Battle of Eylau - ENDEX

The Russians retreat past Anklappen

Well the refight of Eylau came to an end on Turn 10/1700. I'd thought it was going to be all over at Turn 7 as Davout was on the the table (if taking a beating), Lestocq was yet to show up, the Russians were pushing in the French left, and fighting was going on all around the front of Eylau. I did a quick check of Army/Corps morale at that point and found that both Davout and Soult needed to withdraw (>1/2 units lost or spent), as did Osten-Sacken, and Tuchkov (Russain right, but small) was already gone. Both only had 5 formations, so one more loss and the army would have to withdraw.

Russians trying to turn the French left flank

Turn 7 saw Murat's cavalry fall on Osterman-Tolstoy division, but it held firm against two successive Cavalry Divisions. Milhaud went against it in Turn 8 and still it hung on. The Guard made a demonstration against the Russian right and stopped them from hooking round behind Eylau. The fighting continued in front of Eylau, but no-one lost a unit!

The central melee. Eylau just out of shot to the left.

On Turn 8 (1500)  Ney turned up - he must have given Lestocq the slip, and hurried to fall on the Russian left, but the hussars and Cossacks from Galitzen's Cavalry Corps frustrated a rapid advance, and on Turn 9 (1600) Lestocq finally turned up at Althof in Ney's rear - so giving him something else to worry about.

Russian right flank holding firm

Come turn 9 Bennigsen realised that it was all over and decided to see if he could break contact before having a formal defeat inflicted - excepting Lestocq he actually only had one combat capable division left. The break was quickly executed, with the shattered infantry units and surprisingly fresh gunner pulling back past Anklappen screened by Galitzen's cavalry and with Lestocq shadowing Ney's fresh troops on the flank. A hasty pursuit by Heudelet who had been in reserve for much of the battle caught Semov's Brigade as it pulled back on Turn 10 and delivered such an impressive set of volleys that Semov took enough damage to cause him to retreat and be spent, so triggering the withdrawal of Dokhtruu'v Corps - making it 3 Russian formations down - except that not Lestocq was on the table their trigger point was 4 formations!

The French keep the pressure on the Russian retreat

At that point I decided it was game over. The Russians were past Anklappen and their cavalry screen was strong. At 1700 in February in Poland it must be getting pretty dark, so I allowed Bennigsen to slip away under the cover of night, without the ignominy of a formal defeat.

Positions at nightfall - Anklappen in the upper centre

Overall I think that SLS-BOD played out very well, and the BOD mechanism and reduced DMs avoided almost all of the "have I counted that DM or not" element of basic SLS. There is some loss of granularity, but I think I can live with that. I'll next play Friedland with at Bde level with the rules more or less unchanged (but now 1D per 500 me/250 cav/5 guns, and 250m hexes), and then look at a Battalion level version - I can see that they may be what we use for Waterloo60.

Battle of Eylau - STARTEX

Eylau starting positions, Div sized units (apart from largest Russian units split into 2 Bdes). New SLS-BOD rules which effectively give units 1 dice/strength(health) point for each 1000 inf, 500 cav or 10 guns. 500m hexes, 1 hour game turns. French at left, Russians at right. Slight valley between the two with Eylau in the middle of it. No snow available!

View from French lines looking over Eylau to Russian lines beyond

The first two goes were the artillery dual. No crashing damage but two French divisions too disorder and fell back a kilometre to regroup (changing the fall back rule!).

On turn 3 the fight for Eylau started, with the French charging the Russian guns beyond the village, taking them, but then being forced back by a Russian counter-attack, which was then checked in turn by the French. Smoke markers show damage points (and sit on the hexes so you don't lose them!). The French also pushed forward on their right and the Russians pushed forward on the French left.

The Russians trying to take Eylau and St Hilaire goes in to stop them!

On Turn 4 it was time to unleash the cavalry to try and force the push on the French right flank - particularly as Davout had not yet appeared. Two of Murat's gallant divisions went changing in against a Russian Grand Battery, which they took, but then charged on to a Russian Grenadier Div which held firm, and the cavalry fled back to its own lines with very little glory, but also not too much damage.

The battle continues around Eylau - red markers show disorder

Turn 5 (midday) and Davout finally turns up. The Russians turn their cavalry to face him. Stalemate in the centre and left with he fight ongoing around Eylau but neither side committing towards Altdorf. No sign of Lescoq.

The left flank and windmill - French cavalry taking artillery damage

End of Turn 5- Davout arrives!

Overall all playing out pretty well. Still not as fast as I'd like, but that may be in part to the card-by-card activation which adds a certain base amount per unit anyway. May try some other methods out (although this is probably the best solo mode). The actual BOD mechanics are working out really well though.

Battle of Eylau - Planning and 2mm!

When I got back into wargaming about 15 yrs ago I soon realised that I didn't have the time or space for big 20mm battles. So I bought some 2mm figures to try out micro-wargaming. It was the experience of trying to do Borodino on a corner of our dining table that convinced me that hexes were the way to go, as any measuring error/disagreement at that scale is huge! However I'd also bought a few test 6mm figs, and all through the battle I kept looking at them and think I'd like to be working at a scale where I could actually see the figures, and so I abandoned 2mm and went to 6mm. Thousands of 6mm figures later I've decided its time to revisit 2mm, as even a 6mm game is still taking a lot of time and space to set up! And I have a preference for doing the big battles, as this blog attests.

Originally my 2mm figures were based as Div/Bde units on ~2-4cm squares, on 4cm hexes. Far too fiddly, and Hexon is now my preferred grid of choice. So I decided to rebased on 8cm hexes, which sit nicely in the Hexon 10cm hexes and allow for a nice layout of troops that actually give the sense of a Div or Bde drawn up in a couple of lines. There's also plenty of space for a unit label. At this scale it means that each ground hex is about 500m (for Div) or 250/300m  (for Bde), so certainly at Div I can accommodate big battlefields (my table gives me about 10 x 20 hexes, so 5km x 10km).

As ever though there's then the issue of scenery. I originally bought some 2mm scenery to go with the figures (all Irregular Miniatures I think), but whilst the little village models are nice, they actually look far too small on my relatively large table, and the mini trees/forests just look silly. So as the top picture shows I've used my 6mm trees, and they look spot on. For the buildings I've got some 1/1000th models (Brigade Miniatures) which I originally bought for my 6mm modern gaming, but they ended up looking too small again (!) for that, but seem just about right as in the above image for 2mm! So come the New Year I'll put in an order for some Horse & Musket suitable 1/1000th buildings from Brigade, and make up some nice 10cm hex dioramas. One ide I'm playing with is to have the outer edge of the hex separate from the inner, so that when a unit is in a town you remove the central portion and replace it with the unit!

Rules wise I'm going through this gradual bucket-of-dice conversion. So whereas that first Borodino 2mm game gave birth to Steady Lads Steady (my main in-house rules), I'm now doing a bucket-of-dice version of SLS drawing on some of the things I've done with the Medieval rules I'm growing out of Hordes and Heroes, and with a bit of Blucher influence. We'll see how they run.

Return to 2mm?

When I first got seriously back into wargaming about 10-15 years ago I soon realised that I had neither time nor space (or budget) for 20mm or bigger, so I started looking at smaller scales. I played Borodino in 2mm and enjoyed it  a lot, but the lure of the bigger 6mm figures was in the end just too much.

But I think 2mm does have its place, so I've dusted off the old figures and I'm looking at a better way to base them, with, as ever, the aim of using them on Hexon terrain (1 hex = 400m so each element is a Division).

I do like hexes as bases as well, as they give more of an "area" feel than rectangles. So I bought a range of hexes at Salute, and I've decided that the 70mm hexes are best, as they can then sit in any orientation in a Hexon hex, and you can see any underlying terrain features (I use felt as a "base" for BUA and woods). The images shows a prototype Inf and Cavalry division (may go for more stands for the Inf), along with my original 2mm buildings on my original 4cm hexes, and some 1/1000th buildings from Brigade Models that may be a better match.

Plenty of space at the back of hex for labels/dice holders, and space at front for skirmishers.

Now just need to buy up some more blank hexes and base the rest of the troops in time for a game of Jena or Eylau.

Craonne- Refights Compared

Positively my last post on Craonne, here is a map comparing the French front lines at 1100 (start), 1300, 1500 and 1700 (end) for each of the three refights.

(open image in a new window to see detail)

Obviuously lessons were well learnt from refight to refight - principally making sure that both wings had a balanced all-arms fore, and that Ney paid less and less attention to Ailes and more to getting to the far side no matter what. Whilst that may fulfil the scenario objectives having Ney arrive in the midst of the main Allied move up to Laon may not have achieved all that Napoleon wanted, and may have lost him Ney's Corps. Even in the third refight where De Morvan got off too, and most of the French could have exited as darkness fell having the Allies wrapped up in Bovelle casualties had been high and the troops would have been little use for a battle next day.

***Imported from old blog***

Battle of Craonne - 2mm

During the last couple of months I've been fortunate (?) enough to refight the Battle of Craonne (7 Mar 14) three times: solo in 2mm as planning for the Liphook battle, as Napoleon in a 25mm mega-battle (3 tables, c.7 players a side) at Liphook, and solo again in 6mm to fix the things in the plan that went wrong in the other two!

This is a summary of the 2mm battle. The 25mm version is already on the Liphook web site (but I'll also post here for completeness). Once I've got the 6mm version posted I'll try and draw it all together.

The 2mm (and 6mm) games were played using the Div/Bde Level version of my own Steady Lads Steady rules, vaguely Shako'esque, which work on a 40mm hex grid (so as to avoid any distance arguments!). Each base is a Brigade and only grand batteries have their guns explicitly represented. Activation was card driven. 1 turn = 30 min.

The Russians are formed up in about three defensive lines, at the head of the neck, by La Bovelle, and at the pinch to the rear of La Bovelle. The French have a Cavalry and Young Guard force under Nansouty on the L flank, Young Guard under Rebeval and Charpentier moving across the neck, and Ney with just infantry on the R flank. The French plan to hold back in the centre until the two flanks can bring pressure to bear on the Russian flanks.

View of the battlefield. Arrows point down slope. 1 hex = 200m. Hurtebise Farm on bottom edge of table, La Bovelle farm in middle, Cerny village in far distance. Just page through the other images, the red dice at bottom show the turn number (in base 6 - sort of!)

The descriptions are typically given Left, Centre, Right from the French point of view.

1 (1100) French advance except across neck. Nansouty's cavalry pulls up on to the plateau.

2 French advance except across neck

3 (1200) L: Cossacks charge unformed Nansouty Gd Cav but recoil. C: Russian guns take 1 CEF off of Fr on neck

4 L: 2nd Cossack charge against Nansouty results in a bounce. CR: Rabeval pushes Ru back at the head of the neck, but 2nd Bde at -3 CEF. R: Ney inf take -2 CEF from Cossacks on slope as they try to force their way up the slope onto the plateau.

5 (1300) L: Ru charge Nansouty's Gd Cav, Melee goes to 2nd round but looking bad for Dragoons. R: Ney pushed back off ridge. C: Guard arty opens fire on Ru inf and forces a retreat. Victor moving onto flank. Charpentier moves up into gap on neck.

6 L: Grenadiers a Cheval rout Russian Dragoons, take damaged infantry by La Bovelle. CL: Rabeval finally beats back Russians, but Division spent. C: Gd Arty continues to maul Ru inf in front of La Bovelle.

7 (1400) L: Cossacks charge Chasseurs a Cheval, but bounce back. C: Russians pull back to La Bovelle. 3x attacks La Bovelle and Russians suffer badly.

The French are now clear of the neck. Nansouty now joined up with the main French force.

8 C: Russian 1 Bde destroyed, causing some consternation in units to rear. Russians pull back to a new defensive line c.1km W (rear) of La Bovelle. French 2nd wave troops brought forward. R: Ney pulls up to the ridge as the Russians pull back.

9 (1500) C: Fr 3x and 7x go in against Russians. Successful but have to reform. R: Ney goes in against N of new Russian line, winning but bloody. Cossacks pushed back in melee onto infantry line.

Ney now joined up with the main French force.

10 Cossacks charge reforming 3x and 7x and rout them, buying time for infantry to form a third and final defensive line about another 1km back. Cossacks flee when counter charged by Fr Gd Cav.

11 (1600) Ney's Young Guard charge Russian line, but pushed back by cannon fire. Lancers fail to charge home vs Russian cavalry. Grenadiers a Cheval do go in and rout Russians, and maintain order and reform. Russians now at break point.

12 (1630) French 4x Dragoons chase 1 Cossack Regt off table, and eliminate a 2nd whilst reforming. Russians forced back to Cerny. Lead French units 1.5 km W of La Bovelle, 1 km fm Cerny and the table edge.

1700 - Planned end of game

There is a full image set on Flickr.

***Imported from old blog***

Thoughts on 2mm Napoleonics

A while ago Nick started thinking about us doing 2mm Napoleonics, so we bought a couple of test packs to get a feel for what 2mm wargaming might be like. Nick's idea was to use our standard 1mm:1m ground ratio (i.e. 1:1000) with 2mm figures (c. 1:900) so that we had near unity on ground to figure scales, and even 1 figure = 1 man. This was to get away from the 1:1000 vs 1:72 of typical 20mm gaming (giving an "error" factor of around 11). The idea then went on the back burner but as part of my "summer of no 20mm Napoleonics" I decided to have a look at it again.

To me any set of figures and scale decisions is a compromise between five main factors: the level of game you want (eg Army level vs fireteam skirmish), cost and time of buying and painting an army, the convenience of playing (eg how long to set up/tear down), the "accuracy" of the rules and experience, and just whether things feel right.

With 2mm it strikes me that there are three main ways of playing a game:

- The Battalion Base

This appears to be what most 2mm gamers do (or some even do brigade bases). Each 24-30 figure block (about 13mm by 3mm) represents a battalion. Now we know that battalion frontages in line are about 240m, say 260m for easy maths), so this means 13mm = 260m which gives a ground scale of about 1:20,000. This is almost at 1:25000 map scale, and indeed I found if I put 2mm blocks on some battle maps then they were almost the right size. The error factors is hug though - 20+ (i.e. 1:900 vs 1:20,000). Most battalion base rules also don't bother to show line or column, and certainly at Waterloo with understrength units most battalions would be mere fragments of bases, and with 200+ crowded onto a space smaller than an A3 sheet of paper a real nightmare to move or measure.

- The Platoon Base

This was Nick's original idea, a base = a platoon, so the 24 or 30 figures on the base are 1:1 with the men in the platoon. And with 1mm=1m and 2mm figures we have almost no scale error). If we take a French Company with c.120 soldiers then in 3 ranks we'd need 40 in the front line with a frontage of 40m, or 4cm in scale - just about do'able with a 2mm base (10 figure frontage = 13mm). The downside of the platoon approach though are:
- You need a lot of bases, 4 per company, 24 per battalion, at 10p each give £2.40 a battalion - about the same as 20mm, so its going to cost a lot of cash and time to build a big army
- You need a lot or area and set-up time - the same area as 20mm
- Whilst the scaling IS right, it just doesn't look right, very small figures with a huge amount of space around them

- The Company Base

This strikes me now as the best compromise. If each base = 1 company, then a 40m frontage for a company = 13mm for a base (using 10 file bases), giving a ground scale of about 1mm=3m, i.e. 1:3000, and so an error factor of only 3. (rises to 4 if we use 10mm, 8 file bases). Six bases for a French battalion means you can show line and column easily, and the figure to man scale is about 1:4 (30 figures vs 120 men). So a battalion is line will cover 8cm, and musket range is about 5cm - which looks right on the table.

In terms of battlefield size, at 1:3 the greater Waterloo battlefield becomes about 1.6m x 1.3m (about 6 of my 600x600 terrain bases), and the main part of the battlefield only 1.2m x 0.6m (just 2 bases), and so easily fitable on most tables.

Unit wise, the French had 100 battalions at Waterloo - just 600 bases, at 10p each = £60. For cavalry its 6 bases per Regiment (1.5 per Sqn), times 34 regiments and @ 15p each gives about £30. So you could have the whole British and French armies for a shade under £200.

(and actually with Battalion basing you only need about 150 bases a side so about £40 gets you both armies so you might just as well have that as well - assuming you don't double role).

So yes, I think 2mm Napoleonic might be worth a go, particularly at Company basing. Now I just need to find some decent rules!

***Imported from old blog***