Another Minifigs Napoleonic Wargame

       Using my Napoleonic Minifigs, I was wondering if there was a better ruleset than BATTLCRY.  I found COMMAND & COLORS: NAPOLEON rules online and decided to give them a try.  I used the basic rules, without going into the more detailed rules.  For the battleground, ONE HOUR WARGAMES scenario # 26 was chosen: Triple Line. The French Army has invaded British territory. An ad hoc force has assembled to meet the threat.

The British Army is north of the bridge. A Brunswick Jager unit guards the bridge. The British also have three infantry units and 2 cavalry units (made up of Peter Laing figures). The French have 6 infantry, two artillery, and one cavalry units. 

The French forces swarm towards the bridge, and manage to kill one jager.

The jagers kill two French infantry

The French infantry, in their rush to move forward, found they path blocked by the artillery batteries. They then had to fall back to maneuver around the guns.

The French start deploying across the bridge. The French guns on the right force the Highlanders (upper right of picture) to retreat.

The British sends forward some hussars to attack one infantry unit. The infantry unit has no place to retreat to; between the one hit and retreat, it is eliminated. Meanwhile, the jagers fires on the unit on the bridge. They take two hits, and with the inability to retreat, loses another man.

Another view of the same play; I just wanted to show the nice unit of Peter Laing hussars (I bought them already painted.)

The French continue to press forward.

The jagers move out of the way in order to let the Scots Greys to attack.

The Greys destroy the infantry unit.

The French dragoons counterattack against the Scots Greys; they lose one man but holds fast. The artillery shelling the Highlanders push them farther back.

The British cavalry hits the dragoons in the front and flank. The dragoons lose two men; then have to retreat;  but the path is blocked; the dragoons are eliminated.

Meanwhile, the British general orders his infantry forward.

The British make a mistake. After eliminating the dragoons, the British cavalry doesn't advance. This gives the French infantry room to advance.

The leftmost artillery forces the jagers back,the infantry kill  one Scots Grey, and the right gun kills  a hussar.

The French infantry start fanning out. They force the Greys to retreat and eliminates the hussars.

The jagers kill one infantryman, and between the retreat rolls by the jagers and the infantry unit on the top left, the French have nowhere to retreat  and are eliminated.

The French finally finish off the pesky jagers.

The British infantry hits the French column. The Highlanders, looking for redemption after being forced to retreat (twice) hits the French grenadiers hard. The picture shows the results. And once again with no place to retreat, they are eliminated. The French have lost over 50% and must retreat.

The French flee over the bridge.

The last of the Scots Greys rides off into the sunset.

The scenario called for the British to stay in place until they were attacked.  I allowed them to start moving after the second move.  Perhaps the French didn't stand a chance.  I was happy with the landscape; I think I'm moving in the right direction as far as terrain goes.

New Terrain and the Plus Side of Solo Gaming

          Having seen on other blogs war gamers using hobby foam for terrain, I decided to try it out. For the main field, squares of green. Strips of blue for rivers and brown for roads. I tried layers of foam for hills, but for 15mm figures it takes 5 or 6 layers to make a decent hill. What's more, the foam glue remains tacky, which makes a mess.  However, there were some foam wall panels in the cellar and with a little filing, could be shaped into hills. To me it looks better than chalk lines on painted wood panels.

     As for the plus side of solo gaming; while waiting for the paint to dry on some of the Napoleonic Minifigs, I happened to pull out some Peter Laings to see if they would work with the Minifigs.  I suddenly found myself wanting to use my Peter Laings again. I don't know tomorrow if I will be back working on my Minifigs, or deciding which Peter Laing figures I will start working on.  For the solo gamer, to change projects at the drop of the hat is possible, knowing that it won't affect anothers plans.

A French cavalry brigade drawn up on a foam hill.

A regiment of lancers crossing the bridge.

Napoleon  with his cavalry.

Some of the new terrain.

New Figures and Old Friends

    While going through some of my older figures, I came across some of my first metal soldiers, 15 mm Editions Brokaw SWY and WSS figures. When I started wargaming again, after using my 1st generation Minifigs and Heritage Napoleonettes, these are the figures I got hooked on. They can be hard to come by. They were produced by Pat Condray. I bought a large lot of them a couple of years ago. The only way to contact Pat was by regular mail. He doesn't have a website to order through. And as he splits his year between two addresses, it was tricky to get an order in. For me, the extra effort was worth it.

     I also bought a couple of lots of 1st generation Napoleonics, including some Prussian General figures. There is something about the Minifigs general figures that every time I see them, I have to bid on them.

Editions Brokaw Prussian grenadiers

Editions Brokaw grenadier

More Editions Brokaw figures, painted as French infantry and Guards.

Editions Brokaw figures compared to a Peter Laing figure.

Minifigs 1st Generation Prussian Generals

Scots Found and a Wargame.

      Yesterday I woke up thinking that I had thrown out the Minifigs Scots and other AWI figures mentioned in an earlier post. When I got home from work, the plan was for a top to bottom search of my work area. A few minutes into the search, I came across the figures in 2 unmarked storage drawers. The seller had sent the figures in these drawers, which so happened to fit in the storage cabinets I have. Had I simply used my label maker to begin with, it would have saved two days of frustration.

     I took a day off from work to get some needed chores done. It took all morning but, besides having to wait for the plumber, I found time to get a wargame in. I had rolled the night before to pick which scenario from ONE HOUR WARGAMES would be used.

  The scenario was: Scenario 19: Blow from the Rear. The situation is the Red Army is defending two river crossing from numerically inferior Blue force. However, an additional Blue force arrives in the Red rear area. (In the book the blue is defending and red is attacking; the red army (British) seemed better suited for defense, having 6 infantry and 2 artillery units, while the blue  (French) had 4 infantry, 2 artillery and 2 cavalry units.)

Unfortunately I had trouble with the SD card and only got the first half of the game.

The British army south of the river, the French north. 3 British reinforcements  are at the lower right. They can move after the third move.

The French reinforcement off board. They will come on after the 4th move,  behind the British lines.

The French send a cavalry unit to seize the bridge until the grenadiers can move forward.

French light infantry try to seize the ford, against superior forces. A French battery is moving forward in support.

The British artillery drives the light infantry back. The British at the bridge tries to stop the cavalry.

The French light infantry counterattacks. The French battery forces one infantry unit to retreat. The cavalry  attacks the infantry holding the bridge, but they hold fast,regardless of losing 50% of their men.

The British manager to push back both French units at the ford.

The British reinforcements start forward. Two of the units are Brunswickers.

The French cavalry finally captures the bridge. However, the French general, frustrated by the stalemate at the bridge, ordered the grenadiers to reinforce the battle at the ford. They can be seen moving at the top of the picture.

The British finally eliminate the light infantry. This is the last picture of the action.  Right after this was taken, the French reinforcements came onto the board.  The British general waited a little too long to redeploy his forces to face this threat, instead trying to eliminate the French in front of him. He left the sole infantry unit in the woods (they can be seen in the first picture) to try to slow them down. They failed, and by the time he faced some of his infantry to counter this threat, it was too late. Both French cavalry units linked up and ran amuck behind the lines.  The French defeated each British unit in detail, as they were fed into the fight piecemeal. The British lost 4 units to the French 2.

Maniac Monday

It is now 9:00 at night. As soon as I got home from work, I was in my room working on my figures. I had to stop to cook dinner. As soon as that was over, my wife left to visit her mother in the nursing home. I was quickly back at it, working on a new idea. I started thinking if I could get some of my AWI minifigs painted, perhaps I could get my brother to fight a game or two, like the good old days ( my brother had a large army of Airfix AWI to fight my Airfix Napoleonics). And so I started painting some AWI figures. Of course, my newest purchase of AWI Scots cannot be found. And so I started going through all the boxes of figures I have, without success. And suddenly I heard my wife calling for me; it was already 8:30 and still had to get ready for work tomorrow. What makes it so bad is I don't want to stop painting!

Some of todays work.

It's Never Too Later For a Happy Childhood

        I have watched CALLAN; An Act of Kindness twice already. For me the best part is when Callan walks into  his opponents "wargame room" and looks around like a kid in a candy shop. I must admit that this show and "Battleground" from the same period inspired me to spend most of my free time this week after work painting toy soldiers.  I realized that while I have plenty of Minifigs French figures, I am missing many of their opponents. I have no Austrians, and no Prussians.  While this seemed a problem, another look at Heritage Napoleonettes showed that they are a good match for the Minifigs. I have plenty of both Prussians and Austrians.  This last week has been a big inspiration for me and I have accomplished more in one week than the last three months. All the problems of the day melts away when I start work on my armies. I have been finding myself smiling like a little kid during this time. I put on some military music while painting and I'm in a different world. Now I want to work on scenery. The scenery on the CALLAN show has given me some ideas to be worked on.

   I wanted to get a game in today. I worked out a dice roll to pick a scenario in ONE HOUR WARGAMES. I picked scenario 21;Twin objectives.   The red army is split holding the town and the hill.  The blue army must seize both objectives. In the scenario the red army had 4 units; the blue 6. I gave each armies two more units. I rolled for both armies using the ONE HOUR WARGAME method. The rules are Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle.

The blue army is at the bottom of the picture, the red army on top.  One unit of red army jagers are in the woods on the hill  on the blue army's left flank.

The blue army advances. One infantry unit assaulting the hill suffers 50% losses.

The red army advances on the  blue army.

The blue cavalry tries to turn the red army's left flank.

The blue army pushes back the jagers on the hill, and the red army in the center is also pushed back.

The red counter attack has limited success. The Brunswickers have made one unit fall back two spaces.

One red unit tries to flee to the town. It is pursued by the 1st Hussars. The hussars first attack kill 2 and rolls a retreat. It's followup attack is shown in this picture; it overwhelms the infantry. 

The blue infantry forces back one unit, which conveniently comes between the red general and the 1st Hussars. (The batteries in the camera died at this point; that is why there is a black line in the photo.)

The red jagers on the hill finally eliminates the infantry on the hill. The other jagers force back the blue's artillery and the Brunswickers kills one and forces the infantry back.

At this point in the game the red army has lost two units to the blue's loss of one. If red loses one more unit, they will have lost 50% and will be force to retreat.  However, blue army has two units on their start line and one unit is down to one. The red general gets the initiative roll and decides to launch all units into an attack. If the red army can force the two units on their baseline to retreat and eliminate the single infantryman, blue will be at 50% strength and will be forced to retreat.

Red army starts their attack.

This picture shows the results. The blue artillery loses one man, but holds firm. The  jagers manage to force the infantry to retreat off the board. The Brunswickers only manager to roll a retreat roll and do not eliminate that unit as hoped for. The infantry outside of the town kills one hussar. 

The blue artillery force back one jager unit. The blue artillery and full strength infantry unit hits the Brunswickers, forcing them back. This move also protects the one man unit from attack.

The blue cavalry brigade attacks the infantry unit outside the town. They kill one infantryman, but the infantry is forced to retreat out of range of the cavalry.

Blue rolls and gets the initiative.  The lancers continue to attack the upper infantry unit (top of picture). The hussars hits the Brunswickers on the flank while the infantry attacks their front. Both blue batteries open fire on the jagers.

The jagers lose one man and is forced to retreat.The Brunswickers lose two men and  retreat. The lancers overwhelm the infantry (at top of photo). The red army is down to 50% and must retreat.

Once again it was a last moment planned game. I must try to plan the game during the week so there isn't the last minute scramble. On Saturday I do work around the house and have a couple of hours to wargame.  To waste time on planning the game cuts into the game itself.