15mm Napoleonic Game "The Battle of Grudge Bridge"...........or is that cooking pot attached?

After my disaster from the mornings game, Ray was feeling cocky and demanded another game and more figures and I agreed as long as I had a chance of a win this time.

So I had to protect the bridge from the French (Ray)and his little gunpowder plot, Ray had one more regiment but most of his units were elite to my line class.

The contractual shot of the head honcho, big cheese, supreme leader and dictator of the Rejects......

Initial set up with my boys nearest the camera and the well named grudge bridge.....

The thin red line.......

The French move first.......

I expand to my left which turns out to be a mistake.....

The French head for my right flank in columns......

Ready for the French advance.....

The columns hit..........

I continue to do well on my left......

There goes one of the French regiments...........

The French columns win the melee and things look bleak.......

Especially as one regiment is routing..........

Ray looking smug which is his normal look to be honest........

On the left flank we are kicking French derriere..........

But on the right flank.........

Now Postie lets me know I have one roll of the dice to save these units and was the officer attached, I had to tell the little Stalin that it was a cooking pot but I would take any help.......

The cooking pot did not help.............

During this period the French sneaked two little stands on to the bridge........

I had nothing to stop the cheating French......

They placed their charges, lit the fuse and scurried away. they needed a 4,5 or 6 on a D6 to blow up the bridge and win the game.......

What a shame, I win.........

Eat my shorts Ray!

"The Disaster at Fort Joseph", a Napoleonic game 4th March 1812 ..........

.......also known as The Battle of Fort Joseph 4th March 1812.........or how not to attack a Vauban fort!

A midweek game for myself and Ray with Postie as ringmaster..........

A small fort is barring Wellington's advance on Badajoz in Spain, so he has set up siege lines ready to pound the walls of Fort Joseph to create a breech into which his "scum of the earth" will try to assault and capture.
The French garrison hope to hold out long enough and inflict serious casualties on Wellington's army, thus forcing him to retire.

The Game or Disaster
Forces are already deployed ready for the bombardment and assault, obviously the British must capture the Fort and the French must beat of the assault.

I had to assault the fort from a prepared deployment, my 3 pieces of siege artillery could hit the fort but only causing damage on a D6 (the wall had 20 points of damage to be destroyed and cause a breach which only could be assaulted by units in column), the required damage took 14 turns to achieve!!!

Now I should have just rolled for 14 turns until I got the required damage but it was a game and dice had to be thrown..........

Fort Joseph awaits........

So does it's heavy guns.........

My siege guns...........

The British camp all peaceful..........

Wellington or Arthur Wellesley at the time.......

My Portuguese allies await.......

All ready, the British columns await the order..........

Supplies keep rolling in to camp over the vital bridge......

Crossing over the defenses caused immediate disorder.........

We used little stones to signify the pounding of the walls.......

I sent my light troops forward in skirmish order to try and lessen casualties and as a screen for the columns....

The regular infantry moved forward at speed but this would be their downfall........

Ladders at the ready for scaling the walls if a opening allowed it........

He had so little to do other than throw dice.........

The damage increases..........

More French infantry appear to line the walls........

The light infantry reach the defenses, Ray concentrated hid fire up to this point mostly on the columns......

A wider view of the assault.......... 

The light troops reach the bottom of the fort but there fire is quite ineffective (a single chance of a 6 on a D6 is all these figures get to fire)......

Same here but at least they no longer receive artillery fire.......

The damage still builds........

The remnants of a British column..........

I should mention my poor Portuguese allies who had suffered badly under the French fire.......

I speedily throw my two remaining columns in to the now opened breach.......

One round of canister later..........

By now Ray has brought more units out in the courtyard to face the columns (he still had some more units not yet deployed) and the game was called very next turn due to the columns being massacred...... 

An interesting game (another word for disaster) especially for an attacker, would things have been better with reducing the walls before the assault, maybe, Ray was lucky on the dice but he was rolling 4,5 and 6 at

 effective range (sometimes up to 5 dice) and close range he was rolling 3,4,5,6 (sometimes up to 8 dice) and my best was a 6 for virtually every shot and as I said on;y one dice most of the time but that's wargaming......


........but we finished this game quite quick and sorted out another game and this was a different story or as the legend will state "Is that cauldron attached?"

More to come......

"The Battle of Fulda", the what if Napoleonic wargame after Leipzig part 2!

Everything was in place for the game to go either way............but the dice gods were watching!

Every turn you had to roll to see who moved first, fired first etc...., Richard charged his Legere into the Schutzen, they were lucky they were able to form before they were hit but the main issue here is his Corps commander is within 2 inches and any casualties caused on his unit will cause a D20 to be rolled and the amount of casualties caused is rolled could kill him, they were lucky.....

This is something that tickled me, these casualties on a Russian column are from his own rocket battery, fired 7 times and it only caused two friendly casualties....... 

Here they come again, Russian spirit, Lee's frustration............

All that cavalry and a big gap..........

Trying a little David Bailey, ruined by a Russian........

The Prussians crest the hill..........

The scene of battle at this time, the Prussians are steaming ahead.........

John throws caution to the wind and launches his cavalry forward against lines of infantry and squadrons of cavalry............

He slowly dismantles the entire Prussian left flank, wins round after round of melee, the only fly in the ointment was a drawn result which he won next round, we couldn't believe the Prussians run of luck on the dice, when he had to roll for pursuit checks he would pass them comfortably and retire in good order..........

We then felt a disturbance in the force and the mood changed, we had joked that we should wake Ray as he was on nights but we needn't have worried as Surjit had rang him earlier and woke him not realising he was not at the game, how we laughed...........

A morale check has gone badly and a hole has appeared in my weak lines, at this stage it was about exchanging volleys............

Lee steadies himself again for another assault, 3rd or 4th time is the charm?...........

Still waiting on a charge on a very weak point of my line, they never came.......

French cavalry rush forward to fill gaps.......

Ray sides with the Prussians, smug shit.........

The Legere after a Russian artillery barrage finally hits and morale causes them to fall back, is the way finally open for the Russians......

John has now caused routing and Brigade checks for the Prussians, entire brigades are falling back, Surjit has rolled nothing higher than a 3 on two dice 3 times........

I drop my Poles back to form a secure line..........

The Legere (disordered) rush forward and slam the door shut on the Russian columns.......

Ammunition on most artillery had run dry for me and the Russians by this stage (only cannister left) but what's this.......an ammunition wagon appears but too late......

A deflated, grim looking, couldn't roll well to save his life, blogging, sweating but in his natural environment blog whore......

Richard charges but is met by two Prussian squadrons.........

Lee and his Russians threw himself and them forward time and time again but to no avail, no luck again with the dice or in fairness his position, I actually started to feel pity for him near the end, this infuriated Lee no end........

Richard has routed both the Prussian squadrons and pursued and smashed into a trailing unit behind.........

A better view and the two routing Prussian cavalry.........

Richard routed the third cavalry squadron........

2 of these routing units would disperse after failing another brigade check which if the game continued would have brought on another divisional check............

John received man of the game (failing at not looking smug but I don't think he was trying not to), never lost a melee and caused brigade and divisional checks within the Prussian army.......

The game ended there with Postie adding up the victory points, 1 to 5 points difference is a minor victory, 6 to 10 points difference is a major victory, we got a 12 points difference (18-6) and Postie declaring a bloody thrashing victory!

In fairness the Prussians and their allies had no luck, never won a melee, failed so many morale rolls, failed brigade checks and got their asses handed to them and then we (the French) started to feel sorry for them, I think this hurt the most........

Good game, great result, well for the French anyway............poor Lee's dice luck continues, the only thing that could have made this better if Ray had been a Prussian.....hold on he was for a while!!!!!!!