Battle of Souffel game

The game was based on the Age of Eagles scenario for the historical Battle of La Souffel  28 June, 1815 after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo as French General Rapp tried to hold off the advance of the overwhelming Allied advance from the Rhine in central France at the Souffel River.  This was a holding action during his retreat to Strasbourg.
     
As I do not yet have all the Allies ready for Waterloo, but to celebrate the eve of Waterloo 199 last Tuesday (June 17th) I wanted a Waterloo related battle.  While not much is known of this engagement, the AoE scenario was used a basis for at least the ratios of combatants and a rough scenario design.  I didn't really think of the limited crossings however! Oops. What is it with me and river crossings??!

I substituted the Allies with others I have in my collection thus far, so the Austrians were poorer graded Prussians (Austrians not all that enthusiastic) better grade Prussians for the Wurttemburgers which seemed to be at the forefront of many of the Austrian advances in 1814-15 ; and the highly rated Hessians I used my newly painted Hanoverians/KGL/British elements to get them on the table!  I had enough French <grin>

David was kind enough to come over and stay late to give the rules a going over.

The photo above does highlight that due in large part to the restriction of crossings  --- I will just have to get that Genie/pontoon group from the Perrys! -- it did allow the concentration of artillery which we could playtest their rules and comment.  What David and I discussed and came up with is really good IMHO and his almost offhand comment about the MP dice, had the light bulb go off and I quickly linked this to historical OOBs for future scenarios.*

French cavalry come across the "incredibly wide bridge" for a "sniff" and.....

...retire quickly finding the Prussians coming at them.

David does an excellent job at remembering the battle and giving a blow by blow description of the action.  You can find the first installment at: link to narrative

French Chasseurs in forage caps to give a hint at the poorer quality of cavalry the French had at their disposal in the later years.  Converted plastics.

my "British" for Waterloo contingent standing in for Hessians during the battle

*late into that night I studied my order of battle references for Waterloo and a few other battles and found a close correlation between the number of gun models I currently have to the 'new' ratio established.  It is good that not many more guns will be needed!  The new method will really help in keeping the scenario distribution of artillery much more fair and much easier to do than before for our big scale game.