Continuing War with the 4th Coalition: Eylau

 Having defeated the Prussians in our last Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte game, the Emperor is disappointed to find that the Imperial Russian Army is still loitering in East Prussia...

For this game you'll have to imagine that the bare pine board is the snowy fields around Eylau. The town is now to the rear of the attacking French Army.

The Armies face each other on Day 2 of the battle

The fight starts off fairly evenly - the Russians
commit some unreliable infantry on their right

The French appear to get the upper hand, quickly
defeating the unreliables

The Russians' hold on: the Emperor unleashes Murat
and the cavalry

The Russian centre collapses!

but the frost-bitten French can't yet take advantage

Finally the day is won!

Like the real battle, this was a costly affair for both sides, and the cold weather doesn't help. Glory to the Emperor! On to the Battle of Friedland, and thank the Lord it'll be fought in June; Vive l'ete!

Surprise at Auerstedt (DoNB)

 An outnumbered French Corps took on the main Prussian Army in the latest of my historical battles using Steve Parker's Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte rules.

Stormy skies (image from Wiki)

The French, under Marshal Davout, though outnumbered, formed squares which helped them enormously tackling repeated Prussian cavalry attacks. White dice indicate defensive stance, black indicate elite formations.

Start of the game

Blucher's early charge leading the Prussian Hussars did not end well. The Duke of Brunswick (Prussian C-in-C) next brought up some infantry that were also dispatched, and then threw more cavalry (Cuirassiers) into the fray. 

The French squares stood firm, while repeated attacks by the Prussians saw their numbers dwindle.

Eventually the Prussian Army ran out of fresh units to throw at the French, and the battle was over. Against the odds, the Emperor's men had won. A celebratory supper in Berlin is on the agenda...

 

War with the 4th Coalition: Jena with DoNB

 

Image "Snipped" from Wikipedia

Continuing my play through of the 25 Historical Battles featured in Steve Parker's Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte (DoNB), today's offering features the first in the two battles fought on October 14 1806. The French Army, having marched into Prussia, confronts the Prussians near Jena with some elements of its 180,000 strong force, under the command of the Emperor.

The French have their artillery on high ground and are able to take advantage of an early bombardment. The Prussians have two Line Infantry units in defensive positions (white markers) and some unreliable units held in reserve (purple markers).

"Boom!" (Thanks to MaudlinFX)

The Prussian Line Infantry on the opposite high ground have been shaken by the French guns and become unreliable.

Halfway through the battle, the Prussian's are already taking more casualties than the French and now the Emperor has unleashed Murat's Cuirassiers who start to chop their way through the Prussian Left Flank.

Apologies for the bleary photo

The French Army reduces the Prussians and the battle is soon won.

  Attention must now turn to how Marshal Davout is doing during the simultaneous battle at nearby Auerstedt; the Emperor eagerly awaits news...

Dispatching the 3rd Coalition: Austerlitz with DoNB

 

Snipped from Wiki, with thanks

The next battle to be tackled in the Historical Battles section of Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte, is Austerlitz (the Battle of the Three Emperors). Great description of the battle at Wikipedia so I won't summarize it.

The Austro Russian force has control of the Pratzen Heights, courtesy of Napoleon's strategic withdrawal. The French have also weakened their Right Flank with some unreliable Column Infantry, hoping to lure the Coalition in...

My version of the great battlefield

Both sides took casualties in the opening turns. It's worth noting that the unreliable Column Infantry are still tussling with the Grenzers on the French Right, and that The French Imperial Guard (Grognards to a man) have ominously moved into centre.

 By lunchtime, the Elite French Cuirassiers have joined battle (and those unreliables are still there).

Later in the day, the Imperial Guard have smashed their way through the defenders on the Heights and can now out flank the remaining Austro Russians (Napoleon loves it when a plan comes together).

End of the day and its au revoir Third Coalition (and yes, those unreliable column infantry lasted the whole day). No embarrassing French loss to report to Josephine, so it's on to Jena, after a quick stop at Pressburg (Bratislava) for a Treaty signing. DoNB provides another fun little game!

Pyramidal Redux & Coalition No.2

 After losing the Battle of the Pyramids in the last blog post, mainly on a technicality (the author not really knowing what he was doing), Napoleon was given a second chance this morning...

Snipped from National Geographic

Battle of the Pyramids (2)

The line up is the same as in the previous post only I've added a couple of palm trees to hopefully make things less abstract.

The French squares once again prove themselves a match for the Elite Mamluk cavalry

This time they are also fighting off the frankly unreliable Mamluk infantry who got the better of them in the first effort.

Order (and sanity) is restored with the historically correct conclusion

Having (finally) gained a foothold in the Middle East, Napoleon returns to France, sets himself up as First Consul and then goes back across the Alps to recapture the Italian provinces he had earlier taken.

Battle of Marengo

The Austrians have a great deal more artillery than the French and get a pre-battle bombardment. They also have a unit of line infantry fortified in the village (Monopoly hotel).

Part way through the battle, the French Elite Cuirassiers enter the fray and start doing all sorts of damage.

The Austrian Artillery is now established in the village and the Grenzers have been slain or chased away, and the Austrian Cavalry get to duel with their French counterparts.

With both sides reduced to half strength the battle is finely balanced

until

Another victory for Napoleon! 

I'm enjoying these games very much and will definitely continue to work my way through the historical battles listed in the rule book. I can quite easily get involved with the action when played with just a simple grid, but, as I've said before, a little bit of scenery definitely adds to the thing, so I'll be using it in future.

 

See the Pyramids

 Rereading the Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte rules this morning I realized that I'd misinterpreted the Artillery bombardment section (note to self: read the instructions carefully). Having revealed this error, I thought I'd better have another go just to make sure I hadn't messed up elsewhere (any excuse for a wargame). 

Battle of the Pyramids

Snipped from a Wikipedia page

Note regarding the units; the French are all Column Infantry but are formed in squares. The Mamluk Cavalry are all Elite. The Mamluk Infantry are all Unreliable (see query at the end).

The game started rather predictably with the French squares holding off the charging Mamluk cavalry which was replaced by some shaky Infantry. 

However, things started to go wrong for the French

and continued to do so

until, against the odds, they were defeated!

Queries for readers: 

1. When (as in picture 4) two units are facing blank grids and effectively only flank attacking each other, I shunt one along a grid so that they can face one another - Is that correct?
2. When a unit that starts off Unreliable (ie does not become unreliable due to circumstances of the battle) wins its reliability roll does it still become Reliable as the rules suggest? In this game I allowed an Unreliable unit of Mamluk Infantry to become reliable after a successful roll, however I feel that if they started out as unreliable, they probably would stay that way (?)

Napoleon V Coalition 1 (with Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte)

 Having invested 5.47 Euro in a copy of Steve Parkers Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte, I thought I'd better give it a go. I decided to use my Risk figures as a quick way of getting into the game.

The first thing I realized was that I need a better way of a) differentiating units and b) recognizing which units are elite, unreliable etc. For these games I used a) 3 fig units for Line and 2 fig units for column infantry, b) little dice to indicate Elite and units in defensive positions but in future I need a better system - I ended up referring to the plan in the text a lot. I tried to remember which units were unreliable (either at the start or because of artillery bombardment and this, as the name suggests, was unreliable also). 

I used the forces and deployment directly from the Historical Battles section of the rulebook for this run through of the following battles; Montenotte, Lodi and Rivoli.

Napoleon, flushed with success from putting down Royalists, goes on a grand tour of Italy..

Image on loan from Wikipedia

1. Battle of Montenotte

The French are outnumbered but in defensive positions.

The Elite Column Infantry (French left) were certainly the most valuable unit for Napoleon doing most of the damage to the Austrians before finally breaking after repeated attacks.

A victory for the French.

2. Battle of Lodi

Unlike in the real battle the defending Austrians defeated the French in my battle. The Austrian Line Infantry holding the bridge (centre) did not break and only the Elite French Cuirassiers were left fighting at the end of the battle (should have thrown them at the bridge...)

3. Battle of Rivoli

The French were again on the defensive with Line Infantry on high ground, and unlike in reality, the Austrians were unable to shift them.

The victory at Rivoli spells defeat for Austria and the First Coalition. Next stop: Egypt.