Wednesday, March 6, 2024

The Battle of Fraise - Part 2 the AAR

Ray, Steve and a number of Reject Zoom groupies got together to witness the first campaign battle just west of the town of Fraise.  See here for introduction.

For your information, the figures are 6mm MDF from Commission Figurines and the rules being used are Volley and Bayonet. 

Steve (French) as Augereau was defending the road in prepared positions.  Ray as Wurmser and Lee (Argenteau) were entering from the east.

Augereau had three infantry and one cavalry division at his disposal.  The Austrians had a considerable force of six infantry divisions and one cavalry division.  Plus, there were other troops arriving later in the day from further afield.

The French deployed on the hills straddling the road and their line of communications.  Most of the infantry being either behind earthworks or in the light woods.  Their cavalry was deployed further forward on the French left.



walls and lolly pop sticks making up for my lack of appropriate scenery.

The first turn was 12:00 noon.  Daylight was going to end by 21:00.  So, the players had the potential for 9 turns, each turn representing 1 hour.  Movement is big in Volley and Bayonet to reflect the time and ground scale, and the grand tactical nature of the ruleset.

Apologies for lack of early snaps.  However, in short, The Austrians drove their cavalry division of hussars up the road and sharply north to take a position on the right flank (facing the French left).  The French mounted responded quickly by charging the 30th Wurmser Regt.

Chasseurs a Cheval and Dragoons contact the near Austrian hussars.

Weight of numbers wiped out the hussars.  But dice rolling was good on both sides (this seemed to be a feature of the game), thus the Chasseurs were dispersed.


Meanwhile, Wurmser (Ray) painstakingly begun the process of advancing his infantry along the road and through the light woods in order to deploy for the hoped for decisive assault.


Augereau's infantry remain stationary and prepared in their defences.  The Austrian's may be moving, but the clock is ticking down all the time.


Wurmser's last hussar regiment is launched at the French dragoons. 


Luck is blessing both sides!  The dragoons are swept from the field.  However, the exertion has neutralised the hussars as force.


Augereau (Steve) pulls his remaining heavy cavalry and skirmish cavalry back to the relative safety of the hill.


Tick... tick... tick.  Wurmser's (Ray) and then Argenteau's (Lee, who unfortunately could not be present) infantry continue to trudge through the inconvenient terrain.  But slowly, the Austrians are deploying while the French watch and wait.


The Austrians are clearly concerned to avoid getting into French artillery range too soon.  However, they do take the opportunity to extend their line south in order to start overlapping the French, and swing a battery forward to engage against the 14th line, which does not enjoy the advantage of  being behind field works.


Tick... tick... tick.  More and more, the Austrians are getting into position.  But, the sun is dipping in the sky.
Some late arriving cavalry appears.  Wurmser decides to keep them in march column.

Cavalry in column can just be seen in the bottom right corner.

Cautious Wurmser (Ray) now starts to show some aggression.  Moving swiftly, he sends freikorps and two regiments into the heavy woods on the French right flank.  From the east the cavalry is emerging from the light woods and can gather some momentum.


Cavalry in column emerging from the woods.  Note the bases to reflect that they are in march column and that this is the length of that column's tail.

After slow progress through the woods (nearly an hour in tabletop battle time), Austrian infantry prepares to deliver volleys in support of grenadiers charging up the hill against the French 14th line.


Having put up a good and very close fight, the French regiment is forced to retire in disorder.  This leaves the grenadiers able to take the position and face the French right flank.  It's looking a little grim for Augereau (Steve).




Meanwhile, to the north the Austrian cavalry sprints forward and round to position themselves on the French left flank.


But the French commander is not going to let the Austrians have it all their own way.  Taking the opportunity to recover from disorder, the 14th is moved forward to re-engage.  Plus, the French flank turns to face the grenadiers.  The volley fire from both being devastating (I said the dice rolling on both sides was good) and wiping out the Austrian shock troops.  Perhaps this flank is not folding without a fight.


However, Augereau (Steve) seeing that Wurmser (Ray) was now in a position to assault both frontally and on each flank decided to play the long game and withdraw leaving the field to the Austrians.

The final positions before French withdrawal.

But... the French cannot withdraw without the possibility of an Austrian pursuit taking place.  

In the campaign, each side has a number of light cavalry (LC) points allocated across their corps and divisions.  This is an abstraction to enable strategic operations like scouting, and to be used as pursuit. They do not appear in battles.  Each side totals their LC points present.  If the winner has more they roll that number of d6.  Sixes cause a loss of one strength point off whichever division the loser uses as a rear guard.  Ray rolled extremely well and caused 5 strength points of casualties.

Analysis/Conclusions
Ray had two turns of the game left.  In Volley and Bayonet terms this is plenty of opportunity to cause an awful lot of damage.  Especially when considering that Ray was ready to engage/charge on each flank and along the whole French line.  Nonetheless, it's not a lot of wriggle room.

The woods held up Ray's deployment, but it was a great lesson learned about deploying from a road.  Plus, the woods which held up Ray also protected his troops from being harassed by the defenders as they arrived.  In short, the terrain permitted Ray to mass his infantry and bring them forward.  The only potential negative is having to march against the clock.

One has to wonder about holding a static position.  However, Steve was grossly outnumbered.  Given time, the Austrians were always going to be able to envelope the French.

I guess there was not a lot of combat, but it was an intriguing game of movement that led to a victory by one side manoeuvring the other out of their position.  I would imagine that a lot of generals would accept that sort of victory gained with little loss. 

Everyone seemed happy with the play, the rules and how the campaign translated onto the table top battle.

Seven turns completed in about 3 and a half hours.  I'm happy with that.

Now to administer the French strategic retreat and prepare for the next strategic moves on the map.

Happy Days!


Thursday, February 29, 2024

The Battle of Fraise - A fictional campaign game: Part 1 The Prelude

Being a firm believer that war games where players consider their tactical tabletop decisions within a broader strategic framework makes for more interesting events and dilemmas, I cobbled together some rules and a map together for the Rejects to test.  All in the knowledge that there will probably be amendments and additions along the way.

The map for the campaign is as follows:


It's a little basic.  I used the free version of Worldographer to produce it- see here.  I clearly need to hone my skills.

The campaign is fictional, but nominally set during the period of the French Revolutionary Wars. The French, commanded by David, Steve and Surjit, are pitted against the Austrians led by Lee and Ray.

The two sides are blind to the others' organisation and movement. So, I cannot reveal too much as the campaign is live. However, what is known is that the French enter from the west, and Austrians from the east. Both may choose which road(s) to enter on.

The victory conditions are:
The first side to have lost half its strength points will have to retire from the campaign.
OR
The winner is the first side to reach 5 victory points, which are awarded as follows
1 point per battle won. 
2 points for the enemy line of communication cut and held for a week (seven campaign turns)

As it currently stands, we are on Turn 6 of the campaign.  This is the first battle accepted by both sides.  The Austrians have also had their line of communications cut.

Having bumped into Steve's command at hex 07.10, just east of ComtĂ©, Ray pulled his command back to Fraise and called upon Lee to send reinforcements.  In the meantime, Steve edged forward further east towards Fraise and worked on establishing a defensive position along the ComtĂ©/Fraise road.  With more troops now available,  Ray and Lee moved to contact Steve at hex 08:10.

The was the generated map for the hex location of the map.  The French (Steve) deploying anyway on the western half of the table.  The Austrians (Ray) arriving on the road from Fraise on the eastern side.

apologies for the image quality

Once a map has been generated for a particular hex that terrain remains for the campaign. 

Now I have just been struck by a thought.  I could add a campaign order that permits scouting to include surveying a hex if no enemy found.  Hmmmm... I'll ponder that.  It could certainly add that idea of commanders knowing and seeking to choose where to fight.

For those of you that may be interested, the campaign orders that each player can give their commands - either full corps or separate divisions are:

Move
Prepare defences and scout
Rest the command and scout - commands are obliged to rest at least one in seven days, more if force marching, or less commands will become fatigued.
Move with march to the sound of the guns

That's a little introduction to the Battle of Fraise.  Fingers crossed the next instalment will be the battle report.



Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Trasimene - The Return Match

The Rejects reassembled at Jonathan's (Palouse Wargaming) virtual home to swap sides and refight the Battle of Trasimene.  The first ended swiftly with utter Roman humiliation in two turns and less than two hours.  So now that we all knew it and the rules a little better, how would this one play out?

Steve and I were now the Carthaginians, with me taking the defile and Hannibal.

Lee and Ray were the Romans with Lee as Flaminius and Ray in the defile (where most Rejects believe he should be!!).

Very few pictures and limited report I'm afraid  See Jonathan's post for a fuller and probably more balanced account.

Steve started by advancing his line, but without being able to successfully charge except with light horse on the right flank pushing at Roman skirmishers.  Likewise, the defile saw the heavy spears advance but failed to contact with one and saw the other pushed back by Roman light troops.

Flaminius took the opportunity to move away from the lake and form a line, making a conscious decision not to combine the heavy infantry into large units.


The start of turn two saw, what was to me, the defining moment of the game.  The Romans' were able to win the initiative.  Flaminius (Lee) quickly took the opportunity to stand his line and remove the disorder from all of his units.  This now presented quite a formidable wall of infantry in front of the Carthaginian centre and right.

Nonetheless, Steve made more advances on the far right with his light cavalry.  Perhaps even developing a future threat to the Roman flank.  In the centre, he threw his warbands against Flaminius's infantry.  The result was a little mixed.  A breach had been made in the Roman line.  However, the warbands were becoming exhausted in the process.

Meanwhile, in the defile an assault by the Carthaginian heavy spears was thrown back in utter disarray.  Ray rightly took advantage to tear forward with his heavies.  After a long attritional melee, he wiped out one heavy spear unit but was so worn down that it was pushed away by the light infantry on the far left.  However, Ray kept up the pressure and, like a juggernaut, engaged my light infantry, beat them back then turned to deal out death to my remaining heavy unit in the defile.  Fortunately, the Romans were repulsed, giving the spears a reprieve.

Hannibal's heavy spears decided to come out of reserve and advance towards Flaminius' line, having decided that the battle was going to won by the lake not in the defile.


With a concentration of skirmish shooting against Flaminius' right, things were looking less bleak for the Carthaginians.  Hannibal then advanced his Scutari into contact with Roman heavy infantry.  With their point blank weapons and capable meleeing, damage was being inflicted on Flaminius' line.  Indeed, the Roman general was pushed back to the shores of the lake... but not in it!

Flaminius, perhaps galled by the shooting and the Scutari, charged the Triarii on the Roman right to engage Hannibal and his heavy spears on our left by the hill.  The Roman infantry were beaten back, pursued then destroyed. Seizing the moment, Hannibal took the fight to the medium cavalry emerging  from the defile by the lake. The combat was deadly, forcing the cavalry off the battlefield.


With Hannibal's triumphant advance, the battle was won. Rome was defeated... but it was a close battle.

Final thoughts
The Romans played a good game. In winning the initiative at the beginning of turn 2 the game swung heavily in their favour, reinforced by their successes in the defile and in re-ordering the line along the lake shore.  With their good organisation and successes in the defile, it really looked like a Roman victory was developing.

The Carthaginian Scutari caused a lot of damage on the Roman infantry.  Plus, using the ranged weapons of the skirmishers and light infantry induced disorder and a nervous tension in Flaminius' line.

At the key moment, Hannibal and his heavy infantry was at the right place at the right time to receive Flaminius' attack by the Triarii, and to then follow through.

The Romans, Lee and Ray, played well and took good advantage of the turn two initiative win.  However, good and timely dice rolls were more evenly distributed this time.

At three turns and around two and a half hours of play, this was a longer game.  It was also a more balanced one with more consideration and reflection required by the players.  A close and intriguing encounter.

Well done Jonathan.  Thoroughly enjoyable.