a Waterloo Square

I don’t usually start the new year with the traditional pledges to one-self regarding the hobby. These promises often (never?) come true and, like so often seen in military history, generals, as we wargamers, are often fighting/collecting the last war/our last impulse, only to be met with unexpected new weapons/toys to fight/paint.   Well, I have enough weapons/figures to keep me going without even thinking of what other wars/projects I might do!

So just trying to ‘clean-up’ those already in the to-do tray, including the many Napoleonic era Highlanders that friends have so kindly given me.  Decided to paint up two large formations of them, the 93rd and 42nd and mount them on 20mm rounds going them an individualistic look for a large square formation. Finally finished the second lot (the 42nd) on the first day of this year. This 97 miniature strength formation will form an interesting eye-candy ‘terrain’ piece for any large Napoleonic Waterloo all-cavalry affair our group might come up with after this Covid thing subsides.

Victrix plastic Highlanders.  To facilitate the easier painting of the kilts (ha!) I attached the arms with the interfering musket after doing the torso and the and painted them last.  

The "Cattle" Expedition

Up to now I have always had plenty of time to engage in my favourite hobby, but with the recent employment at a 9-5 job, my wargaming time has significantly decreased.  As my dearth of posts recently can attest, it is certainly a time killer.  “Try to do any with that AND three kids!” was the retort from a couple of my wargamer friends!

Anyway, as a last, before Christmas game, I hosted a colonial British Afghan expedition to supply cattle to a far outpost.  Using my “veteran” (painted c.1987) Ral Partha ‘true 25s’,   I had all six of the players play on the same side, while I would control the natives via “auto-pilot” chart and hidden deployment.

In a rare cooperative method the gents allocated troops and deployment sharing an overall plan.  Sort of countering this, I also added my patented card sequence which uses a sequencing hierarchy to have the players move, should they choose, before others.  Some used this, others just flipped over the next card they had, but this together with the rules (The Men Who Would Be Kings - TMWWBK) ensured a lack of foreknowledge of who-moves-next.

The Imperial force marches

The terrain was largely unknown to the players - but of course they had the 2,000+ feet of elevation advantage standing around the table,  the normal “does this give me cover?” was necessarily indicated.

The logistical centre of the column advances

My collection is a bit on the small side, but with no way of adding to, I went with dividing all the units into six figures (8 for the natives) using the half-size option and increasing the speed and decreasing the shooting hits to offset.  So with that, and the usual poor shooting of the warriors under my diced control, the overall casualties were light (perhaps more realistic than the normal for most wargaming huge casualty numbers?)

The Gordon Highlanders having covered the left bank of the waterway, crosses to join the column

We still employed the rule’s activation which had the effect of the metal soldiers acting more prudently than their erst while commanders who might wish them to advance across open ground to “check out the unoccupied village” but the unit quite unwilling to move from their cover….

It came as no surprise to the colonials that as they neared their destination, the inviting British Regimental flag (they could not have seen the blood smears) was taken down and replaced by a horde of tribal warriors.  These were largely dealt with by rifle fire from the near by rocky knoll (and my usual very poor dice rolling for the apparently inept locals).  Throughout the affair I would regularly roll low - a string of four 1s at one point - so the tribal warriors seemed to have little heart in fighting and would rather withdraw than to engage, but much to the relief of the Colonial players.

The fort with one of the tribal units having charged outside the gates

The Highlanders, having gained the top of the knoll, exchange shots with the unit in the tower.

The mountain gun, at the right, sets up for the final shots of the battle.

 The mule-borne mountain gun was however finally set up and after fighting off three (!) separate attacks of the half-hearted natives (my dice rolling in full evidence here) to finally put in two blasts to knock down the gate.  With the fort retaken and the cattle still safe, the players rejoiced in their victory.
….then put on their coats and went out into the rain for home…..

Waterloo Battle #2

Prologue:
Finally happy(-ish) with the rules, I invited a group to my place for a good playtest and another go at Waterloo (being 200th and all).  Like herding cats, trying to get the guys all here and knowing the rules had the game start an hour and a half late.  As weekday evening, at only mid game were the complaints of "gotta go" heard.  And this after tea/coffee was ready and served.  Perhaps I will need to offer RedBull instead.....
Sigh.

I knew the likelihood of the reconvening was almost nil, so I slowly worked through the game myself, trying to follow the initial plans by the French and try to play out each side as well as possible.  Of course, being solo, I could co-ordinate the various commands which would be less likely with different players commanding each, but the dice seem to enjoy making this more difficult than one would believe !

Cut-to-the-chase:
The Allies win again in a very close near-run-thing!

Introduction:
The rules are specifically designed for the convention setting so simplicity is the key and I was happy to find that the players had the concept by Turn 4.
The deployments were historical but each side were allowed to develop their own strategy.

  The French decided to ignore the historical strongpoints of Hougomont and La Haye Sainte.  It was apparent from the initial moves that Reille and Kellerman's heavy cavalry were to move against the Allies right flank, dErlon to pin the Allies centre with Milhaud's cuirassiers and Lobau to attack between  Hougomont and La Haye Sainte.  At least that is what I surmised looking at the initial moves.  Other than the Young Guard and the cavalry having moved to the right to counter the Prussians just coming on the table, was the only move by the French Imperial Guard.  It stayed well to the rear.  Whether by design so it would not be overly committed in any one direction so to exploit any of the various attacks, will not be known.  It was not helped forward as Napoleon was on his "sick-bed" for extended periods during the game.

This rule had a 50-50 roll whether Napoleon was on the field and could a) contribute to any formations movement and b) move the Middle and Old Guard (the 4 infantry elements) as only he personally allowed.

  The Allies had less decisions to make in their defensive role behind a ridge.  However, coordination between commands would prove troublesome (even as a solo effort)  due to the tight confines of the battlefield.

The Terrain:
The battlefield is one of the most known of history and quite easy to replicate.  I did not make the ridgeline but used a road to indicate the crest, with movement unaffected but artillery random if firing across (only allowed one shot per element and at a major minus).  Initial reaction by the players seemed to think this was fine and simulates the historical situation well enough.  All strongpoints could be defended - but were in any event not attacked. But the Allies still had to defend with the historical elite troops despite.

I will let the photo captions do most of the talking.

Overview of the battle in its early stages looking from the east.  The lower portion shows Milhaud's moving behind d'Erlon's massed corps while the 'Grand Battery" and Quiot's Division stands guard.  In the centre, Lobau's Corps in column moves to between La Haye Sainte (grey buildings) and Hougomont (brick complex upper centre).  Reille and Kellerman's heavies move around to attack the Allied Right.

Closer view with the initial French moves done and the Allied players positioning their Generals.  

Picton's command behind the ridge and the Allies Heavy Horse behind.

French army in full display.  La Belle Alliance in the centre of this photo.

Showing the French moves on their left. Hougomont upper centre, La Haye Sainte upper right, La Belle Alliance slightly south.  A tight battlefield even by the standards of the day.  But still lots of maneuver room with 28mm on a 8x5' table.

Reille's Corps ignoring Hougomont and rounding it's west side.

Close-up of the Allied right/west flank.   The multiple commands in this area made coordination of the different arms difficult. One wonders how Wellington made it work.

The Prussians would make little impact this day.  Bulow's poor consistently poor command rolls would not allow much forward movement.

Forced into action, d'Erlon attacks would ultimately fail. 

Finally off his sick bed, Napoleon personally led his Guardsmen.  The Brunswickers ( in black) would not stand.

The Highlanders of Picton's command could finally move and thus defeated the Guard in a flank attack. 

The conclusion:
The initial game ended at the start of Turn 8 with very little combat.  I had played the game out until Turn 15 but the game starts to increase its tempo (shorter real time game turns) as morale/combat effectiveness collapses in ever increasing amounts.  Rather like the real thing.  At Turn 15 only the French Guard was left and the one element loss to the Highlanders meant Napoleon could no longer force his army forward.

My Waterloo Highland Units

"Don't do it!  Think of your life! Think about what it will do to your eyes!"

Those were my thoughts to myself but there wasn't anything but to pick up the 000 paint brush and get to it. So after much deliberate delay, I finally got to the tartans...and all the British regimental lace...and the bleeping bagpipes.....

For the element's strength ratios of the rules, one can often pick and choose which individual regiments one will want to use to represent the entire brigade.  Well, for the brigades of Picton's Division I picked the Highland Regiments.  How could I not, actually.  They are THE units of Waterloo.

The 79th Camerons

the 92nd Gordons

While I only really needed the 79th and 92nd to represent the brigades, I also painted up the famous 42nd (the Black Watch) at the same time as they are well known and can be used in the Quatre-Bras scenario as they were chewed up by French cavalry. To that end, I used at the kneeling figures - from a Victrix box of flank company types and ignored the overuse of the shoulder wings - to create a "square-like" vignette of tense action amidst the rye.

the Black Watch at The Battle of Quatre-Bras.  My version anyway.

I decided to do all the regiments together with the idea, like peeling a bandage off the hairy part of you leg all at once rather than doing it slowly.

Old eyes and impatience. But these still took a long time to paint. That is all I have to say about that.


 As a final note, I added "Colonel Gordon" to the Duke of Wellington's command stand for, in the movie "Waterloo" he seemed to have the most interaction with the Allied commander.  "Some of the lads can call me more than colonel"

"The lads are down to three rounds a man......Och aye, they'll stand" 

Battle of Falkirk replay

AndrewM called a few days ago and asked "Want a game this evening? Something 15mm."  Ah, OK I agreed.  So I brought out my 15mm Highland Jacobite storage box which says "complete" on it.  It was right as I had given myself all the scenario information for all three of the major battles of the '45 including for the Battle of Falkirk.  So I could quickly lay out the terrain and get all the markers in order. When we sat down, we reviewed the rules which are, as usual with me a home-brew, and got to it.

There is much 'practicality' to the look of my collection and thus the effect tot he game.  The bases are designed to be contained within the slots of my plastic boxes. And while the 'ravine' and 'bog' are simple cloth they do the trick. The Highlanders, The Irish and French Scots are all two stands to a unit, the British regulars three as that is how many units I could create and which I which need for each of the historical scenarios based on the limited numbers I had.

 The figures were painted when I was having back problems and while I was in such pain I decided I might as well do the tartans anyway.  So when lying on my stomach with elbows propped up to hold the brush and figure in my hands and one leg at a weird angle, I completed both 15mm armies.

The game produced a historic result. While we forgot to decrease the British shooting due to the rain of that day in 1745, it did not affect the game as the highlanders came up, gave an effective volley and then charged into the weakened British regulars.  Andrew was rolling a lot of sixes mind you, so the British were more torn up by firepower than would be expected.

Overview of the battle from behind the British lines. The ravine is on the right, the impassable bog on the left of the photo. The advanced British dragoons (historic deployments, remember) are already disordered - as indicated by the round markers - as are most of the regulars.  The highland gun fire was proving to be a bit more effective than it should be with the many sixes rolled by Andrew and, as the red dice of my English shows, I rolled yet another one.  I do that a lot.

Contact.  The British militia, as represented here by the 8th Foot of Culloden battle, was the last hope of the British victory, or at least a draw but had little hope against the enthusiastic Scots.  Yes, the Highlanders rolled right over the redcoats including charging the poor dragoons.  

Andrew enjoys the 15mm smaller affairs and any of the smaller historical battles as they have 'narrative' and can be done to a conclusion in a short evenings.  Can't disagree with that.