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The League of Augsburg: Waterloo 200 - League of Augsburg style

2017-03-30T15:47:00.001+02:00

The League of Augsburg: Waterloo 200 - League of Augsburg style: Waterloo from the south west This was months in the planning and involved Adrian building from scratch 72 tiles to an exact ground scal...

Six player corps sized game

2012-07-26T18:06:00.001+02:00

This Tuesday six of us gathered at our club for a "big game" of General de Brigade. We had set up a table 180cm deep and 480cm long (6x16'). I, Nisse and Mattsson commanded a division of French each, our opponents Erik commanded a British Division, Tobbe and Johan a Prussian "brigade" each.
There was no scenario based objectives, just a straight up fight to break the opposition. Tobbe and Johan took a flank each on the allied side with Erik's British in the center. One British brigade started of board on a flank march that arrived turn 7, just two turns late, on their right flank.
On the French side we had Matsson that took up position in the village, he had a brigade of infantry and two regiments of Cuirassiers in immediate reserves behind the village. Things started out slow on that flank. Tobbe spread out his Prussians in one long line facing the French in the village with the task to just hold out. Erik pushed really hard in the center and his Hussars charged wildly and caused general panic. On the other flank I had some success pushing back two regiments of Landwehr but my Dragoon brigade failed to receive the assault orders to follow up the attack and where shot up badly by Prussian guns. When Eriks flank marching brigade arrived things went down hill rapidly on my flank. Matsson tried desperately to charge home with his Cuirassiers to punish the thin Prussian deployment but spectacularly bad die rolling would not allow it. Later the when the Cuirassiers retreated off the field Mattsson declared their total tally, just one single Prussian model killed.
In the end a crushing defeat for my and my fellow French commanders.
In total we played for seven or eight hours, 14 or 15 turns (we lost count). So around half an our per turn, not bad considering four of the players has only played a few times each.

Big game photos

2012-06-24T18:43:00.003+02:00

Sorry for the delay, we where using Nisses camera so I had to wait for him to send me the photos, apparently studying law takes up a lot of your time, who knew? :P

Setup

2012-06-17T22:44:00.003+02:00

Tonight we gathered in our club venue to set up a big game for tomorrow. We will be five players and we have cleared our schedules from 14.00 to "late night" for the game. This will be our biggest game to date using almost our entire collection.. Also our biggest table to date, 6x12'. Although we can fit 6x16' in the room, maybe for next big game.

Map drawn on a whiteboard. There will be three objectives. The large hill, a small farm and the river crossing.

Prussian forces to be commanded by Tobbe. We haven't deployed, just sorted out and placed all units on the table.

More Prussians.

Two French brigades to be commanded by Mattsson.

Two more French brigades for Nisse.

I'll be commanding the cavalry reserve, two Cuirassier regiments and two Dragoon regiments.

Fuzzy pic of the table.

Training game

2012-06-06T01:50:00.000+02:00

Today I had the opportunity to play a game of General de Brigade with my good friend Tobbe. He is a avid miniature gamer and has a mild interest for historicals. He finally caved in to my whining and complaining about not playing enough with my collection, I guess ;)
We had a small run through the rules the other day. I feel that the turn sequence and the brigade orders different requirements and restrictions is something you really want to know by heart playing General de Brigade.
I played the French with 8x24 infantry battalions, 2x18 Hussars, a battery of 6 pdr's and a few skirmishers. Tobbe commanded the Prussians, one Fusilier (veteran), two Musketeer and three Landwehr (2nd class) battalions, all 32 figs strong. Also two Hussar regiments, one 12 and one 18 figs strong, 12 Jeagers and a battery of 6 pdr's.
We first sketched out our deployment and battle plans (starting brigade orders) on paper before putting minis on the table. This is a rally rewarding method and well worth the few extra minutes needed setting up.

Prussians lined up with Jaegers ahead. This is a house rule we have, we allow skirmishers to deploy 6" ahead of your normal deployment zone. The story behind this is simply that we always forgot to make room for skirmishers in our deployment zone so we said "just put them ahead a bit", and we have played so since :P

French line spread out across the field in checkerboard fashion. Hussars far right.

We decided to try using rosters instead of casualty counters, these little numbered counters serves as identification. However we found it cumbersome. Not the actual bookkeeping, but for example; when firing you point and look at a unit on the table and declare its shooting, then you have to look up the units strength on the roster, then go to the QRC, instead of just seeing the units strength on the table immediately.
It might not sound like that much more work but in the long run we were convinced that casualty counters works best for us.

Battle is commencing. The Prussian Landwehr regiment moves to take the road with hedgerow cover, and so does the French brigade!

This firefight lasted almost the entire battle, the Landwehr both out gunned and outnumbered held up stalwartly!

French artillery poured cannister shot into the Prussian line. They later found themselves running low on ammo.

On the other flank Prussian musketeer battalions anchored their flanks to a small woods on the left and and the hamlet to the right with the artillery in the middle.

Jaegers took the hamlet and help breaking the poor French battalion also taking fire from both artillery and musketeers. French Hussars are regrouping after a furious calvary meleé in which they were victorious and drove off the Prussian cavalry.

At this point I forgot to take pictures, the gaming was simply so intense. We played a total of four hours, and some where around 12-16 turns.
In the end Tobbe won with me failing a second Brigade Morale Test, leaving me with only one infantry brigade on the field. It could have been the other way around, basically a single die roll determined the outcome of the battle, a sure sign that it was a great fight.

Glossy glossy glossy

2012-06-04T16:53:00.002+02:00

This is my collection of "glossy" rules. Actually I arranged them in order of favorites. I have several other but these are the "new wave" of glossy rules recently published. Perhaps catered towards me and my generation that was raised with a warhammer army on the book self and an army codex in our backpack.

1. General de Brigade.These are my favorite set of rules and our small group of players all like them. I bought the 2ed softback when I and my main opponent Erik decided to get a few boxes of 28mm plastic miniatures. We actually had a few games with Le feu Sacre before that with my collection of 1:72 miniatures about three years ago, but when we saw the new sets from Perry Miniatures and Victrix we dove in, and General de Brigade was the first set that came to mind when I went looking for a 1:20 "big battalion" set of rules.
Lately I have had an urge to play bigger battles and I somehow felt that we needed a simpler and faster set of rules. However now having tested Black Powder the other week I can't see us moving form GdeB, it's simply the rules we associate with the period.
Erik just bought a copy of his own and he is better then me at me when it comes to reading and remembering rules, so that has really brought up the pace we play.

2. Black Powder. A short and fun read. We played them once. I didn't have any particular gripe with them. My opponent found it a bit frustrating to learn a new set of rules. I can see a use for these rules when running a large multi player game. I will definitely buy any napoleonic supplements if published.

3. Lasalle. A really clean and well thought through set of rules. I like a lot of the concepts in this book, the army builder and no casualty removal amongst them. But I don't get why skirmishers is abstracted in a tactical game, and why units is restricted to four or six bases big, why not five? I wouldn't mind playing Lasalle, it's just that we already have a rules set that we like for this type of game, and why fix something that's not broken. I tried these in a solo game and had no trouble with them.

4. Warhammer Waterloo. I really wanted to like this book, and I did, until I tried to set up a game. There is so many weird rules, guess-range artillery, 4" infantry movement, 18" musketry range, a light infantry company can only take four hits while line infantry can take six? To bad, when I brought these to the club I really felt like there was an opportunity to bring a few of my warhammer buddies into napoleonics, familiar with the points build approach.

5. Napoleon.
I bought these for the eye candy and because they seemed like a set of rules a newbie could pick up and get into napoleonics with. The eye candy wasn't that good, have not read the rules. Browsing the Internet for reviews it seems like I shouldn't anyway.

Medieval Cottage

2012-05-22T18:48:00.001+02:00

This is Perry Miniatures Medieval Cottage in hard plastic. A really nice set and quite simple to assemble. I mounted it on a 8x8" square board and fitted the fencing induced, around it. The texture on the ground is just filler stippled on with an old brush. I just finished painting it today, when I look at the pictures a can see a few blotches that might need some tidying up.
This will make a nice little addition to our terrain collection :)

Quick and small Sunday night battle.

2012-05-21T17:50:00.002+02:00

We had an small outing this Sunday night. We had no scenario planned. I set up the terrain in advance and I wanted to use my new Warlord games Ruined Hamlet buildings. This is a really nice kit, for some reason I got a urge to break out my Band of Brothers DVD's and get into 28mm WW2 skirmish gaming :P

A friend at the club just bought some cobblestone roads from the "Battlefield in a box" series for Flames of War. If you need cobblestone roads look no further, usable for 15mm to 28mm miniatures. Looks great and made in a damn near indestructible material.

So this became an "attack the British holding the town scenario". We played on a small 4x6' board, I with three brigades and my opponent with only two. With so small forces a failed break test can really make or break the game. Which is just what happened, I rolled a few good break/morale tests initially then Erik rolled one really bad which sent his cavalry brigade off the table in mass panic. He surrendered that turn.
We came to the conclusion that we should really play on bigger tables, that we want to play with all of our toys just for once, and in that case we need more players.
So our ambition is to set up a game with our entire collection on a 6x12' or even 6x16' tale with at least two players aside.

Breakthrough battle, British attacking French 1815

2012-05-06T19:05:00.001+02:00

Time had finally come for Erik to dust off his British minis. They have since last time been reinforced by some hussars and highlanders, these aren't painted so if you find that disturbing look away ;) We just wanted to put lots of minis on the table.
I had prepared a scenario for us. The British was on the attack trying to drive off an French infantry brigade and reach and take a village before French generals realized their weak spot and reinforced their position. British forces was nine battalions of infantry in three brigades, two batteries of guns and two regiments of hussars. The French forces was divided into four brigades. One deployed at the start of the game, three battalions. A cavalry brigade arriving in turn 3, two regiments of light cavalry with horse guns. In turn 6 a infantry brigade, three battalions and a battery of 6 pdr guns. In turn 9 the last brigade of three infantry battalions. We didn't count points, which we should had. Halfway into the battle we were curious and calculated that my French force in total was a good bit too strong. I think it would be a better balanced scenario if forces were equally strong or there about.

The village in my left corner.

Advancing British in columns of divisions(?)

A single French brigade starts the game deployed midway up the table.

Marching rapidly on the village.

Cavalry reenforcement arriving in the distance. Infantry in open order.

French cavalry moves in to pin the unopposed British brigade.

Brigade deploys along the hedgerow.

Hussars on the move.

On the other flank skirmishing has erupted.

More French infantry arriving.

Horse battery deploys, reinforcements marching through the village.

British close and drive off French infantry in open order.

Advance halts and a line of battle starts to form.

In the distance last French reenforcement arrive. Hussars charge!

And are promptly shot to pieces, routs of the table. Guns held and stayed on the field.

More meleé. British is pushing back and taking ground steadily.

British hussars are decimated by French canons.

At this point French brigades starts to crumble.

We played a whopping 22 turns, taking Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. In the end two of my brigades had broke and a third hanging by a thread, so great job by Erik. Village not being held by any but I admit myself defeated.

Quick game last Sunday

2012-05-04T00:14:00.005+02:00

It was a bit of a surprise when a friend/club member said he be glad to have a game of napoleonics. The club venue was pretty empty this weekend, many of the regulars was at an tournament. Perfect opportunity.
I didn't really have time to set up a scenario, it was just going to be two fairly simple forces going in an pitched battle. My friend picked the French force which I had prepared. Six battalions of regular infantry, two light battalions and four guns. I commanded a Prussian force, one fusilier battalion, two musketeers, and six landwehr musketeer battalions. Also four guns and two squadrons of light cavalry.
I was a fun game, there was some wavering back and forth, I was at an disadvantaged early on have squandered my cavalry and being shoot up by superior skirmishing.
In the end we called it an draw, after all I killed no less then two(!) of his brigade generals.
It was several months since I had a game so I had to stop and look up some rules a few times, my opponent have only tried General de Brigade once before so I had to "umpire" sort of.
We talked a bit of playing larger games with two or three players a side, might not be an impossible thought.
This Saturday I'm having a game with Erik against his British force. Looks like this connoisseur is back in business.

A few pics from the game.

Linear Obstacles

2012-04-17T19:17:00.000+02:00

If you want your table top to look like an European battlefield you can never have to much of these. Hedgerows, fences and low stone walls lining roads and fields. Not only do they make your table top look good, it keeps artillery and cavalry from dominating the game.

Recently completed.

2012-04-13T20:56:00.000+02:00

While there haven't been much action of the napoleonic kind going on here I have done some painting at least. Three units of french light infantry, these were on sale and I bought three boxes on a whim last Christmas. They have been in a half complete state for a long time but I finally completed them. I did some head swaps and put some pre-bardin style shakos and bearskins on the elite companies. I also built a bugler from a skirmisher with victrix bugler arms.
The old guard was a christmas present , they have been completed for a long time but have never left my project shelf.
I built a unit of prussian hussars by simply putting left over heads from a prussain infantry set on french hussars. They might not be completely accurate but they will suffice until plastic prussian cavalry sets are released or my hobby budget improves enough to buy metal cavalry.

1815 Mini Campaign. "Hold the Village".

2011-09-04T18:44:00.000+02:00

After postponing this battle last weekend it was finally time for the climatic end to our fictional mini campaign set during the "Hundred days" campaign. The outcome of our previous battles dictated that this was to be a "Hold the Village" scenario, with the campaign defender holding the village. This battle takes place during the afternoon of our fictional day of battle and features the amassed forces of our previous scenarios.
The scenario was taken from Warhammer Historical's: Waterloo. Deploying our forces we could tell that this was going to be an uphill battle for the attacker from the get go. The defender was allowed to deploy half his force halfway in on the table, Erik picked his British for this, and the rest along his table edge, the Prussians.
The attacker, me with my French did not deploy but moved in from the table edge in the first movement phase. The scenario objectives was the church, a farm, and the two built up areas of the village, these were held by the defender at the start of the game.
With me having only four hours of sleep and a few cups of brandy in me, and Erik also with few hours of sleep then work all day this was clearly not to be a game of fancy manoeuvring. I attacked piecemeal all along the front without much plan really. One thing I did plan was to roll up my artillery, 11 pieces, to effective range, or even cannister range if possible. This to be able to cause enough casualties to break any specific key enemy unit and then exploit the gap and assault with infantry.
Turns went by fast and Erik had little trouble to hold his line, filling up with Prussian units. When it was time to roll for random game length to see for how many turns the scenario would last we called it quits. No objectives was captured by the attacker by then.
All in all the mini campaign was really fun and a great motivator to get gaming. I have several ideas to develop this into a more "complete" system, something worth wile posing here in full so that others can use it.

Coldstream guards, Commission complete.

2011-08-16T19:14:00.001+02:00

Quite satisfied with the result. Took a week from start to finish.

1815 Mini Campaign. "Battle for the Farm".

2011-08-14T17:49:00.002+02:00

The outcome of our first scenario dictates that the second battle will be "Battle for the Farm". As the winner of the first scenario, I playing the French will attack against the allied second force, a brigade of Prussians. The Prussians had half its units on the table as the attack commenced and the second half was in reserve and it had to be rolled off to see when it entered. Not only did the Prussians cease the initiative, the reserves showed up as fast as they could, in the second turn.
So this was a lost cause for Prince Jerome Bonapart, if he attacks and against all odds takes the farm, casualties would no doubt be so horrendous that the division would not stand up to a fight in the second half of the day. And if he lets the Prussians keep the farm the campaign score would be one to one, putting a lot of pressure on himself and General Foy to win it later in the day.
But retiring of the table when everything has been set up and prepared is no fun, so I went for it! I successfully pinned my opponents flank with my Dragoons, then deployed the horse gun battery and scored fine casualties on the Prussian infantry in square. Three battalions assaulted straight ahead on the farm, the fight wavered back and forth. A defending Musketeer battalion even tried to charge when the French battalions faltered and was unformed, but the assault never went home.
The rest of my infantry tried to attack the farm from the flank going through the open woods. This attack was too slow and to late to make an impact. In the end melee broke out inside the farm area but the Prussians were to numerous and the French had to retire.
The score is now one to one and the next battle the British and Prussian join to face both my tattered forces of French. My forces are in fare worse condition then my opponents so this will be hard think thing to win.

French Order of Battle.
Divisional General Prince Jerome Bonapart
~
Brigade General Baudin
6x24 Line Infantry
9 Skirmishers
4x6pdr's foot
~
Brigade General Picquet
1x12 Dragoons
3x6pdr's horse

Prussian Order of Battle.
Brigade General Wiemer
~
Regiment General Stangertz
2x32 Line Musketeers
1x24 Line Fusiliers
12 Jaegers
~
Regiment General Dukmer
2x32 Line Musketeers
1x24 Line Fusiliers
12 Jaegers
4x 6pdr's foot

1815 Mini Campaign. First engagement, "King of the Hill".

2011-08-11T20:34:00.007+02:00

We have set ourself to play a small campaign. It's a ladder type campaign with three battles, the first is a "King of the Hill" type scenario. The outcome of this battle decides what scenario is played next. If the attacker wins its "Battle for the Farm" next, if the defender wins its "Meeting Engagement". The winner of a scenario is the attacker in the next. These are scenarios and campaign ideas from the Warhammer Historical: Waterloo that we tweak to fit with General the Brigade.
The first and second battles are 750 points a side, quite small engagements. These two scenarios represent two different fronts of the battle taking place during the first half of the day. In the third and final scenario remaining forces from the previous battles are combined, so this will be a bigger clash with battle worn forces.
We roll for replenishment after each fight, one D6 for each casualty, on a 1-2 the casualty is lost permanently, on 3-6 it is returned to the unit. Units that disperses are completely lost for the remainder of the day.

Today we played the first engagement, "King of the Hill". This scenario represents the first opening moves of the day, a race for a important ridge line.

French Order of Battle.
Divisional General Foy
~
Brigade General Marbais
6x24 Line Infantry
18 Skirmishers
4x 6pdr's
~
Brigade General Houssin de St Laurent
2x18 Hussars

British Order of Battle.
Divisional General Picton
~
Brigade General Kempt
2x24 Line Infantry
1x30 Line Infantry
12 95th Rifles
3x 9pdr's
~
Brigade General Pack
1x24 Line Infantry
1x24 Elite Line Infantry
1x30 Line Infantry
14 Skirmishers

French deployment.

British deployment.

The French infantry was drawn up in attack columns in checker board style and advanced hard and fast on the ridge line ahead. Well on top of the the hill the first three battalions deployed in line, the second wave waited in column behind the hill. The British engaged with both artillery and musket fire and caused staggering amounts of casualties.
The French cavalry brigade, two Hussar regiments rode up to support on the infantry's left flank and immediately tried to charge a British battalion in line formation. The charge faltered and the British infantry brigade had time to form square. This situation locked down the action on that flank for the remainder of the game.
The British firing kept causing casualties and two French battalions disperses, two other was in bad shape. The second wave of infantry was brought up to reinforce the foothold.
In the end the French took home the scenario objective and won the game, but took great losses that will effect the situation late in the day. Two battalions dispersed and will not return, another greatly reduced, 14 out of 24 figures remaining. Also Brigade General Houssin de St Laurent commanding the Hussar brigade was mortally wounded. The severest on the British side is a battalion reduced to 20 figures. This was after we rolled for replenishments.

We played a total of ten turns, 3 hours or so both in "in game" time and actual play time.

The next scenario is "Battle for the Farm" with Prussians defending and French attacking.

Commissioned painting.

2011-08-07T21:55:00.002+02:00

I'm painting a huge unit of Brittish for a friend, 48 minis, the Coldstream guards. I have painted a lot of fantasy minis for him during the last year. With him getting into napoleonics and commissioning me to paint them its a win-win-win situation. First, more napoleonics players, very good! Second, for every mini I paint I can buy two more for myself. And third, well my friend gets his minis painted and get gaming quick. He is looking at doing the whole British 1st infantry division, the foot guards.
Here are a few I completed during the weekend. I'm quite satisfied with the result, I hope my commissioner is to.

Wargames Holiday Centre on Youtube.

2011-07-31T22:18:00.000+02:00

Be sure to subscribe to WHC's youtube channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/wargameshc

Pictures from the Wargames hc has always been a huge inspiration for me and I have a silly dream that one day our club in Ystad could run games like theirs. I'd promised myself that I'll visit the holiday centre one day. It's not a long flight from here to London.

Race for the cross-roads.

2011-07-28T17:53:00.001+02:00

A Prussian brigade is advancing rapidly on to hold a important cross-road. French army commander sends off an ad-hoc formation of available cavalry to intercept. Hussars mange to ride down Prussian guns but infantry forms square and after a few chaotic charges a stand off occurs. One Prussian battalion has successfully slowly advanced up and seized the intersection and the French C in C decides to stand off until infantry and cavalry catches up and an combined arms attack can be coordinated.

I took a few pic's of the first few turns but not much really happened after that.

Warhammer Historical: Waterloo

2011-07-16T00:20:00.004+02:00

I'm holding a copy of the new Warhammer Historical release Waterloo in my hands. I have leafed through it several times and read a few selected chapters. It might be to soon to draw conclusions but I have so many thoughts running through my head that I really feel I should write some of it down.
We promised our self to give these rules a try, with the reservation that it will take something extraordinary to tear us from General de Brigade.

Biggest nuisance.
I'll have to re-base my Prussians. This is a "stand counting" game contra GdB's "fig counting". Infantry suppose to be six figs to a stand and while there are room for allowing five or even four minis if you wan't some scenic basing all infantry stands in the game are suppose to be the same size. My Prussian eight fig stands would not work within these rules.
Although I can see my self happily re-basing if these new rules get friends and members at the club jumping for joy and diving in to Napoleonics of cause!

Small nuisances.
Cavalry are suppose to be two to a stand, mine are three to a stand. This however I can work around. I have a single fig stand and a two fig stand in each unit in my collection. So when the first stand is lost I remove the two fig stand, when the second stand is lost I remove a three fig stand and the single but add back the two fig stand. I hope I make myself clear?
It is important to the mechanics of the rules this stand removing. A unit can receive a number of wounds equal to the number of figs to stand, then that stand is lost. Then unit become disorganized when it loses a stand. So you can see there is an importance to the number of figs to the stand.

There are only Army lists for France, Great Britain and Prussia with their respective allies during the Peninsular and Waterloo campaigns. It is stated that "plans are afoot" to provide army lists and information for other nations and campaigns. But who knows when, if ever, this will happen. I can't see myself limited to these two campaigns solely.

Musketry is 18" and all artillery fire is guess range. I can live with it, just seems odd.

Good Stuff.
The book is simply awe inspiring. Hardback, 288 pages in full color reeking of Napoleonic inspiration. From photos of Perry twins jaw-dropping collection to full spread paintings and drawings.

Eight generic scenarios is provided. Like Meeting Engagement, Battle for the Farm and Hold the Village. This is exactly what we need to get gaming. We are a "pick-up game" crowd and this will really help us to get away from doing the same battle over and over.

One chapter deals with campaign gaming. While I would like more hard fast rules this more of a guide of how to set up and run a campaign.

The Waterloo Campaign in twelve historical scenarios. From to "Action at Gilly" to "The Imperial Guard Attack". Really inspiring and something I could see us build terrain and paint troops for and then to game out over several weekends.

Cavalry units represent squadrons and are therefore quite small, mostly six to 12 figs. This got me thinking of collecting a few cavalry units in metal, maybe chasseurs for my French and several other for my Prussians. Metal cavalry has been a no-go for me because of the large regiments required, this sort of opens a new world for me.

Units has a set number of actions it can carry out in each turn, tactical points or Tac's. Most have three Tac's each turn witch can be spent all on movement or firing, or a combination of both if one so which. I think this is a really good function.

Officers have an finite number of strategy points which they can spend to influence units around them. Also an interesting function.

Army commanders have "Strategies", special rules of a sort that model characteristics of that commander or faction.

Overall the rules seems really fast and easy to play without getting simplistic.

Random observations.
Infantry unis are big, 36 fig battalions seems almost exclusive.

The rules are geared towards smallish engagements. A standard force would be six battalions of infantry divided into two brigades, two small squadrons of cavalry and a battery of guns. I wonder if they would become to cumbersome gaming with twice that or more.

Table size vary between scenarios, 6x4', 6x6' and 6x8'.

Organizing your force with the aide of a set number of points and an Army List is something I don't mind, and I suspect none at my club would either. This is the way we where raised by playing Warhammer.

Prussians against the redoubts.

2011-07-14T20:37:00.002+02:00

With every unit in my force I set off. My battery of 6 pounders rolled up and deployed hub to hub. All ten battalions in single company columns marching through the patchwork landscape.
The target was two redoubts, one on each side of a highway road, each containing a battery of cannons. A weaker French force of only four reduced battalions and a thin line of skirmishers holds this defensive culprit.
Although all setting off a the same time, taking heat from the French canons and entangling in hedgerows my columns reach and assaulted French lines on at a time in echelon. Only on my right flank, a regiment of landwehr, three battalions strong charged in a column en masse! But non charged home on its target, they wavered, reformed, then charged again.
The center was hell on earth. Line musketeer battalions marched up and down the same field again and again taking hit after hit of canister shots. Retreating then rallying to march up again over wounded and dying comrades.
My left flank broke and left the field. I continued with my attack. Two French battalions had routed and a French brigade general had been captured as a prisoner, this was not a lost cause yet!
The Landwehr on my right had finally charged home, won, and was now swinging around to assault one of the redoubts, one battalion took horrendous casualties and routed, a second was moving up to enter the redoubt from its flank.
At this point it was decided my force had had enough, the finishing assault on the redoubt was never to be and the redoubts was left to the French as remaining Prussian forces retreated back to safety.

Another victory for Erik as French this time. Great fun thou, and with a couple of newly painted Prussian units. Pictures turned out blurry again, dang it!

Another appetiser game.

2011-07-05T00:32:00.000+02:00

Last game we decided on playing soon again and this Saturday was perfect for a game. Again a small game on a 4x6' table with a dozen or so units each. I was dazzled by the colourful spectacle of newly added flags on Eriks British troops.The result was a crushing defeat for me, I blame lacking quantity in troops. But a good time was had by both and Nisse was there to snap a few photos witch is always fun.

Appetiser game.

2011-06-28T22:48:00.001+02:00

It's been a long time since we had a game. We haven't been totally idle, some painting has been done, some terrain built. Erik finished his artillery and generals witch was the motivation needed to get a game going.
This was just a small game to get our GdB thinking going. As a change of pace the British were attacking and I commanding the French had two fine 6-pdr batteries at my disposal.
First half of the game it seemed to result in a decisive French victory. A roll of double 6 changed all that and three turns later I found half my force routed or dispersed, two brigade generals killed and one battery retired out of ammo. C'est la vie!
Most pictures turned out blurry.

Possibly the best way one could spend an Sunday afternoon.

2011-01-30T18:38:00.000+01:00

I met Hekke yesterday and he showed me his progress on his Swiss, looking good. Being the third to start an Napoleonic collection in our small group it is sort of an milestone. We also scheduled a small game to be had this Sunday afternoon. Hekke set up a few preferences, a small game on a 4x6 table without any special terrain, also he wanted to try playing with Cavalry, no problem.
I set up the forces. For myself I took my six Prussian infantry units (rated line today) and an battery of 6 pdr's, faced against four small French infantry units, two Dragoon units (each 24 strong) and a battery of horse 6 pdr's.
We advanced cautiously against each other, one of my brigade facing off against all his infantry. My other brigade manoeuvred up on a flak to sweep in at an later stage. Hekke committed his cavalry which galloped at my infantry several times, my infantry being lucky to find them self in square each time. The cavalry bounced back each time and refused to find itself spent. This hindered my second infantry brigade to sweep in as planned.
Finaly his guns took its toll on my squares and my primary infantry brigade found itself crumbling and finally breaking.
A good game which did not take very long time to play and was quick to set up, this spurred an thought of playing more small games, ca 750 points we agreed. So I foresee more games of this kind in the future, prefect pastime when tired of painting with no big games planned.

Latest painted.

2011-01-30T02:11:00.002+01:00

I haven't had any big "must do" projects the latest days so I have been doing some random painting here and there. Fifteen casualty-markers are done, five of them are metal Prussians from Warlord games. Now we might get out of using dice placed next to the unit suffering from casualties.

Also a small unit of dismounted Dragoons. These models come with the Perry Miniatures Dragoons set. I really like the look of them. Sort of like an Napoleonic spec-ops unit, even thou they are far from it I reckon. I have one more unit of these to paint.
Also on a side note, Hekke has started painting an unit of Swiss infantry. Using the Perry french infantry set and fallowing the painting-guide in it to make them Swiss looking.