Battle of Rolica - 17th August 1808

This month saw the roll out of our first scenario using "Napoleon at War" from Man at War.

The chosen battle was Rolica, the first battle between British and French troops in the Peninsular War and the debut of one of Britain's greatest military commanders, Sir Arthur Wellesley, later to become the Duke of Wellington.



This battle at first glance may not seem that attractive to most wargamers, with a relatively small French advance guard up against a much larger, about 3:1, Allied army of British and Portuguese troops. The scenario attempts to balance this by measuring each commanders results with those achieved by their historical predecessor. For a PDF copy of the scenario, and more information about the thinking behind it, follow the link to JJ's Wargames Blog.

The area of the battle portrayed in our scenario

We set up the forces as per the historical arrangement with Sir Arthur Wellesley's main forces arrayed  in front of the French occupying Rolica and Rolica Hill. The scenario assumes that Sir Arthur has sent his two outflanking columns off table and thus the French force will have to fall back within a limited time. General DeLaborde managed to hold the Allies for three hours, twelve moves, until falling back from his second position in considerable disorder loosing 600 men and three guns in the retreat. Wellesley managed this by manouvering his oppontent off his positions rather than head on assault and lost just 479 casualties. How would our tabletop commanders compare?

Under the opening salvo from the Royal artillery brigade at the centre of Sir Arthur's force, eight battalions of line infantry, two rifle battalions, one cacadore battalion and some light cavalry arranged in four brigades, set off on their march to meet the French. The British troops were keen to close with the enemy, having chased their rearguard out of the small walled town of Obidos the night before. As the redcoats closed on Rolica Hill the French guns opened fire in response with seemingly little effect as the British closed up to fill any gaps caused in their ranks.

The view from the ridge, Columbiera village on the left, Rolica on the right

View from the British start line facing the French on Rolica Hill

The French under General de Division DeLaborde were confident in their abilities. This was the army that had quickly dealt with the Austrians, Russians and Prussians in little over three years, with battles such as Austerlitz, Jena - Auerstadt and Friedland to look back on, so they were not overawed by this British army who had a habit of running for the boats at the first possible upset.

The initial French position was a formidable one with two battalions plus artillery holding the hill and one battalion occupying Rolica and blocking the Lisbon road. The remainder of the force, two battalions and a light cavalry regiment were held in support.

The 1/70th Ligne, 3/2nd Legere and Foot Artillery holding Rolica Hill

The French seemed mesmerised by the perfect drill of the British regulars as their brigades worked their way forward and around General DeLaborde's positions.

General Hill's brigade in the foreground with Nightingale's and Fane's brigades beyond

Fane's brigade, 95th Rifles, 60th Rifles and the 6th Cacadores

As the British columns closed on French troops, one by one the individual battalions shook out into line with drums beating and their colours flying, light companies to the front ready to contest the skirmish battle with their French counterparts.

The British advance

Both sides had small contingents of light cavalry and artillery, but the main effort would lie with the infantry.

General "Daddy"Hill leads his brigade supported by the 20th Light Dragoons

Wellesley, top right, overseas the approach march of Nightingale's brigade

With an overwhelming force in front and around both flanks DeLaborde could only hope to delay his adversary and try to inflict occasional checks on the allied advance. Timing the precise time to disengage would be critical. The scenario aimed to capture this dilemma by requiring the French to stay and deny the Allies access to the ridge line at the top of the table for twelve moves, approximately three hours. However if they delayed too long they risked becoming embroiled in a combat that would destroy their force before they could withdraw.

The 95th Rifle supported by the 60th Rifles prepare to assault the 3/4th Legere holding Rolica

Everything was going to plan up to turn three as the British moved into musket range of Rolica and it's neighbouring hill. Both sides exchanged fire, and seeing the British support units moving up the French attempted to disengage and fall back. All did except the 3/2nd Legere who for some reason did not retire, throwing the planned pull back off track.

As if sensing the French indecision, the 95th Rifles launched an assault on Rolica village forcing the 3/4th Legere to stay and support their colleagues on the hill. The elite rifleman charged into the narrow streets and small buildings engaging their light counterparts in deadly hand to hand fighting. The first hours of battle had the riflemen firmly in control of Rolica and the 3/4th Legere streaming back up the Lisbon road in rout.

In desperation General de Brigade Brenniers turned to the least likely of units to retake the village and stabilise his line. The 4th Swiss were ordered to charge in and eject the rifles. They seemed to advance quite steadily at first to the village outskirts, but after passing the remnants of the 4th Legere throwing away weapons and acoutrments that might slow their rout, they simply stopped and refused to advance any further.

The 4th Swiss held in support of Rolica

Meanwhile on the French left flank General Hill's brigade had started to turn the Rolica position and its lead battalions already had the rear of the hill in their sight.

The 1/9th foot lead Hill's brigade in turning the French left flank

With his centre hotly engaged and his right flank wide open the only reserve left to hold up Hill's brigade were the 200 plus men of the 26th Chasseur a Cheval who gamely trotted forward to meet the redcoats drawing their sabres as they approached. As if in instant salute to this bold advance by such a small cavalry contingent the 1/5th and 1/9th formed line, dressed their ranks and presented arms.

The French sensing discretion was the better part of valour fell back just far enough to force the British to continue their advance in line.

The 26th Chasseur a Cheval move up to delay the advance of Hill's brigade

The British centre was lead by General Nightigale's brigade and in a bold but somewhat foolhardy attempt to pin the troops on Rolica Hill, the 29th Foot charged the French gun line, and were coolly met with a well aimed barrage of canister driving them back. Sir Arthur was not best pleased by this rash attack, he was becoming aware of the lack of experience in his commanders, which only time and further contact with the enemy would overcome.

The 29th Foot prepare to assault the guns on Rolica Hill

The attack by the 29th had been unnecessary as events on the flanks were alarming the defenders on the hill to start thinking about leaving immediately or face being attacked from the rear.

The 70th Ligne start to fall back from Rolica Hill as British infantry approach

As further British troops closed in on their position the French finally got their act together and successfully disengaged pulling back down the reverse slope.

General Crawford's reserve brigade moves on past Sir Arthur in support of Fane and Nightingale

The 95th Rifles "mop up" after a vicious battle to take Rolica

This sudden fall back by the French troops couldn't come quickly enough as with Rolica in British hands the race to the ridge line was well and truly on.

This is where the Allies could force a "sudden death" conclusion to the game by getting more good order troops onto the ridge than the French thus compelling them to retire and reducing the casualty count. Would they take advantage of the opportunity?

British reserves moving up

The fighting moved through the valley as the French withdrew

The rearguard to the rearguard

The pressure builds on and around Rolica Hill

The Rifles re-group

As the two armies attempted to move up the valley to the ridge line, the lead British units were close behind the French forcing occasional halts to hold back these lead units. The 3/2nd Legere paid the price for staying too long and broke in rout under successive volleys from Nightingales forward battalions. If this was not bad enough the 270 men of the 20th Light Dragoons charged over Rolica Hill and caught the French artillery limbered up ready to pull out. After a short sharp fight the guns were taken. The one glimmer of light for the French was that this fighting was also causing Allied casualties, something Sir Arthur was able to avoid. These were added to, when the 20th Light Dragoons charged on into the French position, and were met by French volleys that sent them back with less than half their original number.

The guns limber up with British light cavalry in hot pursuit

The Swiss head for the ridge

The Chasseurs fall back

With the Allied troops in hot pursuit the battered survivors, two battalions of the 70th Ligne, the 4th Swiss and the 26th Chasseurs marched up through the defiles to prepare to resist the last three moves of the game upon the ridge. As this manoeuvre was carried out, the French cavalry was again forced to turn and try and hold back the British infantry. This time however they overstayed their welcome, and several well delivered volleys broke the unit.

The Chasseurs turn to delay the British pursuit

The 70th Ligne evacuate Columbeira

Entering on of the defile onto the ridge

Now with only three infantry units left, but with two turns to resist, the French awaited the British attack. The first attempt came when the 1/9th from Hill's brigade attempting to infiltrate up though one of the flank gullies. The special rule for Colonel Lake's rash assault in the actual battle, came into play requiring the first British infantry unit to reach the ridge to roll a d6 with a 50:50 chance of them being ambushed on the march up. They were and losing a stand fell back to the foot of the ridge.

Colonel Lake of the 29th Foot killed at Rolica

The Swiss defend the ridge on the Lisbon road

With the first attack repulsed the British went for the Swiss holding the other flank gully. The Swiss were known to be unreliable, reluctant troops and they tried to surrender in the actual battle. To recreate their performance they were rated as Raw and Insecure, and were required to take an Elan test when receiving their first charge. Failure would result in their surrender.

Hill's lead battalion climbs an undefended pass

As the British approached, the Swiss opened with a tremendous volley, causing six hits, however, being the poor quality troops they were, they had to re roll their hits, reducing them to two, which the British saved!!

The 50th foot seeing this gave a cheer, lowered their muskets and charged. This was too much for the Swiss who promptly threw down their muskets and surrendered. Game over in turn 11, a close run thing. The British had clearly won and broken DelaBorde's force, but had the cost been higher than Sir Arthur's casualty bill.

The British in headlong pursuit scent victory

The French were awarded 3VPs for each allied base destroyed even if subsequently rallied and returned to battle, of which 8 were. These totalled 15 bases, three times the casualties Wellesley suffered and easily cancelling out the British taking the ridge and breaking the French force, all of which Wellesley achieved at less cost. So leaving the British with a Phyrric victory at best.

More importantly was it a good game. Well we all enjoyed ourselves, and the rules stood up to scrutiny with them being new to most of the players.

Thanks to Ian, Jack, Ollie, Charlie and Gus for a fine afternoons entertainment. I will be running the same scenario in a few weeks time using Carnage & Glory computer rules and will post a report on JJ's Wargames Blog

American Civil War using Civil War Battles Rules

At the Devon Wargames Group we pride ourselves in always trying to run at least two games a month to cater for all tastes.

In addition to the game I ran, Steve H set up a 15mm ACW game using the Peter Pig Rules "Civil War Battles. I have played these rules before and though not involved in yesterdays battle, know that they are a fun set to play.

During a lull in the fighting in the Indian Ocean I was able to wander over and admire some lovely models "Strutting their stuff in Dixie" and took a few shots of the game.


Civil War Battles by Peter Pig

After Action Report

Every wargamer has a story about bad dice, well here’s another one.

In Peter Pigs “Civil War Battles” both sides during the set up allocate 60 War Point dice to decide the attacker and assorted small perks spread over a further 9 topics , all you have to do is throw 5 or 6 , deduct the two totals and look up the effect . The Union chose to have 18 attacker dice and achieved a magnificent two 5/6’s , the Confederate player had allocated the minimum 10 dice as he wanted to defend  and then managed to get eight 5/6’s . But the Union wasn’t going to stop there, in CWB the defender now has to throw for each unit and either remove bases or move off board as reinforcements or both, the severity of the dice rolls depend on how much he lost the dice roll (6 is really, really bad) however each gun only has to roll once and if it is a 5 then it becomes a reinforcement, a 6 and its gone for good. Somehow out of 8 rolls he managed to get 6 sixes.

So it looked a bit grim for the union, a third of its forces gone walkies plus most of its guns, the thin blue line looked desperately thin as the vast hordes of Confederates made their first move.

There was one thing in their favour, if they could hang onto the rear objectives until the game ended in around 6-8 turns then they might just grab enough victory points to win. Because the Union had lost the roll off by the worst possible score then they already had a guaranteed 12 D6 VP rolls, prevent the Confederates getting 9 VP rolls for the rear objective and they might just do it.

The Rebs throw everything they could down the left hand side , 7 units would surely sweep away 2 flimsy weakened Union Brigades and despite them heroically standing for long after the time when I would have been halfway to Washington it looked  all over once they crumbled before the Reb Bayonets . (In CWB the “Falter Test” is taken prior to combat, generally the attacker starts with a score of 3-5 and the defender 2-3, add 2D6 and if the attacker wins he gets in. If he wins by +5 then the defenders rout off table. The Union Right wing commander in line with team orders throw double 1). However reserves were coming on from all sides plus the centre units swung across to somehow stem the tide. In what looked like a scene from Zulu the Union forces stood back to back as the Rebs tried in vain to force their way through to the Road entrance objective.

Meanwhile the centre of the Union was down to 1 Raw brigade against 6 so you don’t need me to tell you what happened and it was actually this sector which would see the  not unexpected Union Collapse however with poor terrain and poor command rolls the victory advance became a victory crawl .( each brigade must pass its roll to move, add the generals rating 0-3 to the units rating 1-3 plus 1 point for every 3”from the general and 1 for terrain /units ; throwing under this total or a natural 2 or 3 is a fail and everyone only gets 1 Action Point ) .

The left wing for the Union side was however a rousing success and didn’t lose an inch of ground , good dice rolls for base removal at the start had left them with almost full sized brigades and they managed to throw back the Rebel attack which was not helped by their best units being left behind by yet more bad command rolls . This only got worse as each turn they got further and further back as their attacking comrades raced forwards , do you stop your the attack and wait or do you push on and hope for the best. This time it didn’t work and the Union Forces held their ground along with the important side road objective. 

It was about now I realised the pub was open so called a halt to the game and started to add up the VP ‘s  , the cunning Union game plan suddenly kicked into life and a torrent of high rolls on the VP dice saw a change in Confederate expressions from smirking to worried . By the time the swarm of Blue coated bases in the dead pile were added in however the final score was +10, a Small Confederate Victory.

CWB is a defender biased game if you play with the “War Points” and set VP scoring and given average dice rolls for base removal you are not going to force your way throw the defence in 6-8 turns. I must have played this game 20 times mainly as the attacker and despite being at least in my own mind a brilliant wargamer I doubt that I have won more than 2-3 times. Make your own scenarios and victory conditions if you don’t like it, but those War points, their so damn addictive.

Battle of Sadras - 1782

By 1782 the American War of Independence had spiralled out of British control and had developed from a small problem in the thirteen colonies to a world conflict involving other European powers seeking to take advantage. British forces were becoming stretched to their limits in defending their interests throughout their other possessions.

This struggle naturally came to India where three of the combatants had holdings namely the British, French and the Dutch. 



Captain Pierre Andre de Suffren



Between February 1782 and June 1783 the fleets of French captain Pierre Andre de Suffren de St. Tropez and British Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes fought a series of naval actions along the Indian Coromandal coast in what has become one of the most popular campaign settings for wargamers of the age of sail. Five actions, all largely inconclusive and fought between fleets that were relatively equal in numbers, were fought on the Coromandal coast, at Sadras, Providien, Cuddalore, Negepatam and Trincomalee.

Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes , pictured here as a captain

Admiral Hughes' report on the Battle of Sadras pdf

Battle of Sadras map - Three Decks, Warships in the Age of Sail

Yesterday's game was a recreation of the first of these encounters, the Battle of Sadras. This engagement poses an interesting challenge for both fleets. The French have the wind, a slight numerical advantage and the better commander. The British are in line of battle with better crews.

The rules used were a combination of the card play taken from "Kiss Me Hardy" (KMH) by the Too Fat Lardies, and the freely available App "Eight Bells" to handle the combat and sailing stats for our model ships. All the players had to do was draw a card and decide on their actions.

Eight Bells Napoleonic Naval App

Kiss Me Hardy

For a more detailed description of how these rules worked I have put up a post on my blog.
JJ's Wargames



The French fleet with the wind in their coat tails bear down on the British line

The French fleet bore down on the British line deciding where the blow should fall and by what means. Both forces were forced to use the tactics of their historical counterparts. Thus, unless ordered otherwise, doctrine would have the British shooting at the hull, whilst the French would aim for the rigging. In addition Suffren would not be applying the "Nelson Touch" here by penetrating the British line and thus his options were to parallel the British line or to double it, which is what he attempted on the day.

The British being downwind and in line decided to blaze away as the French fleet approached, however deciding to shoot at the French rigging.



As the range closes, both commanders signal their fleets

We were using the signalling rules from KMH that appeared in the Lardies Winter 09 Special. This places cards in the deck for each commander, one for Hughes and two for Suffren. When the card appeared the respective commander could make one order change to his fleet provided his flagship or the repeater frigate was in view.



HMS Exeter prepares to give the French a warm welcome

As the French closed in Admiral Hughes signalled to "Engage the Enemy", note the repeater frigate to the rear of the British line, allowing his captains to choose their targets and fire off the appropriate shot. However at long range the British were forced to load ball that did little damage when fired at French rigging.



The British line opens fire

The French lead ships were little damaged as they closed in on the rear of the British line. Admiral Suffren was signalling that he wanted his three most rearward ships to follow him around the back of the British line to double their opponents. This move was tried in the actual battle and for one reason or another the French messed up and their force fell into confusion. Would our table top fleet have the same problem?



Fire as they bear

Admiral Hughes was also experiencing problems manoeuvring his ships, and only being able to signal one order at a time (Hughes was rated as a poor commander) was not helping. The Eight Bells App has a movement system that randomises the ships speed based on the roll of three dice and the attitude to the wind. As ships sailing in formation start to try and form up or change direction this can really mess up the neat lines us wargamers like to form, a bit like real life really!

So as Hughes' flagship attempted to tack around and lead his lead ships back to support his rear, the random speed settings together with damage from French fire caused his line to lose formation and become ragged.

The British firing continues as they are led into a tack by the flag ship, now facing into wind.
The second ship in line has had to take avoiding action as his Admiral's ship is "in irons" standing into wind.
The frigate to the right is signalling the tack to the rearward ships.

Likewise Suffren was attempting to bring his ships into a double line and as the rigging started to fall under the British barrage, the formation started to loose cohesion.



The French, on the right, fall in with the British rear attempting to "double" them



The French van fired at the British rear aiming for the rigging

The rearward ships in the British line were bearing the brunt of the French attack, and it was fitting that being the Devon Wargames Group it should be, as in the real affair, HMS Exeter of 64 guns in the thick of it trading broadsides with Suffren.



The British start to lose masts and spars under the close range barrage

As the damage inflicted on each others rigging and the corresponding breakdown in formation occurred both commanders realised the change in situation and signalled "Fire as she bears" allowing the respective captains to place their ships alongside that of the enemy and get stuck in.

As the French go for the British rear the British van double back on them

As the "scrum" of ships developed the French found themselves numerically superior to their British counterparts, with the three, so far unscathed, lead British ships desperately tacking back to help their comrades. It would have been here that French discretion would have been the better part of valour. They were close to taking two of the rear most British ships in boarding actions, and a general withdrawal may have been the better move at this stage.

However the wargamers need to battle it out to the end took over and the French tried to contest every action, which led to the British crew superiority to gradually take effect. As the British reinforcements arrived on the scene the battle swung back their way as three French ships struck their colours in quick succession.



The final melee - yellow markers showing three French strikes

And thus ended our re fight of Sadras, which if this had been part of a mini campaign, forcing our tabletop admirals to be as conservative as their historical counterparts would have given a similar outcome with both fleets forced to withdraw and lick their wounds. Now that's a thought "Mini Campaign".

Once again, thanks to my fellow Devon Wargamers, Jason, Gus, Ian, Ollie and Jack for a very entertaining days gaming.

JJ