Sealed Knot Muster

 

Heading up to the Peak District for the Bank Holiday weekend we suddenly found ourselves driving through a huge ECW encampment. Apparently the Sealed Knot was having their largest muster for 18 months. Luckily the friends we were staying with were up for it, so the next day we returned at 2pm to see the battle.

I'm guessing there were around 2000 re-enactors involved, it certainly had scale. The commentary was really good and the battle well choreographed for the crowds. The commentator had to keep apologising for the fact that the soldiers were grinning not grimacing - it was their first time on the battlefield for ages!

I got lots of nice photos, of which a selection are below. Really want I wanted to do those was speak to the reenactors about how real ECW battles went down at the individual man level.

We know that real push-of-pike was nothing like this (but still quite impressive when one side topples over!), so its was great to chat to 4 or 5 of the reenactors to get their views. The main points were:

• Units closed to 20-50m to fire their shot
• If it was just pike vs pike they'd probably just stand and look at each other, neither wanting to go in 
• Shot running out of ammo may have been the trigger for the melee
• Once the advance to contact starts then just as I have in SLS/WDBTT it was often decided by resolve not fisticuffs, one side deciding it didn't want to stay to fight
• When it came to push-of-pike it probably only lasted 30-60 seconds. Shot might have been firing or might just be careering into the melee. If push-of-pike is only brief makes no difference to the rules.
• Once in melee pike probably drew their (useless?) swords. Using a 16' pike in a close-up melee is never going to work. They may have held their pike upright and then used their free hand for the sword - but that means their stuck to the spot and at risk of overbalancing. More like (my interpretation) they dropped their pike once the melee started and relied on the sword.
• When the loser was obvious the loser would be most unlikely to take their pikes with them - which makes sense if they've dropped them for the melee. Most casualties in the battle came from the pursuit, and you can't run fast with a 16' pike!

So all that probably confirms my thoughts and I'll tweak WDBTT (We Die By These Things) accordingly.

Now for the photos..

The guy in the grey coat seemed to be one of the main choreographers

Even with this few people on a windy moorside smoke soon obscured views

Cavalry menaces pike

Each side had 3 or 4 guns

Flourishing the ensigns to taunt the enemy

The Kings Guard - an elite Sealed Knot unit

Nice muzzle flashes

A flash in the pan?

At least I know have a good set of images for any future ECW rules/scenario publication.

Waterloo60 - The AAR

 

Looking NE at STARTEX from the French Left Flank

After everything else that's happened around Wterloo60 the After-Action-Review seems like a bit of an anti-climax, but guess I'd better do one for completeness!

Set Up

The 6km x 3.6km battlefield was represented at 1mm=1yd on two tables, each 20' x 6', split into a North and South table. We toyed with other arrangements (e.g. East and West, or even T shaped) but this was the only one that really worked, and it was only in the last turns that we had any across the gap fighting - which the grid makes easier anyway).  The whole table had dots every 10cm to give the grid that controlled all movement, firing etc. For more info on the terrain building see Converj - David's Blog: Waterloo60 - The Terrain (newconverj.blogspot.com)

Forces were 20mm, at 1:33, so about 4300 figures to deploy. We had some excellent sabots with double depth backs for labels done by Jim Moore of ProductsForWargamers, which made troop movement easy and kept on-table clutter to a minimum (must print the labels in a darker green next time though). Set up took ~ 5 hours, about 1 for the tiles, 1 for the terrain and 3 to lay out the troops (even with XY co-ordinates).

Scenario

We followed the original 11am deployments as per Adkins - so the Grand Battery not yet out. Once the game started commanders were free to move as they wanted - with victory points for Divisions put out of action (but unbalanced, so French will lose if 1:1) and for any French Divisions off the table. Dutch/Belgians in Braine l'Alleud and the Prussians had a randomised arrival method, both in time and (for the Prussians) in space.

Rules

We used Steady Lads Steady, my in-house, grid-based, rules. Adrian and Bill had read up on them but not played them, Nick and played them but not read up on them! Will had never seen them (or any other historical set) before. Feedback was good and I think they gave a pretty good game. Long lists of mods to make, mostly minor. Biggest one is probably re-introducing musketry, but at 1MU/1000m only. QRS is only 5 pages, the only time we ever looked at the full rulebook was when firing the rockets.

Commands

Nick played Wellington (he had the hoody!) and commanded the British Right Flank, with Adrian commanding the Centre and Left. Will played the Prussians. I played Napoleon and commanded the French Left, with Bill commanding the French Right. Since Bill and Will were not there the whole time we all covered for everyone else, with Nick and Adrian even moving the French!

How It Played

Nick and I both started keeping logs of what happened, mine lasted 1 turn, Nicks about 5! The game lasted for 18 turns and we were rushed off our feet throughout form all the visitors (see Converj - David's Blog: Waterloo60 - The Media (newconverj.blogspot.com)) so this will all be pretty high level, and really just an excuse to put some of the pictures up!

I decided to try a double envelopment, inspired by a comment in Elizabeth Latimer's "TALKS OF NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA WITH GENERAL BARON GOURGAUD" where Gourgaud remarks  "The Emperor says he did not see as much of the battle as he could have wished. He intended to make, as he had done at Montmirail, a perpendicular attack, and to have led it in person, but the arrival of Billow forced him to remain in a central position.". Whilst "perpendicular" to me would imply straight up the middle Montmirail (11 February 1814) seems to have involved a double envelopment, so that what I went with. 

So 6th and 9th Division of Reille's II Corps swung West of Hougoumont and started to head up the low valley on the flank, with Pire's cavalry catching the 51st as they tried to flee, and supported by Kellerman's II Cav Corps. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th Divisions of d'Erlon's I Corps headed for the Smohain valley, supported by Kellerman's IV Cav Corps. Lobau and the Guard were held in reserve.

II Corps moves forward on the French L flank

II Corps did well to start with, the British falling back E of the valley, with a minimal screen to the N. In a rash move I offered to allow Wellington to call the 3rd Dutch Division from Braine l'Alleud early. With a more aggressive defence by the Brits the combined Dutch/British force was enough to block the French advance. Although the Tirallieurs of the Middle Guard and the Empress Dragoons were racing round to re-inforce it was too late and as II Corps evaporated the Middle Guard was left with the task of holding the British off of the French table. At ENDEX I think just one British unit has managed to push forward and survive. Hougoumont, having been vacated by the British as the initial French advance came forward ended up as sanctuary for a couple of battered French battalions until their Division got its orders to withdraw.

Hougoumont acting as an aid station

In the Centre I Corp's 1st Division pushed forward to Grand Battery ridge, but only took a few batteries with them. These were enough to hold the British in position and gradually force some of the Dutch battalions to withdraw. 

1e Division pushes forwards

On the French right under Bill's sterling command the rest of I Corps pushed hard for Papelotte, screening that and Fischermont and starting to swing round the British flank. Unit after unit on both sides got embroiled in the fighting, and as casualties mounted there would often be a single defeat that triggered a domino effect of failed morale tests to clear one side out of the other. 

An atmospheric early morning shot of the refused British L flank

A British Square at the mercy of French guns NE of Papelotte

An early Prussian appearance just E of Fischermont forced I Corps to switch attention and gave the British enough breathing space to regroup. By ENDEX though the French still had forces almost on the British table edge. W of Papelotte at the head of the Ohain valley a bitter fight broke out along the hedgelines which proved hard to crack, only falling in the last moves to the British.

A nice view up the Ohain valley before contact

The fight for the Ohain hedges

The Allied view of the hedge fight

Apart from the Northern entrance most of the Prussians turned up deep in the Lasne valley. With VI Corps dispatched on the first warning to meet them E of Plancenoit the Prussians struggled to get out of the bottleneck - a few more northerly arrivals would have made a big difference. With the Prussians bottled up for now the Young Guard was sent to support VI Corps but by the time they got close 1st Division was pulling back and the YG went to support the hedges and the centre.

The Prussians moving up the Lasne Valley

An ongoing activity was the firing of the British rockets - not that anyone expected them to do much damage, it was just a fun thing to do. Several fizzled on the pad, none went backwards and most landed a few 100m from their target in the French lines. One rocket actually landed just behind La Belle Alliance where Napoleon notionally was - but luckily no General casualties in SLS!

The Rifles finally push forward from La Haie Sainte

In the closing stages the British centre W of La Haie Sainte started moving forwards - their skimishers bothering the French guns. 5th Division pushed some battalions forward to protect the guns and send the rifleman packing, but then found the British line descend on them. The Voltigeurs of the Middle Guard had moved forward and formed a strong defensive line behind the guns. Again at ENDEX no British has pushed onto the French table.

The Middle Guard stablises the French centre

We pulled stumps at the end of Turn 18. The French were basically spent, although they still controlled all of their table (except for Prussians), VI Corps and most of the Guard were unengaged and they still had cavalry roaming near the British baseline. The British though still had most of their centre uncommitted, had turned the tide their R flank, and were turning it on the L and Centre. So a marginal Allied victory was declared (yet to do the points calculation).

The Waterloo60 team - Adrian, Will, Nick, Bill and me

Thoughts

Overall I think things went really well. We'd mapped out 33 turns, but with all the interruptions, few players and most players not having used the rules I think we did well to get to 18. In fact given how much could happen in one turn I'm tempted to equate a turn to 30 minutes not 20 minutes at this scale, which would mean we fought to gone 6pm- but would also mean the "earlier" arrival of the Prussians. The Prussian arrival schedule was also a bit slow - despite good dice rolling.

The rules gave a good game, and the grid meant that no time was wasted measuring or arguing. The only thing really missing was short range musketry, as otherwise cavalry could pass squares and buildings unmolested, so I'll add that back in.

I've got various ideas as to how the set up the game differently next time we do it - potentially free set-up so as to make it easier to implement different strategies, the option of an 8am start, and perhaps the use of blinds to increase fog of war and also reduce set-up time!

Til 2022 then!

Links

The other Waterloo60 posts are:

• http://newconverj.blogspot.com/2021/09/waterloo60-terrain.html
• http://newconverj.blogspot.com/2021/08/waterloo60-media.html
• All others
  

A Few Final Photos

Waterloo60 - The Terrain

Before I get to the proper AAR I thought I'd do a quick post on the terrain. As previewed in several posts here we decided to use Halfords 2'x2' rubber floor tiles since they were light, cheap, sturdily interlocked and although prone to a bit of warping could be folded back flat (think I've bended one to 90 degrees without it snapping). The only downside is the zig-zag of the interlock but in reality once covered in terrain and troops you don't notice it too much.

18 x 20mm soldiers in battalion sabots on 10cm grid

I painted the tiles in ordinary wall paint ( a really nice green that's now discontinued :-( ), coated in neat PVA and the spread a mix of 2 parts static grass to 1 part Javis Dark Brown or Dark Earth. It took me almost the whole project to realise that I could apply the PVA with a paint roller! I found that thinned PVA just didn't stick enough flock.

I used the Belgian Ordnance Survey equivalent (IGN) to inspect the contours and settled on 110m and 125m as my contours, with 2 layers of the tiles. There was one 1/4 tile above 125m for a third layer. For the base (<110m) layer we thought about doing another tile layer, but at 10 tiles by 6 tiles (equivalent to 6km x 3.6km) that would be another 60 tiles, although not all needed painting/flocking. Given time (and storage) pressures we instead bought about 10m+ of a lovely rustic green felt, sprayed it with artists spray mount and then flocked it. The felt was NOT cheap, but we used less spray mount and flock than I thought. It doesn't shed too badly and rolls up fine.

I traced the IGN map extract (guess adjusted for post-Waterloo changes) onto the tiles, marking them out in the 10cm squares we'd use for the game. I started with smooth natural lines, but then decided to more closely follow the grid so that you didn't have too many units hanging off a mid-square slope. That also helped with trying to reach tile edges at a consistent point so as to make tile re-use for a different landscape easier, but I'm doubtful it will work that well. I managed to source some 4" Stanley knife blades from a campervan supplier which made cutting the angles sloped a lot easier. We also painted, flocked and cut the supplied edge pieces so the layout had a smooth rather than jagged edge.

The only road I did on the tiles was the main Charleroi to Brussels road. Cutting it in didn't work at all, so it was just painted on top. I used my own wooden road segments for the sunken lane, and brown felt with flocked edges for the other tracks. I added a yellow or brown flock fields to a good percentage of the tiles to break the green up, but the main flock mix gave some nice variation anyway.

As each tile was done I laid a tile sized template (actually made from the packaging!) on it, with holes to show the dot positions for the 10cm grid. That made that process fast and easy. Finally I wrote the tile location (in an XY co-ordinate system) on the back - the back refused to stick to any tape to give me a white/silver surface to write on, or take a permanent marker, so I had to use a white chinagraph. Post wargame I'm now using some household white paint to redo the co-ordinates, but even that doesn't stick well! (We briefly through about etching the co-ordinates with a hot-glue gun sans glue but the tile refused to melt - no fire risk there then!)

I reckon it took me an hour each to cut, then paint then flock each pack of 6 tiles, so at ~90 tiles that's 3x15 = 45 hours. The packs of 6 were £10 when I started last autumn, £12 when I finished this spring and are now £16! With everything done we did the lawn layout to check it all out as reported at http://newconverj.blogspot.com/2021/06/waterlo60-garden-laydown.html.

For the game itself I bought 60 odd table cloth clips, the type used at marquee banquets. I sprayed the tops green and we put those round the edge to hold the tiles onto the table and minimise any warping. We also used some huge 40mm dress making pins (really mini-nails!) to pin the top tier to the lower tier, and also to pin through to the felt below to further minimise warping and any gaps.

I had a few concerns about robustness of the paint/flock, particularly at the interlock, but post game the tiles look fine, and I'd already used most of them a few times on trial games and other wargames. Spray mount was ideal when I wanted to redo some of the early ones that had a poor initial flock covering, so I think with a bit of care and maintenance  they should last for years and multiple games - especially if I can get a re-use model sorted for the shaped pieces. The whole battlefield stacks into a 6'x2'x2' stack and can be carried as two lifts - so pretty storable and portable.

Overall I think we were all blown away by the total effect, and certainly I've got no reservations about the approach we took.

On the to AAR!

Waterloo60 - The Media

The dearth of posts here for the last couple of months has been the result of the somewhat frantic preparations for our Waterloo60 game to celebrate Nick and my 60th Birthdays. The game finally took place last weekend, 20-23 Aug 21. As it was the whole celebration got a little out of hand and so blogging it is going to take quite a few posts!

One reason for it ending up as more than the sum of its parts was Nick's bright idea to let the local news media know. It took a few emails but he ended up making contact with a journalist from GetSurrey/SurreyLive. She interviewed Nick and I over the phone and sent a photographer to his house on the Thursday, where we were joined by my brother Adrian, who'd painted almost half the troops, for a photoshoot and they ran an article on-line early Friday.

Nick, myself, and Adrian with some of Nick's Hussars

That was nice, but then they said they wanted to livestream the game! So another journalist turned up lunchtime on Friday. Set up was taking longer than thought (5 hours in the end!) so she had to help put the troops on the table before we could start! She interviewed the three of us, I then gave a guided tour of the tabletop battlefield and then we gave a running commentary as we went through the first few activations of the game. In the end she livestreamed for about 45 minutes and you can see the result at https://www.facebook.com/surreylivenews/videos/591607458915299.

The same photographer from Thursday night had also come down to get some "action" shots. And they all got posted up along with some more text and a 1 minute video in another article - https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/gallery/pictures-former-dorking-school-friends-21378573

What was really nice was that the first reporter then called us back up on Monday when it was all over to find out how the game went.

And finally on Thursday (yesterday) the print edition of the local paper came out, and they'd put us not only on the cover but on an inside page spread too!

Not to be outdone by all this professional video making we'd also put a camera up at the end of the room as soon as we arrived on Thursday, taking a photo a minute - so you can now see the whole 4 day event in 90 seconds - and make sure you turn the sound on!

That's enough media stuff for now, over the weekend I'll try and blog the actual game!

2 Sep Update

Seems like we were in the Daily Mirror (print edition!) last Thursday too! Unfortunately they confused Alan (who died in 2018) with my brother (still very much alive) in the story and caption.

Battle of La Rothière - 1 Feb 1814

 

Last weekend Francis hosted a "team-building" weekend in his suitably airy barn. I was allocated to the "Allied" team and Nick to the "French" team. Our teams goals were to convince the residents of La Rothiere, Petit Mesnil, Chausmesnil and Morvilliers that the "Monarchy" brand of ruler was superior to the "Emporer" brand. In addition we needed to send a spearhead sales team beyond these towns to be ready to continue our marketing campaign in the city of Brienne.

The terrain as ever looked fantastic, with a suitably snow covering to the table. The stand-out pieces though were Francis' buildings, where he'd cunningly draped them in the sort of semi-transparent glittery "snow-scene" cloth you buy at Christmas so that every buildings was instantly (and relatively cheaply) converted from a run-of-the-mill house or barn to something straight out of a Christmas card.

Nick and I found that we were not only on opposing teams, but had commands facing each other on the far (Allied) right flank, fighting for control of Morvilliers. Nick started in occupation and I had a meagre Division ( Hardegg's) of about 6 battalions of Austrians  to oust him.

One of the features of the battle itself was that the French had lots of cavalry, but little infantry, whereas the Allies had lots of infantry but little cavalry. This makes for an interesting and challenging wargame.

Battle was soon joined on the Allied Left and Centre, and quite honestly all I saw of that was lots of Allied infantry going bravely into the fight and steadily pushing the French back. To my left the Crown Prince of Bavaria spent much of the first day fighting his way out of a stoppered defile, but once free of it he had  clear run to get off-table and out-flank the French.

Closer to home to my immediate left Frimont fought bravely to take La Giberie and the ridge line just S of Morvillier.

Meanwhile I spent the first day trying to get into Morvillier itself. My brigade advanced on the first building, taking fire from a French gun, assaulted the building, pushed the French out, and then failed their follow-up roll, so stood outside whilst the French moved back in. Subsequent assaults failed (and Nick made a point of rolling on 7s and 8s on a D8 all day), and by the end of Day 1 I was one brigade down and no closer to getting in.

Day 2 saw a somewhat unwelcome resupply of ammunition to the artillery (favouring the French somewhat), but with only 10 turns left it was time to get stuck in. Nick decided to finally push his cavalry forward (my one gun battery had been doing its best to hold them off, but being the only unit left in its Brigade was forever wondering about going home). My cavalry charged before they got mauled by his horse artillery, and miracle of miracles I started throwing 8s and Nick started throwing 1s and 2s, and whilst one of my regiments was pushed back the second held Nicks to a draw. With the cavalry kept busy my second Brigade (of only two battalions) could now renew the assault on Morvillier, and took the first building with ease. Too weak to take the rest of the town Frimont was racing to my support, but got delayed when Nick's Dragoons occupied the Giberie ridge and threatened any infantry move N into Morvillier. Vital turns were lost whilst Frimont cavalry extracted itself from tussles further South, but the Crown Prince, supported by some Cossacks, was also getting behind the ridge and Nick's troops, and the Dragoon's position was beginning to look vulnerable.

By turn 16 we had all our objectives except Morvilliers.  I still had a chance though. I worked out that in the 4 moves left I could just reach the stronghold building in Morvilliers with one of Frimont's infantry brigades and would have one turn to try and take it. Nick's dice luck was also breaking and I was beginning to roll some more 8s.

So in the interests of time it was decided to stop all the other fighting and just focus on Nick and I. My two infantry battalions already in Morvilliers took the 2nd building, our cavalry held off Nicks, the infantry moved forward, but with 2 turns to go I rechecked the distance and they were going to be 2cm short! But Nick's Brigade was very fragile, and he had to make Brigade Command Tests for turns 19 and 20 anyway, so we just stopped all movement and rolled those. He rolled 8 on Turn 19 and passed but then a 2 on Turn 20 and had to retire out of the Stronghold and my battalion (only one by then) already in Morvilliers could claim the Allied victory!

A great game as ever, enjoyed by all despite the COVID limitations. Many thanks to Francis for organising and hosting, and to the Umpires for ensuring fair play throughout.