Rear Guard at Donauworth - Part 4

 Turns 9 - 11

As the French artillery bombardment reaches its peak, General of Brigade Viallanes commits his cavalry to the attack. Both the 2^nd and 12^th Chasseurs charge into the Austrian infantry squares, but the stalwart courage of the Austrians manages to hold. This forces the French light cavalry to withdraw and reform before they can try again.

French Cavalry Charge the Austrian Squares

Rear Guard at Donauworth - Part 3

 Turns 6 - 8

All across the battlefield, signs of Austrian withdrawal increases as French reinforcements continue to arrive and the assault on Donauworth intensifies.

More Austrian Battalions Disengage and Withdraw Towards the Danube River Crossing

Rear Guard at Donauworth - Part 2

 Turns 4 & 5

The French success is short lived as the 7^th Hussars, badly routed in their earlier cavalry charge, fail to rally and flee from the field. The loss of their comrades demoralizes the 1^st Chasseurs. The commander of the 1^st Chasseurs falls back to avoid combat with the superior numbers of Austrian cavalry, thus effectively ending the threat of French cavalry on the Danube River crossing.

French Cavalry Flee from the Field.

Rear Guard at Donauworth - Part 1

 (Note for any of my readers. I write these reports on a word processor and then move them on to my blog because I find it an easer task to conceptualize the structure of what I am writing. Recently I had to change word processors and so some of the style might have changed because of this.)

Battle 2 – During Turn 7 of the Campaign, late afternoon.

Attacker: French

Objectives: Take the town of Donauworth. Capture or destroy as many Austrian units as possible

Defender: Austrians

Objectives: Withdraw from the battlefield with more than 50% (three brigades) of remaining troops intact.

Battle End conditions: 50% (three brigades)or more of the remaining Austrian brigades are routed off the field or after 12 turns (I consider that by turn 12 night will have fallen on the battlefield. This is something that I did not make clear in the last battle report).

Battle Overview

This battle takes place immediately after the end of Battle 1 – The Battle of Donauworth & Heidenheim, that was fought using the Blucher rules. At the start of this battle portions of both the French and Austrian armies are engaged in combat based upon where the previous battle ended. The French are still attempting to capture the town of Donauworth and destroy as many Austrian units as possible while the Austrians are attempting to withdraw from the battlefield. Some of the effects of the Rear-Guard battle at Heidenheim will affect events in this battle.

Rear Guard at Heidenheim - Part 3 Conclusion

 Turn 3

A break in the smoke covering the battlefield brings a new beat to the sound of battle as a full brigade of French Cuirassiers charge the waiting Austrian Dragoons. Marshal Marmont has finally managed to get General of Division d'Hautpoul moving with his entire Cavalry Reserve Division. The French heavy cavalry lead the assault to break the center of the Austrian line while the remaining light cavalry of the 6^th Hussars and the 8^th Chasseurs charge the lines of retreating Austrian infantry.

The impact of the French Cuirassiers is immediately felt as half of the Austrian #2 Dragoons Hohenlohe regiment breaks immediately and disperses from the field. The other half of the regiment is locked in a vicious melee of rearing horses and slashing sabers.

Figure 31 - French Cuirassiers Break the Austrian Lines

Rear Guard at Heidenheim - Part 2 The Battle

 Turn 1

The rear-guard action starts with both von Werneck and Marmont issuing orders to their ADCs to be passed on to the division and brigade commanders. Marmont focuses on calling up his artillery and ordering his 1^st Infantry Division to assault the Austrian grenadiers to their front. Von Werneck orders some of his ADCs to seek out General Mack while the rest of his ADCs hurry to issue orders to the grenadiers facing the French advance. Word quickly comes back to Marmont that the II Corps Artillery is moving up and will arrive on the field shortly and that the infantry assault of the 1^st Division will commence immediately. Much to Marmont’s frustration, General of Division d’Hautpoul commander of the Cavalry Reserve, seems to have only ordered one of his two brigades forward, instead of moving the entire division forward as was ordered. This will slow down the planned French attack on the Austrian center.

Von Werneck does not fare much better, as no word seems to have come back from the ADCs about the status of General Mack’s reinforcements. There is also some hesitation in a few of brigade commanders on the field due to the situation at hand, causing a delay in the withdrawal of the Austrian 3^rd Infantry Division towards the Danube River.

Following his newly arrived orders from Marmont’s ADC, General de Brigade Soyez commander of the 2^nd Brigade in the French II Corps 1^st Infantry Division orders his battalions to charge the opposing Austrian Grenadiers. The 2^nd Battalion of the 35^th Line and the 1^st Battalion of the 11^th Line lead the charge with the remaining two battalions in the brigade lending support to the attack. As the assaulting battalions clear the brigade’s skirmisher screen the waiting Austrian grenadiers fire off volleys of well-coordinated musketry into the advancing French columns. The result is devastating on the already worn-out battalions of Soyez’s brigade and the attacking battalions break instantly under the brutal fire causing panic in the entire brigade. The attempt to quickly brush aside the exhausted Austrian grenadiers has failed for the moment and Soyez is forced to try and rally his brigade to avoid a general route of his two regiments.

Figure 1 - Austrian Grenadiers Hold off the French Assault.

Rear Guard at Heidenheim - Part 1 Game Setup

 Battle 2 – During Turn 7 of the Campaign, late afternoon.

Attacker: French

Objectives: Take the town of Heidenheim. Capture or destroy as many Austrian units as possible

Defender: Austrians

Objectives: Withdraw from the battlefield with more than 60% of remaining troops intact.

Special Objectives: Should General Mack arrive with sufficient forces, hold Heidenheim until game ends after turn 12.

Battle End conditions: 50% or more of the remaining Austrian brigades are routed off the field or after 12 turns.

Figure 1 - Battle Layout.

This battle takes place immediately after the end of Battle 1 – The Battle of Donauworth & Heidenheim, that was fought using the Blucher rules. At the start of this battle portions of both the French and Austrian armies are engaged in combat based upon where the previous battle ended. The French are still attempting to capture the town of Heidenheim and destroy as many Austrian units as possible while the Austrians are attempting to withdraw from the battlefield since there have been no reinforcements from the rest of the Austrian III Corps.

Under The Eagles - The Plan

After a long... long... very long hiatus hopefully I am back with an idea that will will give me a chance to do several things I enjoy doing, which would be painting and collecting Napoleonic miniatures, as well as playing solo table top war games. 

The Plan

This plan comes with three levels of play and multiple steps along that need to be taken along the way to bring this idea into action. Several of these steps have been completed or are underway as of writing this post.

Step 1: Choose Rule Sets (Mostly complete)

Choose or make rule sets to provide the ability to play at the campaign level, the grand tactical level, and at the Brigade/Divisional level. The idea with this step is to create a solo game experience that allows for campaign level gaming that can develop into game play with miniatures on the table. To do this I needed to find rule sets that allowed for the level of play in each of these categories. I was successful in my attempts for two of the needed rule sets, the third is one I will have to make on my own.

-Blucher by Sam Mustafa Publishing

I chose this rule set for several reasons. The first was that these rules are fairly simple and work well with 6mm scale grand tactical battles, which I want to play. The second reason was that this rule set has multiple sets of playing cards that can be used to represent miniatures on table top in lieu of actually having the miniatures. For me this will be just a temporary solution while I work on my 6mm Napoleonic armies, most of which I have posted about before I went off somewhere else. Anyways, these card sets allow for the building of armies from the French, Austrian, Russian, Anglo-Allied, Prussian, and Spanish armies from across the Napoleonic wars. The above picture shows one of the card set boxes and I have recently purchased all of the other sets.

-General d'Armee by Reisswitz Press

While Blucher provides the ability to play on the grand tactical level, my goal for the campaign level games needs to be able to handle smaller engagements that might be found in rear guard battles or the initial stages of a meeting engagement. Blucher can only support down to about 3 army corps on each side, which means I need rules for smaller-ish battles. I have not had a lot of time to read through the rule for General d'Armee, but what I have seen on YouTube indicate that this rule set might support battles of this type.

-General de Brigade by Partizan Press

Which leads me to the next rule set with which I hope to provide for brigade level battles. Which of these last two rule sets I use will require some play testing before I can make my final decision.

The other nice thing about General de Brigade, is that the creators of the game have written numerous scenarios for their rule set, which will help both with play testing and ideas for game development. 

Finally I need a rule set for campaign level gaming that can be used to integrate all of this into a single system of play. Unfortunately, I have never heard of or seen a pre-made rule set like this. Which means I have to make it on my own.

-Under the Eagles

While not the most original name, though it does fit the blog. I have already begun writing this rule set and have plans for how to execute the building of all of every aspect of the rules that I want. As I get these rules into a form of usability I will write some posts about them and I may even post the rules at some point.

These rules would support a multi-day (real life days) level of game play that would allow me to play the campaign on weekdays and the battles of the campaign on weekends or on days off. I will be endeavoring to keep the rules simple, but have a decent amount of engagement.

Step 2: Campaign Level Supplies

This step is going to take more research and testing as there is not a lot of pre-made material for what I want to do exactly.

-Maps

Initially what I thought would be a very challenging step, thankfully became very easy once I found maps that someone else had made for their own gaming system that meets my needs exactly. 

Murat Maps

These maps were made by someone I only know as Murat for their own campaign style game, but thankfully this person has made the maps free for anyone that wants to use them for their own purposes. These maps are based on a node movement system, which is not what I wanted originally (I wanted hex maps), but this work better for more of a free form style of game play. The distance between each node is supposed to represent the distance an army formation can march in a single campaign day.

I am planning on using FedEx's online printing service to print these as 36 in by 24 in lamented maps. The first ones to get printed will be focused on Austria.

-Game Pieces

I need game pieces that can be used to represent brigade or division level units along with artillery for every army I want to play with.  My current plan is to reuse board game pieces, but I am not sure about this as a solution. I want to be able to magnetize whatever I end up using so that the maps and campaign pieces can be placed on a metallic surface and stored or posted somewhere easily.

-Orders of Battle

This will be the hard part of this step. I have done research and not found a lot of what I am looking for as I need campaign orders of battle, not the more easily accessible orders of battle for the individual engagements. What I might end up doing is just smashing enough information together to sort of recreate the OOBs I need. I want these to be easily reference-able and in a format that can be used in support of the campaign rules. 

Step 3: Terrain

Currently I already have a lot of miniatures ready for play, I unfortunately do not have a lot of terrain to support this game play. Seeing as how I do not want to spend a lot of time making terrain, I am willing to spend the extra dollar to buy pre-made terrain

-Roads, Rivers, Forests, Hills, Farms, and Buildings 

On order right now is a set of forests and hills from a company called terrains4games. They are a company in Poland that makes all of this stuff at tabletop quality for a good price in the 28mm scale. If I like their work the next order will probably be roads and rivers. 

For the 6mm scale I am going to have to do more searching. Thankfully buildings and tress are already taken care off, as I bought a bunch of buildings from 100 Days line produced by Total Battle Miniatures. The trees I made by torturing myself for multiple hours, hence the choice to not make any more terrain unless it only involves some coats of paint and a few snips with some scissors.  I have an idea for hills, but hopefully the terrains4games products will solve the hill problem, which just leaves me with roads and rivers in 6mm as a problem to be solved.

For gaming surfaces, I came up with the ingenious idea of using portable tables and sheets of particle board to give myself the ability to set up about 48 square feet of game table. With the added benefit that all of that gaming space can be packed away when I am done fairly easily and quickly.

To furnish the top of that gaming space I am making use of the battle mats from Cigar Box Battles. These mats are very well made and also pack up quite nicely.

Step 4: Play Testing

Play testing has to take place at multiple levels. Already underway are tests and edits to Blucher with the playing cards as a miniature substitute. Next will be play tests with General d'Armee and General de Brigade. Probably the last to be play tested will be my own rules for the campaign level games.

This last area of testing will focus on a specific campaign that I would like to re-fight. For starters I have chosen the 1805 Ulm-Austerlitz campaign, which means I need 3 armies (French, Russian, and Austrian)

Step 5: Build Armies

Last but not least, build my miniature armies. The current focus is on 28mm miniatures for General d'Armee and General de Brigade as I already have an impressive number of 6mm Napoleonics. The French have good start in 28mm and the Austrians are underway currently, but the Russians will have to be started from scratch. For manufactures I plan on focusing on Perry, Victrix, and maybe some Warlord.

6mm will all come from Baccus 6mm. As I said above, I already have a lot of these painted, but there will be a focus on bringing the Austrians and Russians up to a level needed for grand tactical battles. I will post more details on the miniatures as I paint them.

So that is the overall big picture of what I have decided to do. You can look forward to miniature painting updates and play testing over the coming weeks.