonic – Hook and Cod

7 August 20197 August 2019

Battle of the three roads

Last week we played the Battle of the three roads I posted earlier on. I did not have time to do more preparation. So we just decided to play the scenario, with the rules from the 2-by-2 rule set. I try to describe the changes we made below.

We used the map as shown on top. We copied it to the gaming cloth I made. Unfortunatly I did not have enough forest to cover all the forest, so those had to be drawn in. We didn’t include a lot of terrain rules from the scenario. Skipped the weather section. We used the following rules:

The passing trough the water at the top left is fordable, on a 5+ for infantery, and on a 4+ for horses. The French did have a pontoon brigade, which could construct a bridge, allowing easy passage. On a 1-3 it would take 1 turn to construct the bridge, on a 4-6 it would take two turns. Optionally it could be tried to build a bridge on a different spot, but only on a 6+ they would find a suitable spot.

For the high ground in the middle, we decided that people below could see and fire at people up to the road (which runs in the middle of the high ground) If you were on the other side of the road you would be safe.

For deployment, the British would deploy most forces as wished for in the op third of the map. And act as defending forces, only a small portion would act as reinforcements. For the French would start with a small force on the table, and would have to wait for reinforcement every turn. The total French force was larger than the British, but due to the slow reinforcements the British could defeat them small batches.

The goal for the French was to leave the map with an as large as possible force, at the two exits at the top, behind the river. The British should prevent this. The French did have two corps, every corp would rout if 3 or more units were destroyed. (acting independently from each other). The British side would route if 6 or more units were destroyed.

British Forces

The British were divided in three main forces:

1st Netherlands Division: Stedmann

3 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery

4th British Division: Colville

1 regiment of guards
1 regiments of line Infantry
1 piece of foot artillery

Hanoverian Reserve: von der Decken

2 regiment of guards
2 regiments of line Infantry
1 piece of foot artillery

Attachments:

1 squadron of heavy cavalry
1 squadron of light cavalry

French Forces

The French had two Corpses

I Corps: d’Erlon

8 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
1 squadron of light cavalry

II Corps: Reille

8 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
1 squadron of light cavalry

Attachments:

1 company of Engineer/pontoniers

As you can see in the forces list, the French are numerical superior, but the British do have slightly better infantry units. Combined with their deployment advantage, we hoped this would match them up evenly.

Battle started

The Battle started with the advance of the two different French corpses towards the top corner (A and B) The British decided to defend near the town and the bridge (C and D)

The French closing in on the Bridge, while the British scouting force was heading back to the other side of the bridge.

This resulted in a firefight and artillery bombardment at both sides of the bridge. (See F on the map)

On the other side the corps did get confused with the heavy cavelry moving close by, and was in the end locked in at the forest at E. After a couple of turn this force started to break, and even some cavalry reinforcements, did prevent the collapse of this front.

On the other side things started to look better, when the first regiment formed a bridgehead at the other side. But reinforcment and relieve couldn’t bring in quick enough. Resulting in a stalled fight. The British which defeated the forces at E now diverted to the bridge, making the situation very risky for the French. A quick break through didn’t happen, and a major retreat had to be called by the French.

The British came out very victorious, by only loosing two regiments of infantry, but slaying 4 French regiments of infantry, a squadron of light cavalry, the HQ of one of the corpses, and capturing the engineering/Pontoon brigade.

Conclusion

This was a real fun game. I had quite a busy week, and did not have a lot of time in preparation. And we had to decide the rules of the scenario at the beginning. But the rules flowed very well, felt quite even matched and did give a nice gaming night. In hindsight I should have focused on one attacking location, and combined the two corpses on the left side (D), hoping to tumble the fronts one, by one. I think we will play more of these games in the future.

16 July 2019

Battle prep: The Battle of Three Roads

Recently I was searching for a follow-up on the Battle of Cinq Bras. I just searched for wargame scenarios in google, and stumbled upon the deepfriedhappymice website.

They do have a nice collection on Napoleonic wargame scenarios for Grande Armee. One of the scenarios is appealing, and hope I can convert it to the 2-by-2 wargame rules we are using. The Scenario is called The Battle of Three Roads, and is a hypothetical alternative history, were Napoleon did not attack Wellington at Waterloo, but started a maneuvering war threatening the supply line and the left flank. Trying to defeat the enemy in detail. (Original scenario)

It is not possible to use all the terrain rules and reinforcement rules as written, but the map and the forces are possible to use. I have colored the map, and made it square, to fit my purposes. And also added some towns, to complete the terrain.

For the forces, I have to look on what I have available. I do have some pontoon bridging models in my stack, so probably need to finish them quickly, as engineering platoon. For the rest I need to check the available forces, and find some way to create labels.

Hopefully we can play this scenario at the end of July.

25 April 20198 May 2019

Battle of Cinq Bras

Battle of Cinq Bras – [23.04.1815]

Last Tuesday evening, the first 2mm Napoleonic battle took place. This is a short battle report. My father was the opponent, playing the British (red) force and I was playing the France (blue) force. When I explained the rules and used a real life example of Quatre Bras, my wife, passing by, noted that on this battle field it are 5 roads. Therefore the battle took place at the fictional place of Cinq Bras. For the rules we used the 2-by-2 Napoleonic rules of Rodvik. Only the the area was actually 60cm by 60cm (sorry I do like metrics better)

Map of the Cinq Bras area where battle took place

As this is the first play of the rules, we just opted for the example forces as described in the rules.

British XXX Corps

1 Corps HQ
10 Line Infantry Regiments
2 light Cavalry Regiments
1 Heavy Cavalry Regiments
2 Foot Artillery Batteries

French VII Armeé

1 Corps HQ
10 Line Infantry Regiments
2 light Cavalry Regiments
1 Heavy Cavalry Regiments
2 Foot Artillery Batteries

The rules put a large incentive on “flow of battle”, which means that over time the different units will arrive onto the battlefield. As result at the beginning of the battle you do not have control of your full force, and you hope the reinforcements arrive on time. Which was also seen in a lot of historical battles.

The first reinforcements arrives, the French have formed a defensive line and British are advancing.

The situation just before the action. A and B are the reinforcement points. In the North the skirmish between the two regiments. In the middle, north of Cinq Bras, the French line. And British advancing from the South and the West.

As result the first few turns did not have a lot of actions, but a lot of movement and shuffling into position, to gain some advantage. The action finally started with a short skirmish of some reinforcement regiments which met each other. The Bristish troops were disrupted and routed to the Riquevalle farm, and stayed there the rest of the game. And the French regiment kept shooting from a distance, and was pinned for the rest of the game.

The first encounter, two infantry regiments meet, both on its way as reinforcements

With some help of some light cavalry, the British are routed, and seek shelter at the farm. The French Regiment was pinned and kept firing from long range. The cavalry followed the river in a try to get some flank attack on the British.

Then the tension rose at the center of the field, as the lines closed near Cinq Bras. Who would be the first to break. The British tried to use the village as vantage point and the French kept a line up to the nearby forest. The French saw the British walking in the village, and before they could a solid position, a bayonet attack was called. Also the two other regiments stormed forward attacking the British at the farm and in the grain fields.

The French should have hold on longer, and two regiments were quickly defeated, but Cinq Bras village was secured and a position was taken at town center. The gap in the line was put tight with the artillery positioned at the North-East road.

The French lost two regiments in the west, with the melee combat. But secured the town. The artillery had now a free line of sight (bottom of the picture) and was bombing the British line. holding the cavalry which was arriving to sweep the field.

At the other side of the forest (West), some back and forth fighting took place between a couple of infantry and cavalry regiments. And especially the British reinforcements started to dripping in. The cavalry tried to desperately force its way through the lines, to lighten the threat on Cinq Bras village. But did not succeed.

Two French infantry regiments attack, supported by two light Cavalry units. But in the end it was a lost cause.

And with five regiments lost for the French and only two for the British, the British did have a mayor victory, capturing the town, and securing a Bridge head French side of the river.

The French did still have planned to get some reinforcements, but already lost too many troops. They had to surrender. Battle lost.

Conclusion

The game was a good starter game. And both did have a good lot of frustration as troops were not possible to do exactly as you wanted. Especially if they start firing or get disrupted, and how to reorganize them.

For this first time a lot of luck was involved, as we still need to get some feeling, on when to use the different units and if it is better to wait or attack. hopefully a next game in a couple of weeks.