Waterloo bicentennial game

After 11 hours of gaming, multiple hours of setup and cleaning it's finally over. Napoleon has conquered Brussels and is ready to face Austria and Russia.

We played our Waterloo bicentennial game last Saturday at the club with nearly all of the historical  forces present at the battlefield. The French were still missing some infantry and the Allies were missing  a few Regiments of cavalry. Still we managed roughly 6000 miniatures on roughly 11 square metres of gaming  area. Quite a bit of lead to be pushed around.

The battle commenced with both Reille and D'Erlon advancing their forces towards the Allied lines. After some fierce cannon fire La Haye Sainte was abandoned by the KGL troops occupying it. Sensing his chance D'Erlon immediately ordered his troops to occupy it only to see the lead Division swiftly move towards Houguemont and then retreating through the right flank of Reille's division (The wonder of two consecutive blunders in Black Powder). This was enough to allow the Brits to send in fresh troops to occupy the important farmhouse. Battle for it's possession would tie down one French brigade for much of the rest of the battle and finally lead to their destruction as well as that of the defending KGL troops.

On the French left Reille pushed back the British skirmish screen around Houguemont before ordering an assault on the farm itself. As at La Haye Sainte it would last for most of the battle itself before French forces would emerge victorious.

On the French right dire news reached Napoleon's ears. Blücher's advance guard had showed up around Plancenoit. Lobau was sent in to slow their advance. With the Prussians slowly making gains first the Young Guard was sent in to reinforce the beleaguered defenders and finally the Guards Chasseurs of the Old and Middle Guard were forced to lend their hand as well.

With the battle for La Haye Sainte in full swing the rest of D'Erlons corps advanced against the British lines slowly pushing the first troops away. This would prove to be a costly affair with both the Brits and French suffering heavily. Most of D'Erlons fighting power was spent and only the timely arrival of the Guard Grenadiers would save them and prevent the British troops from moving to reinforce their right flank and threaten Reille.

Even if D'Erlons attack proved costly he would in the end succeed in his objective to tie down one British flank and draw reinforcements there. While the battle was raging between La Haye Sainte and Papelotte Milhaud ordered his cavalry into attack through the ground between Houguemont and La Haye Sainte. The cavalry attack itself was of little effect, but forced the defending British troops to form squares. With them tied down French infantry was free to begin their work. Little by little the British right flank began to crumble and as the remnants of D'Erlons corps pushed through and captured the crossroads leading to Brussels there was little that the defenders could do. Even with the Prussians making gains in Plancenoit it was too little too late as the Allies had lost most of their cavalry while the French still had some fresh Regiments and controlled the important road to Brussels.

All in all a great game even if the result was not historically correct. Casualties were massive on both sides with the French finally gaining an upper hand. The French had managed to capture La Haye Sainte and Houguemont and cut the British army in two at separating them with the Brussels  road. Pursuit would be hot as the French had some light cavalry regiments fresh and waiting for the retreat to commence. With little allied cavalry left the pursuit would be merciless. Blücher on the other hand had most of his forces intact and could retreat towards Prussia in relative safety.

 D'Erlons Corps ready to commence attack.

  French left wing under Reille

 The Allied right flank hidden out of sight and in cover.

 D'Erlon commences the attack on La Haye Sainte and Papelotte

A firefight erupts between French infantry and British skirmishers screening Houguemont.

La Haye Sainte is cleared, but alas the French brigade  commanders misinterpret their orders and move towards Houguemont and finally retreat through Reille's corps when they realize their error. This  would provide the Allies with  enough time to reoccupy the farmhouse.

 The first French troops reach Allied  lines.

 Milhaud's cavalry moving through the fields ready to attack.

 The Allied right flank forms squares to protect themselves from the attacking French heavy cavalry.

 The Union and Household Brigades had some command issues, before they could start their attack on the French lines.

 Surprisingly even when failing to form squares some of the French infantry hold up in the face of the cavalry charge. Just enough to allow for Kellermann to come to their aid.

 French infantry bearing down on the British squares.

 Fighting in and around Plancenoit rages on.

 The Guard arrives! And this time it does not recoil even though it ends up being attacked in the side by Hannoverian Landwehr.

 With French cavalry breaking through the lines to threaten the Allied rear things are really starting to look dire for Wellington.

 The Brussels road is completely in French control and cavalry moves in to secure the area.

 

 Blücher has managed to take half of Plancenoit, but it's too late to save Wellington.

Bolt Action Gameday at the club

We held a Bolt Action Gameday at my club the past weekend to give new players a chance to try the game and for older players to try out some themed scenarios. I had promised to put together a scenario pitting British Airborne against German defenders somewhere in France during 1944. In addition to that there were three other tables ready for players and we did have quite a nice showing of people new to the system and to our club as well.

More pictures can be found through the blogs of other members of the club; Juha (who supplied most of the Germans for my scenario) and Mika.

In my game the British were making a nighttime attack on a German HQ and Radar station in an attempt to destroy them and capture some important personnel. Loosely based on one of the scenarios in the Battleground Europe booklet. The Brits would start with a small force coming on the table and reinforcements being able to come in from any table edge, while the Germans would only have a small garrison in the area with reinforcements starting to come along one table edge when the attacking Brits were spotted.

It was quite fun to just Umpire a game for a change instead of playing. Nice to add some element of surprise and random events to battles and see how the players react. I wanted to create a Commando style game with loads of action and in the end it did prove to be quite a bloody battle with the result hanging in balance literally until the last throw of dice.

The Germans started with two Feldgendarmerie squads guarding the chateau and with an AA cannon positioned on it's roof to provide cover from marauding allied airplanes.

The Red Devils start their attack and move in with two squads towards the chateau with a third going for. However they seem to have been delayed while moving towards the objective as the sun starts to rise already on turn two leaving the units out in the open in clear sight of the AA cannon, which starts firing on the attackers. Brits got quite unlucky with the dice roll to see when the night would end with daylight coming at the earliest possible moment.

Eager to escape the fire from the German AA an airborne squad dashes forward to engage the defending Jerries in hand to hand combat. With the Feldgendarmerie being more accustomed to catching AWOL soldiers than to real fighting the results were quite clear. Another squad opens up on the AA killing the crew with some lucky shooting.

As the alarm has now been sounded a 6pdr is brought into action to guard the road leading to the Chateau and not a moment too soon as German reinforcements start arriving almost immediately after the alarm is sounded. Goes to show that good drill can pay off as the Germans show up at the earliest possible opportunity. The 6pdr fires a good shot at the first 251 coming in and promptly blowing it up forcing the occupants to dismount and take casualties.

One Airborne squad has made it's way towards the radar station and set up explosives ready to destroy the building. Some surrendering Germans are taken in for questioning.

Airborne reinforcements start rushing in towards the Chateau to secure it before any more Germans arrive. One Jeep gets shot to pieces by a Universal Carrier that shows up along the road behind the destroyed Hanomag.

Catching a glimpse of some of the VIP's occupying the Chateau one Red Devils squad rushes forward to capture them and bring them to justice.

With the radar station destroyed and the Brits starting to make their escape with their captives the Germans start to move up with haste to stop them. One Hanomag speeds up on the flank with the troops inside it dismounting ready to attack the Brits.

The remaining Feldgendarmerie squad tries to get to their captured superiors only to be destroyed by the defending airborne soldiers.

The dismounted grenadier squad moves in to secure the captives killing all the offending Brits. However danger is far from over with one more British squad moving in after dealing with the radar station. The Germans in turn are wiped out by the attacking Brits.

With the battle hanging on an edge Sgt. Steiner with his squad of veteran fighters rushes in to assault the Devils who are still recovering from the previous close combat. They are just in time and manage to free the captives yet again. At this point both forces were on the brink of destruction and the British player accepted defeat as his last infantry squad was destroyed.

This was a really enjoyable game to Umpire with loads of action going on at all times. Both sides had their share of bad luck with the British early attack being hampered with the coming day and quick German reinforcements and later with the Germans being unable to hit the Brits with their fire. British PIATs performed well destroying multiple vehicles despite usually needing 6s to hit. The game really hang in balance and had the last ditch German assault failed, the Red Devils would have been able to escape with their captives and take seize the day.

In addition to my game there was a Winter War game with Soviets attacking a Finnish defence line, a scenario based on the final battle in Saving Private Ryan pitting a mixed force of Rangers and Paras against SS and a Pacific battle with Japanese troops making an assault over a river against USMC defenders. Forgot to take pictures of the last scenario, but there are some pics of the amazing basing done on the Japs.