Sunday 18 August 2013

Battle of Montereau game

In our ever continuing quest for rule perfection - oh, hell... we will settle with 'do-able' !! - Seth and I arranged a mid-summer game at my place for the playtest in a "convention" setting with a few of our enthusiasts for the Napoleonic Battle of Montereau which occurred during the 1814 campaign.  wiki link

This was picked as we could use both my French and all the Imperial Guard, and Seth's Austrians.

Played on the usual 8 x 5' table size of the Enfilade! Convention.   Which surprised a few of the guys as I broke down my usual 10 x 6' table.  Interestingly enough most of the battles ( including Waterloo for example ) we can be recreated with our rules and basing system with 28mm on this rather small table size without compromise.

The boys showed up around 10am and following the greetings, refreshments and tour of my gaming rooms, Seth and I gave the preliminaries of the scenario and rules.  While I had to combine formations for the OB and simplify the terrain I also adding the new experimentation of roads and, well, the space or distance of routes of march---- yes, even on what at first glance would appear to be a small table proved to be large distances.  This was all part of the plan.  We employ the "go-to-the-breaking-point"  type of rules writing to know what works and what does not.  That which does not work, we discard or think of a better AND simpler way of achieving the effect.

For example the roads are out. These add complication and does not match to the level of command we are tying to recreate.  That is simpler! Grin.

A few pictures of the affair
This shot show the very tough Austrians beating back the Old Guard AND a flanking move by the Fusiliers-Grenadiers of the Middle Guard.  Yup, history was altered and the Allies won this affair forcing Napoleon to withdraw while at least SOME of the Guard and its artillery was still in some fighting order.

The game I though went well and kept me stoked about continuing my crazy quest of Napoleonic masses......