AARs - post here all after battle comments and replay files

Why is it always the scenario makers fault or the one who created the scenario maker?

I do not have the time to make a longhand scenario heck the last 2 out of 3 I screwed up when I tried to make 2 of them at 3 am before I had to start my day.

The last one I made was at 10 am and it worked. LOL

Time to retire and let the critics take over.

I would play the scenario the other way around and could care less if I won or lost or marched for 2 hours. Getting your ass kicked is just the way it goes in life most of the time and then a few times you get to kick it. I have been on the right side of the ass kicking the past few games so I am sure I will spend the next several getting it kicked.

Personally the only to play a scenario when you are in the attack position is to have a larger army. Defending is always easier that is why a proper attack would be done with a 3 to 1 odds.

But this was more like a chess game and he who got the terrain/tactical advantage won.

Kevin's strategy was for us to defend the bridge and force you to attack and that is exactly the way it went.

Kevin - would it be possible to have your scenario generator be able to design unbalanced scenarios? Perhaps if there was an attack/defend variant the user could switch on, he could specify which side was the attacker and set a %age advantage that side would have - 100% being a 2:1 advantage.

It already has that capability. Just give one side more brigades than the other or give one side more brigades and set the fitting criteria for each type of unit to whatever you like. I do that for PvAI games all the time.

It already has that capability. Just give one side more brigades than the other or give one side more brigades and set the fitting criteria for each type of unit to whatever you like. I do that for PvAI games all the time.

Yep... and also you can do what I suggested... render OOBs sized by desired attacker strength and then just remove some brigades from defender side.

Thanks everyone in participating in my Poles&Prussians vs Russians scenario.
I think the battle was quite interesting (I didn't expect Kevin to rush for the big hill but actually as battle unfolded and in the "campaign" context it makes more sense)... I think I'll continue with this theme - next scenario will be logical consequence of today's battle... also Kevin and Andrew would be able to make some decisions as regarding reinforcements and tactical moves of their sides.

few questions to participants:
1) how do you like 1/2 regiment units for cavalry? (I had thoughts about regiments smaller than 500 men.. should I make them single unit?)
Idea was to keep all units similar size of about 300 men

2) less guns and more men per gun in batteries - good or bad? is Russian artillery even more powerful that way? How is ammo handled? is it scaled by number of gun crew?

3) My thought - I think small brigades or even regiment size brigades work well. Skirmishers are my concern - I think I'd get rid of them totally and just calculate this capability within the unit. As in present, Russian Jagers are all with skirmishing capability.. while they would only partly form in skirmish formation and operated in regiments and even brigades independently.

Ammo is handled as rounds per man. So in an infantry unit a man who has 50 rounds = 50 rounds per man in the whole battalion. Artillery is a little different as the rounds per man is x by the total gun crew. So if you have a unit strength (gun crew) of 15 men and the ammo supply is 10 (10 rounds per man) you end up with 10 x 15 = 150 rounds per gun. This is then split into roundshot and canister proportions per gun type in the %ages as given in artillery.csv.

My preferred numbers are:

12pdr - 15 crew - 8 rpm
Licorne - 15 crew - 8 rpm
9pdr - 15 crew - 8rpm
8pdr - 15 crew - 8rpm
6pdr - 14 crew - 9rpm
4pdr - 12 crew - 10rpm
3pdr - 10 crew - 12rpm

The stock OOBs for the KS Mod may differ a little. These are the proportions I use in my campaign OOBs.

The smaller the crew size is significant as the loss of 1 or 2 men in a small crew has a greater impact on morale than the same loss of 1 or 2 men in a bigger crew.

Miko, please don't cut out sk.

Small cav regiments are fine for me - shows attrition in the field. Spain was so hard on horses, a cav bgd might consist of one or two squadrons of hussars, of lancers, of chass a chev & maybe even Dragoons.

FWIW I think smaller cavalry units may be interesting to try. Squadrons of 80 to 100 men a few weeks into a campaign would not be unreasonable although since the British did not use their cavalry heavily in the Peninsular I have found their regiments were maintained close to full strength at 550 to 700 men in many cases.

Not sure artillery needs altering but a mid-campaign setting for a scenario could see some batteries that have lost guns. The Prussians in 1813 to 1815 used 1/2 batteries in many instances, so 4-gun units of both horse and foot guns would be okay for them. Likewise the Russians were known from 1812 onwards (I have no details for earlier years) to split a 12 gun horse battery into two and allocate half each to two cavalry brigades or Cossack brigades to make a small 'raiding' or advance guard division.

Please keep the skirmishers. You could try smaller units though.

I think our Russian OOBs have far too many skirmishers. Because their soldiers were serfs the Russian mindset was the least able to be flexible and do proper skirmishing work. Their more senior officers did not fully grasp the concept either. I would like to see more Russian brigades with no skirmish capability and their jager regiments were in many cases used just like musketeers and did not skirmish either.

I think the Russian infantry should have their musketry and accuracy stats lowered. Russian musketry was execrable and definitely worse than French. To compensate they could have their experience and edged stats bumped up to encourage more bayonet tactics.

I think the British stats in musketry and accuracy need to be increased. Too often our British troops are not successful enough in firefights. The British also made great efforts to maintain their battalion strengths; on average their Peninsular battalions should be bigger than French.

British skirmisher units are way too small and ineffective. The British battalions maintained their two flank companies at near full strength and allowed the centre companies to be smaller, so with ten companies, the two flank companies that could both skirmish would make up perhaps about 25% of the total battalion strength, so our British units can easily be made bigger at the expense of the centre company battalions they are detached from.

British 'light' battalions were frequently used only in close order (other then their flank companies) but were just elite, so they should have their skirmish ability removed and their stats bumped up over line battalions, especially musketry and accuracy.

I think all Austrian grenzers/croat units should have skirmish options.

Our Cossacks should be made crappier all round. They were not battlefield cavalry and probably other than in campaigns our OOBs could even remove them entirely unless you want to design a petit-guerre or raiding type scenario.

My own view is that the smaller the cavalry unit, the more dominant the cavalry becomes. They are able to slip in and out of friendly lines and exert an undue influence on the battle, especially if commanded by a player who is good in handling this type of unit. Yesterday's game was a good example. It's why we went to regimental sized units.

Artillery is underrepresented in our battles, usually by a factor of two or more. Historically, the French usually had a ratio of 3.2-3.5 guns per 1000 men. The Russians had a ratio of 6 per 1000. I think yesterday's game had a ratio of about 1.5 per 1000 for the Russians. Even in the scenarios I create, it is around 2.5 per 1000.

The one constant with regards to skirmishers is, the person with fewer skirmish units will complain about it. The number of skirmishers in the OOBs is fairly accurate. By 1809 all the continental armies followed the French example, although the Austrians were the most reluctant. In addition to their jagers, the Russians employed large numbers of them by detaching the 3rd rank of a battalion for this purpose. They were trained to do this. Read Duffy's account of Borodino for a view as to the Russian use of skirmishers. At Leipzig, the Russians also used large numbers of them.

Reducing the size of a skirmish battalion just makes them less of a threat. When the size drops to about 150 or less, they are completely combat ineffective and can safely be ignored. The shortcoming of how they are created in the OOB and used, is that as the action becomes close range and the line infantry moves up to attack, the skirmishers do not form close ranks and fight conventionally, as they would have historically. Unfortunately the game engine does not allow this. Our skirmisher units are a balancing act to try to make them a real battlefield force without having them completely dominate the fight or be completely irrelevant, given the game engine's limitations.

I agree that the British skirmish numbers are underrepresented. Accounts of Waterloo indicated that they fielded numbers comparable to the French that day.

Although I don't disagree with the statement that Russian musketry was worse than the French, there is no other way to model the fact that the Russians fought to the last man. They did not run or surrender. Giving them better melee stats will not really work, because the AI doesn't know that melee is more important that shooting. The game engine is designed for ACW, not napoleonics. Besides, I can already hear the howls of the French player when his Russian counterpart launches a charge and his division is gutted in 5 minutes.

I do disagree with the statement that the Cossacks are too effective. They have a very wide variability. Sometimes they can give a good account of themselves and at other times, they will not do anything useful and can be driven away by infantry counter charging in line formation. Platov's Cossack corps had units that could actually fight in an organized fashion and those that were little more than brigands. I think ours add an interesting variability to the game. Neither side knows if they will be a weapon or not.

At least the French kept their hair.

This was an interesting tactical battle.  The premise was that Murcia, an Austrian fortress city, was slowly being enveloped by the French.  Communication to the south was cut off by the advancing French army.  Only the west was open via the road network through Totana.  The French were tasked with closing off this avenue, while the Austrians had to keep it open.


I had envisioned that the Austrians would make a direct drive down the main road to the vital crossroads while the French took the southern roads to Lebrilla.  There they would likely encounter the Austrian column and the battle would be joined.  Instead, the Austrians, in a completely ungentlemanly fashion, made a brilliant tactical move and tried to aggressively intercept the French in the south.  The result  was the near complete destruction of Boudet's hapless division.



His unit was held in check by Klenau's division while Vogelsang came up behind him, and without so much as a, by your leave, proceeded to envelope him.  It is no fun being Custer and just when it seemed that a pistol to the head was preferable to eating schnitzels and strudel, Vogelsang remembered he had pressing interests at Totana, and released Boudet.


But alas, by this time Demont had formed a strong defensive line outside of town and held the objective at nightfall.  With the last road into Murcia cut, I'm afraid it will be horsemeat and sawdust bread for the city's defenders.

You mean there was a battle over there? I thought you were grouse hunting out looking for truffles. Our walk through woods reveled a few unknown bird species that we registered with the French Naturalist Society.

Then we got to the Totana cross rds and there was none to great us. We moved south only to be confronted by an angry mob of Schawns Ice Cream salesmen.

They were an angry bunch and started lobbing frozen gallons of rocky roads ice cream at us, with cannons they must have stolen from the local garrison and this caused the majority of our casualties. We strolled back to the high ground and repelled the attacking disgruntled ice cream workers and quelled the violent uprising and won the day for the Emperor.

It should be noted that sawdust bread is very good with soft cheese and horseradish. Wish you were here to enjoy it with us.

Here's the replay.

Yes, a very fun and unusual game, very fluid, never a clear battle line, lots of movement... and pretty desperate for Kevin and Phil who did well to make it out with anything.

Horsemeat? Yum. That's a step up from our recent diet of rat fricasse and cat a l'orange.

That was almost like trying to cut your way out of Cannae.

That’s the 2nd time we’ve ended up recently in a checkerboard pattern with friendlies adjacent. And this too, involved 1 div in another whirlwind type mvt that hooked around. Interesting trajectories.

So how did yesterday's scenario end up?

All the Austrians won except for me. I ended up after 3 hours marching and fighting back where I started - just N of Hostomitz

Yes, Martin being crushed north of Hostomitz would not have impacted the glorious Austrian victory. We would have erected a small stone monument on the site of his demise and perhaps toasted his memory, but likely would have quickly moved on to more pressing matters, such as corralling wayward milkmaids.

If I can't recall the exact message I received from the CinC but it went something like this.


Digby is in a bit of a pickle but we can mourn for him later.

I had a nice view from the ridge that the OBJ was on watching the skiddish french you instead up going up hill to attack my tired troops.

War is hell.

One learns from one's mistakes. Agreeing to follow my C-in-Cs orders was my one for that battle.

Sacrifices had to be made.

How was your battle yesterday?

There were four of us playing yesterday. It was a very bloody affair.

The Austrians won but it was not a gentleman's victory. They played sneaky tricks on us in the fog.

We had to defend the whole of the Leunenburg Strasse - an impossible task with only 2 divisions so an Austrian win was a forgone conclusion...

Replay File.

Thanks for the replay.
Looks like visibility was pretty bad - at 16:02 Phil was very close to Mike's advancing division and couldn't spot it.
Not sure what could be done in this set up. I'd probably scout more aggressively, rather than wait on the main road.

Our superior cat like tactics put us right at the flank of the enemy to start of the festivities or you could say we just got darn lucky.



I know have Lingy.