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.

General Wells - An early defeat

 

The General, from H G Well's Little Wars, has been my Army Blue Leader for some years. Here follows a brief description of an early battle from his illustrious career in which he was defeated - it has to be brief as the General doesn't like to dwell on it.

Battlefield promotion to the first reader to spot the actual field of battle

Army Blue arrived from the South; their objective, to push through the defending Army Red (advance 4 units across Red's baseline). Red has reinforcements arriving (on a die roll) between turns 7 and 9; Blue has an additional unit arriving on turn 7 and another on turn 8.

Red established his defence on a ridge

Red's Light Infantry hold the LH BUA and hold out for a LONG time

Blue manages to get a unit across Red's line (top left) but otherwise is struggling

Red is reinforced on turn 7 by 3 regiments from Army Black (top right)

Blue is unable to break through despite his own reinforcements

A few holes have appeared in Red's line but Blue is unable to capitalize on them
General Wells admits defeat and withdraws.

A nice scenario and a tough nut to crack for Blue - thanks to Old Trousers for the inspiration regarding turning this battlefield into a grid. David Crook has also played this battle on a grid and you can find details on his blog.

Battle of the Coalfields

 The following post documents the second battle to take place in Turn 5 of the campaign (The Illyrian invasion of Messaline). Two Illyrian Armies were occupying the objective of the invasion; the area of Messaline containing the Scampa Coalfield. In the first battle, General Cesario had defeated the Illyrian Army 1 and pushed it back towards the border. Would Illyrian Army 2 be more successful?

Position at the end of Turn 4
Two Messaline Armies (white) attempt to drive back the invaders

The Battle of the Coalfields

Messaline Army 1 under the dashing General Antonio (4 Infantry, 1 Cavalry, 1 Artillery) arrived from the South and occupied the high ground. Facing them was Illyria's Army 2 commanded by the cautious General Sir Andrew Aguecheek (4 Infantry 2 Artillery), that had recently been deposited on the West coast by the Illyrian fleet. Sir Andrew's orders were to hold the coalfields at all cost...

Early artillery exchanges, coupled with advances made by the Messaline army, saw the rapid destruction of Illyria's guns.

General Aguecheek committed his reserve Infantry began his attack.

By the middle of the day, both sides were looking exhausted

however, The Illyrians believed that they had the numbers still to drive forward and win the day. General Aguecheek advanced..

 was driven back...

advanced again (one last push lads)...

fought tenaciously...

and finally ceded victory.

The gallant General Antonio had won the day and the remnants of Illyrian Army 2 withdrew.

The situation at the end of Turn 5 looks difficult for the Illyrian invaders: all three of their armies are now seriously battered (as are the defender's forces of course), and Messaline has also got ahead in mobilizing their fourth army that will muster at the Capital at the beginning of Turn 6. Illyria's next moves are yet to be decided, however elements within the War Cabinet are pushing for a full withdrawal to allow time for more forces to be marshalled. 

Situation at the end of Turn 5