Napoleonic Game Saturday 6 Sept

Hi all

I don't have a campaign game for this weekend, its too early in the turn. However I created 2 scenarios for games that could have been played in the last turn but I chose not to as one was pretty small and the other would have potentially have made an unsatisfying campaign game.

However both have their merits and could make fun casual games.

I have created a Doodle here:

http://doodle.com/tup9c289qp7t97ku

Please sign up and if we get enough players we can do one of them.

The options are:

1) Sally of Spanish garrison of Gerona against General Lechi's Italian division. This uses the Salem Church map with Fredericksburg as Gerona and the Italian siege works being the redoubts along Marye's Heights.

2) Spanish attack on Miranda del Ebro with 2 Spanish divisions against an ad-hoc assembly of 4 French brigades, a weak garrison brigade and 3 batteries. The French must exit their forces off the south map edge; the Spanish must interfere and distract the French into a battle. This uses the Crampton Gap map with Burkittsville being Miranda.

Bonus: Neither map is rotated. North is really north!

I have a campaign game for tomorow but its a very small one. It'll only need 2 French and 4 or 5 Spanish players. If people would like to play that, we can. If more turn up we can do another game.

I might be free tonight. I'll confirm as soon as I know. If not, perhaps tomorrow.

What time are we meeting on T/S? Will 20.00 UK be ok?

Martin (J)

Yes.

Can play tonight but might be a bit late. Maybe 20.15 ish

Shall we say 20.15 then............

Have you enough for one of the campaign games, Diggers?

Martin (J)

Sorry I had to leave so quick supper was ready!


That was a great time, not sure how well we did, first time controlling 12000+ troops for me.

Weather held off for me too, hope to see you guys again this coming Saturday!


Morsey

Fantastic game, set in 1812, and with almost 100,000 French and Russian troops.  Your boys did well, Morsey.  Very well, actually.

For the first time in quite a while, we played coop vs the AI.  We had a Russian army facing a somewhat larger and somewhat better French force.

As an experiment, we played with more limited information than usual.  So the division commanders only knew friendly casualties, and then only for their own division.  As CinC, I had no access to anyone's stats via the OOB, so I was reliant on commanders providing me with information on how they were doing.  In the heat of battle, most didn't much of the time.  So I had only an impressionistic view of how things were going on most sectors.  I think that's much more like the way it really was.

One odd, and amusing, effect was to create a strong impression in the minds of our commanders on the left wing, that we had been overwhelmingly defeated.  Whilst those on the right were equally convinced we had won a great victory!

Martin (J)

Clearly the CinC had a bit too much vodka the night before if he thought that battle was a victory. We were soundly thrashed. Although on the receiving end, I was happy to see the AI use its cavalry in an extremely effective manner. It waited until my brigades in the center were weakened by the Vistula Legion and then sent in a hoard of dragoons and cuirassiers. The dragoons went for my guns and captured the two batteries I had on a hill supporting my infantry and just as quickly, withdrew. The soup tureens went after my battalions. Although my squares successfully beat them off, they were considerably weakened. With my artillery gone, I had nothing left to halt the French advance which promptly split our line.

As if that wasn't bad enough, on the extreme left, two of my brigades took on elements of the Old Guard and other French line troops. Again when they were quite weakened and in some disarray, the AI set loose a large regiment of Saxon cuirassiers. My serfs never stood a chance. Two brigades completely ridden down.

I blame our CinC for this fiasco. Had he released our heavy cavalry to counter theirs when requested, we may have survived. I guess he didn't want them to scuff up their shiny black breastplates. In fact, I never saw them on the field.

Great game, although my game didn't start until the battle was lost!

I was waiting for orders but, even when I decided to see what was on the other side of the hill, I had no idea the battle had already started.

My reporting of two enemy battalions on the ridge might have been viewed as somewhat trivial as the Saxon Leibguard mowed over Kevin's batteries.

Here's an artists impression of the Thielmann's victorious troopers (actually, depicting their glorious charge of the Grand Redoubt at Borodino[I think])



Really liked the big set-piece battle for a change to encounters, thanks Kevin

Mike

Wow! Russians and French? Where are the sprites, etc for those? I wish I had been able to play in that game. Napoleonic War Russians are my favorite wargames army. In 15mm figures with Empire I and III rules, I had the entirety of the Army of the West and Imperial Guard painted up - 1812 invasion time frame.

Yes, it was quite a fight and quite a spanking. The Russians are part of the KS Napoleon Mod. The OOB is included. Gotta love those Russian heavy batteries.

Here is the replay file, from which it's pretty clear who got spanked.  And who did the spanking

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i34v0dfkrkxsojt/NetServ-09072514%20001216.zip?dl=0

As for the vaunted Vistula Legion, only one now remains of their original seven battalions, and that in a panicked condition.  They were but chaff beneath the hooves of Platov's Guard Cossacks (gush).

Burlington H Grumble
Gardening Correspondent, St Petersburg Clarion

Ike, since Gunship released his entire sprite pack over a year ago, Kevin has (magnificently!) repacked them all for MP play and the KSNap mod now includes most nations that fought in the wars except 1806 Prussians, 1805 Russians and the Swedes. Our Spanish armies are still mostly fictional but for most other nations we have sprites close enough so that armies can be made that don't suspend disbelief.

There's all the 1815 Dutch-German states in there too.

Thanks, Mr. D. I just realized, also, I needed the 1702 version of that mod and took care of it. I look forward to a campaign involving the Russian army.

Ever since I learned about the political friction that ocurred between the Coalition Allies at the Conference of Vienna over the winter of 1814-1815 I have wanted to run a fantasy campaign based on the what-if of the Prussian-Russian alliance going to war against Austria-France-Britain over spheres of influence concerning the lesser German states.

There was very nearly a war in about Jan-Feb 1815 between these two power groups, then Napoleon escaped from Elba and brought people back into focus! Had he not done that...

What a nice idea for a campaign! hmm....