Guard Attack - General d'Armee

We played the final scenario "Guard Attack" from the Waterloo scenario book for the rules of General d'Armee from Dave Brown.

This scenario pitches the remnants of the Allied army with Guards, British infantry, Brunswickers, Nassau, and the Dutch-Belgians as well, against the cream of the Guard Chassuers, and two small brigades of infantry and one cavalry, all units apart from the Guard having casualties initially due to the

ongoing battle casualties and fatigue throughout the day.

The Allies were commanded by John, Ian and Steve L, the French by Si & Mike.

Left to right, John, Ian and Steve, commanding the Allies. I think that's their confident, nonchalant look!

I initially made the commanders use the blind card system, and made the spotting range variable, down to the palls of smoke and battlefield debris at this stage of the game; this was 12" plus 2xd6, rather than the standard 24" spotting during the day, and I believe gave a little fog of war.

The Allies were deployed on the table on blinds, and would not be spotted if behind the crest line, but of course could not shoot or spot themselves. 

The French had to deploy and move from the board edge, unknown to either side that there was a 16 turn limit to the game.

The Allies having a reserve of Dettmer's Dutch-Belgian brigade arriving on turn 4, and the French being able to release Cambronne's Brigade from the board edge reserve on turn 3.

The game started off relatively slowly, with the French trying to get their gun batteries forward, and with their infantry supporting them, however with poor rolls initially, it was not until turn 5 that the batteries were in place, during this time the Allies were happy to sit behind the ridge, only sending the 95th Rifles, in skirmish order, forward on the left to scout out the French blinds.

They found Husson's and Danzelot's Brigades trudging forward slowly; a small exchange of skirmish fire resulted in some minor casualties, but the Allied skirmish line had to fall back under the pressure of French columns coming forwards.

Meanwhile in the centre the French deployed their gun batteries, a 12pdr and, 6pdr battery, and the guard horse battery.

At this point the Allies manhandled a battery onto the ridge-line to give fire, unfortunately this did not deliver much and was met but a fusillade of shot from the French batteries.

On the French left the blinds began moving forward at quite a rapid rate for a couple of turns, gaining momentum, and in response the Allies sent forward a blind, with both spotting each other through the smoke and discovering the French left with the brigades of Malet's and Cambronne's Guard Chasseurs in column and skirmish order, seeing the British deploy Maitland's brigade of Guards - this was going to be interesting.

Across the field I could see the British in column though? This is going to be painful I thought; and it was, with the British fire causing a 'fire discipline' on themselves and then the French returned with volleys and artillery fire, eventually causing 3/1st Guards to break, followed by the 2/1st which retired as well, leaving a hole on the Allied right.

The French advanced slowly towards the crest.

It was then than the Allies brought forward there line onto the crest, both sides exchanging fire with each other, the French causing 'fire disciplines' and slowing the advance, on the left, down, but with the Allies managing to fill the gap with the remainder of the guards and Halkett's brigade on their left, with the Nassau, two batteries of guns, Brunswickers, and Adam's brigade on the far left of the line.

The to and fro of shot and musket was deliberate and bloody, however the writing was on the wall as the French pressed their main attack on the left with all three Guard brigades

The fragile remainder of Maitland's and Halkett's brigade broke and the French were up the slope and into them.

On reflection the game may have been different if the Allied guns had been deployed sooner and bombarded the slow moving French' however who knows?

The rules themselves play very well, command and control is key, positioning the ADC's is critical, but even they can't help bad dice, can they Si? Never seen so many hesitant brigades.

Thanks to all those who played in a challenging but fun scenario. Next time we may do the cavalry charges or D'Erlon's attack, or even Quatre Bras again, oh the choices... 

Cheatham Enters the Fray - Brigade Fire & Fury Version Two

This scenario was taken from BFF Great Western Battles Scenario Book. It is the later part of the Battle of Atlanta July 22nd, 1864.

For the purist I apologise for the absence of the railway. I have put it all away pending laying of new track in the future.

Our game started with the Rebels off board and the Union Troops arrayed behind the fortified positions. As the Rebels were attacking, they held the initiative for the entire game. 

Our Union players were Roger on their left flank and Mike on the right. 

For the Rebels, Paul on there right flank and Bob on the left.

The initial moves saw the Rebels advance all along the front and a fair amount of counter battery fire which saw guns on both sides silenced and damaged. As the advance continued the Rebels held back on the left but advanced rapidly through the woods on the right. This gave the impression that they had committed all their forces. In response to this the Union commanders decided to pull their units from behind the second line of defences to reinforce their left.

On spotting the redeployment of Union forces the Rebels committed the rest of their units and pushed forward on the left. On turn three, when the Union reserves arrived, they moved to the right to cover the Rebel advance.

The Union centre was held in position by threatening Rebel units just out of musket range. Meanwhile on the Union left the Rebels burst out the woods to attack the prepared positions. After fierce combat the union units were pushed back, the Rebels moved to the fieldworks, held position, and brought up their only mobile field piece. They now had a foothold on the Union left.

With the Union left held, the Rebels concentrated on the Union right moving up in force and readying to charge the just deploying Union reserves. The Rebel charges went in throwing good dice, a 10 and having lots of plusses, a score of fourteen. The Rebel commander was elated and then the Union leader also threw a 10, not the victory the Rebels were expecting.

On the Rebel right they now arrayed massive fire power at a very silly range and throwing a 10, blew away a complete Union unit. On both flanks the pressure from the Rebels was telling, inflicting heavy casualties and the Union forces reached the magic 30 stands loss. 1 victory point to the rebels. 

Union forces were now forced to pull back to the second line of defences, but it was too late. Rebel pressure on both flanks told and the game was called with an overwhelming Rebel victory. 

As an umpire this was an easy game to adjudicate as only one player had never used the rules. The other players helped, and I didn’t really have to make any decisions. 

My thanks to the guys for making my life easy.

For those who may be interested.

Rule Set – Brigade Fire and Fury Version 2.

ACW troops – AB and Blue Moon figures and I would like to thank Nick S and Mr Steve who painted my figures for me.

Trees were from Buffers near Axminster, Devon, and Amazon.

Roads and Rivers – Search Fat Frank on EBay.

Snake Fences – also on EBay. Search 15mm snake fence.

Walls – I’m pretty sure they came from Pendraken and came ready painted but I can’t remember the link.

Hills – Not seen but were under the cloth were from totalsystemscenic.com.

Battle Cloth – tinywargames.co.uk

Chain of Command - Scottish Corridor, Pint Size Campaign, Probe at Bas de Mouen & Le Valtru, Games 3 & 4

The latest meeting of the Devon Wargames Group saw the second instalment of our Chain of Command ‘Pint-sized’ campaign: The Scottish Corridor. Having been rebuffed once already at the Eastern end of the campaign ladder, we Germans had a second go at pinching the allied salient from both sides. 

Probe at Bas de Mouen

Background

The Leibstandarte attack the isolated troops of the 3rd Monmouths in Bas de Mouen. They must break through quickly in order to push on to their objectives.

Despite a poor advance roll from German attackers, the patrol phase gave us a good spread of jump-off points on the northern half of the board (extreme right of picture below) of Bas de Mouen. Early phases not only allowed the establishment of a broad attacking front behind a hedge, but units were also able to move south and capture the house on the other side of the road, ultimately capturing the foremost British jump-off point and forcing them to start further back. 

A Tiger 1 as reinforcement caused ripples amongst the enemy too, and despite several PIAT ambushes it ground its way forward, with at least one squad using it as cover as they choked and coughed their way through the clouds of smoke laid down by British mortars, towards the barns on the enemy side of the table.

As the Tiger and two squads crossed the Northern field, the third squad which had moved out of the house and onto the enemy jump-off point ran into increasingly stiff resistance from units trying to flank them in the woods to the South.

The sneaky (or daring, depending on who you ask) Scottish troops popped out of the woods to put flanking fire – including a PIAT – onto the Tiger and the squads crossing the Northern fields.

In support of their suppressed colleagues, the third squad turned North and attempted to get a bead on the Brits on the edge of the woods, but no sooner they do so than the enemy retreated into the woods again to try and flank them. 

Wanting for targets, they laid several men cold who had been sequestering themselves in the barn, providing sufficient support to allow the Tiger and the first squad to cross the hedge by the barn and make it over the objective line. This was a tactic suggested by Chris, and without whom I would not have broken my run of losing games to date. Indeed, when he had to depart mid-way through the second game, I then floundered and lost again. Enjoyment is why we do it, right, not winning?

With progress made on the Eastern map, we turned our attention to the Western side of the ladder for a second stab at Le Valtru. Experience told me that the long straight road from East to West across the board would provide a lovely shooting arcade for any tank that came on.

Background

This scenario sees Der Führer launch their attack at Le Valtru just as the 7th Seaforth Highlanders

attempt to move into the village. launch their attack into the eastern outskirts of Mouen. This is a Patrol

Scenario, albeit one with a lot of support to reflect this encounter action.

Despite my best intentions, for the second game in a row a Churchill came on first and effectively divided the map in two. 

Close support barrages on both games meant that getting units onto the table was no certainty, and it was several turns before I was able to get the Flammpanzer onto the table. It did a good job of scaring several teams away from the Northern side of the long barn, but this backfired on me later on: they then moved South and threatened to add to the firepower shooting down the line of the river at the two squads trying to make a run for it out of the woods first. 

Meanwhile, an additional squad of support troops did their best to advance along the middle of the table. Learning the hard way that you don’t just climb over a wall and walk across open ground when the enemy has Bren guns on the opposite hedge, they promptly retreated back over the wall again. 

The superior firepower of their MG42’s might have been enough to resolve that long range fire-fight, were it not for the weighing in of the ever watchful Churchill back down the table.

Ultimately the Churchill became the ultimate gate-guardian, turning it’s attention to anything that dared to cross its gaze. In full retreat, one German soldier was heard to mutter ‘why didn’t he use the Panzerfausts?’ T’was a very good question…….