Battle of Gilly, 1815 Belgium

It goes without saying that gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a difficult endeavor to accomplish these days. That said, our small group did get a game of General d'Armee in last Sunday (the day the store is closed). We played on the large 6' x 12' table which made it easier to social distance while gaming.

The scenario was inspired by the rearguard action on June 15th 1815 near the town of Gilly, between Pirch II division and Lefol’s division from Vandamme's III corps leading the french advance. While control of the town was helpful (cavalry and artillery could only cross here), the Prussian objective was to hold off the French for an unknown number of turns. The French needed to aggressively engage and disperse two of the Prussian brigades to claim victory.

The Prussian 28th Regiment awaits the assault of the French 37th Regiment.

Holding the village was our best regiment, the 6th Infantry Regiment.
Well behind the village, we put the Prussian 2nd Westphalian Landwehr Regiment in reserve.

The Prussian left was held by the Cavalry brigade comprised of the 2nd Dragoon regiment,
a Westphalian Landwehr Cavalry regiment and a 6lb horse battery.

The French right flank with the five battalion of 12th and 56th Ligne,
supported by the 1st & 4th Hussar Regiments and a 6lb Horse Battery.

The four battalions of the 37th and 64th Ligne attack on the French left.
Behind them is the Empress Dragoon Regiment of the Old Guard!

It is difficult to see but the five battalions of the 15th Léger and 23rd Ligne have begun their assault on the village held by 1st battalion of the 6th Prussian Regiment. The veteran fusilier battalion of the 6th Regiment was in support just to the rear of the village.

It should be noted that this was the point in the game that a major fight for the village started. The initial French assault ended in a draw, but both sides added more battalions to the fight before the Prussians had to retire...

The 6th regrouped and immediately counter attacked ... which once again led to a drawn combat. And again both sides threw more battalions into the fray, until the worn French had to retreat leaving the village once more in Prussian hands. The hour long fight involved nine battalions of infantry between both sides.

While 1st/37th Ligne was heavily mauled by the fighting in front of the stream,
the other French battalions were able to force back the battalions of the 28^th Infantry Regiment.

Reduced, the remnants of the 28th regiment reform on the small rise with orders to stop the onslaught of the French ...
they failed and were dispersed from the battlefield!

Though it was at this moment that the Prussian high command felt the Major General Pirch II had delayed the French long enough and allowed his division to begin an orderly retreat from the battlefield claiming victory over the French.

All in all another good game of GdA, and we are already planning our next battle (La Rothiere 1814). We have played so many games now that we are starting to add in house rules to "fix" issues that crop up. For this game the terrain rules (very lacking in GdA) caused some grief and delays in the game, so we are looking at the terrain rules in General de Brigade and incorporating some of them into our GdA games.

Attack on the Pajar Vergara - Talavera July 28th 1809

We had not pulled out our Napoleonics figures in a long time, so this last weekend we decided to do a small game of General d'Armee. I had written up a scenario last year that we had not gamed yet and thought this would make for a small division sized battle. The scenario was built around General Leval's attack on the Pajar Vergara at the Battle of Talavera in 1809.

In the original French plan, Leval was to attack second, but his troops had to advance through the olive groves north of Talavera, and he soon lost sight of the rest of the French lines. Believing his advance had taken longer than it really had, Leval attacked early. Their order from left to right was as follows - Frankfurt, Hessen, Baden, Nassau and Holland. The nine battalions of the German Division were arrayed in a single line of battalion columns with a thick screen of skirmishers in their front. His columns had been broken up in the advance through the trees, and emerged into the open ground in front of the Allied lines in some disorder.

His right hand regiment was facing British troops, his left hand regiment Spanish troops and his central regiment the gun battery on Pajar de Vergara. For some time his left and right regiments made some progress, but then the central regiment broke under the impact of the artillery fire. Seeing this, the 7th, 40th and 53rd Regiments charged the French right, which broke and fled. Leval’s left was forced to retreat to avoid being isolated. The British captured six French guns, spiked them, and then returned to their lines. In a fight that had lasted 45 minutes, Leval had lost close to 700 men.

The Battle

The battalions of the ‘German’ division struggled to move out of the olive tree fields in an orderly fashion. And it was a battalion of Baden troops from the Brigadier Porbeck brigade in the center which formed up first. They tried to rush the Spanish heavy guns at the top of the Pajar Vergara … canister fire however drove them off and after a second attempt by the other Baden battalion failed, the Brigadier changed his tactics. He reinforced his brigade skirmish screen and set them in from the guns to slowly pick off the Spanish gunners.

The two Baden Battalions in front of the "ramp" to the Pajar Vergara

 While this was going on, Brigadier Grandjean two hessian battalions and a battalion from Frankfurt advanced on the French left towards the line held by the Spanish infantry. Some very indecisive action then occurred, but the French slowly but surely gained the upper hand.

The 2nd Attempt by the Baden regiment to take the redoubt.

The two battalions of Dutch infantry on the French right took the longest time getting out of the Olive groves, and once clear struggled to move forward under the flanking bombardment of the British battery on the Pajar Vergara. The fire was to much and this battalion dispersed, however it did buy time for the other battalion to engage the British Battalion of Detachments from Gen. Kemmis brigade. The veteran Dutchmen were able to rout off the battalion, before Gen. Kemmis could swing his other two battalions around.

Gen. Campbell 4th Division

With just one battalion holding his right flank, General Leval sent his only reserves, the Polish Brigade (temporarily attached), to shore up the gap between the center and right brigades. Gen. Potocki’s two large polish battalions launch an all-out assault on the remaining battalions of Col. Kemmis' brigade … and failed spectacularly!

Col. Kemmis brigade right before the Dutch attack them.

French Artillery fire finally started to takes its toll on the British and Spanish forces. In particular, General Portago Spanish division faltered and was close to routing before two provincial militia battalions arrived to stabilize the division.

General Portago Spanish Division after it has been pushed back across the Portina stream.

With the spanish gunners finally driven off by the large skirmish screen, General Porbeck sent his one remaining fresh battalion of Nassau infantry up the ramp and assaulted the British battery in the flank. The royal gunners fought valiantly but were routed off the Pajar Vergara.

1st Brigade marching to shore up the Spanish flank ... moments later they would turn around!

The Polish brigade rallied and move back into the french line, which was conforming to the Portina stream. This prompted General Campbell's two battalions of British Veterans to to turn around and march back to the British left to make sure a gap in the allied line could not be exploited. In fact, Brigadier General Campbell 1st brigade spent most of the battle counter marching back an forth between the left and right flanks during the battle, and in the end did not engage in any any combat except for skirmishing fire! Though reinforced the Spanish division was in poor shape as artillery fire and close range musketry was taking its toll on the spaniards.

 [After 5 hours of game play we ended the game at this point and called it a minor French victory.] With his right about to be compromised, Sir Wellesley ordered the Foot Guard brigade to attack the Germans trying to flank his position utop Medellín hill. This indeed put a halt to the German Divisions advance, but left the Medellin hill depleted and Gen Sebastiani 1st Division troops were able to push onto and hold Medllin Hill. This forced Wellesley to retire as his command was in jeopardy of being split into two parts.

Turned out to be a really good game and has inspired us to do another battle soon ... leaning towards Russians vs French and so perhaps an 1814 game.

Battle of Mark-Kleeberg - General d'Armee

Last saturday we had our second run through of the GdA rules ... I really did not get to play for several reasons, more people showed up to game than expected, had store customers and unbeknownst to me at the time, was coming down with a bad chest cold (still kicking my butt!)

The scenario had most of the Polish 26th Division defending Mark-Kleeberg, I decided to have the Vistula Legion rated as an elite unit, mostly to see how elite units fare in the game than any statement about the quality of the unit in question during 1813.

My latest scratch built building is on the far right.

I made the village three sectors, and was able to test out the "tall" 20mm idea I am leaning towards for villages. And in this case, think it work out very well. The other two polish battalions along with a battery held the French right anchored on a school house complex.

A polish battalion and artillery battery were in the open linking the school with the village, they supported the battalion in the school that ended up bearing the brunt of the allied attack.

Another French brigade (lower left), this one from the 51st Division was
tasked with keeping the Austrian's on the other side of the river.

Though hard to see the hill, two brigades of the 52nd French Division were on reserve behind the creek.

The French had to keep a brigade near the ford to keep the Austrians from arriving to the battle.

The calm before the storm ... Looking from the Western side of the Pleisse River where the Austrians are trying to force their way across. The Allied units will be arriving from the right side.

French Columns waiting to support the Polish troops occupying Mark-Kleeberg ... turned out they were not needed and instead turn and faced the russian troops arriving from the flank.

1st Bn, 8th Infantry Regiment (polish) 

The Polish battalions on average were a little over 225 men, so I decided to combine 1st and 2nd battalions of the regiment into a standard sized battalion for GdA.

The detachment comprise the fusilier bn from 12th Brigade and two reserve Bn's from 9th Brigade!

Col. Lobel detachment of fusiliers and reserves under assault orders advance quickly upon the school house. The tactic look good ... at least until the combat started :)

Initial actions of the battle

Along with their brigade skirmish screen, the Prussian detachment on the left were the first troops to engage the Polish. Two massed columns charged the polish defenders, both sides supported by infantry. The odds favoured the more numerous Prussians but not by much and the Polish held the initial round of combat.

Several Bn's from the 10^th Landwehr Infantry Regiment 

The Prussian reserves arrive in the center with orders to take Mark-Kleeberg ...sadly this was as far as they would advance!

Both brigades of  GdD Semele 52nd Infantry Division

The French commander started releasing his brigades in reserve to respond to the multiple threats opposing him. Turns out he did not need most of these units.

French 6lb foot batteries from IX Corps

The batteries on the hill got into the action by engaging prussian units with long range fire.

The final round of combat had the Prussians with a 13 to 9 dice advantage ... they lost 1 to 6!

The Polish defenders held on but it looked grim for them as the combat continued ... But of course the stubborn polish troops threw the massed prussians back!

1^st Landwehr Cavalry Regiment 

The Prussian landwehr cavalry pretty much just suffered under French bombardments during the battle...

The Russian had even less men per Bn than the Poles. The whole 14th Division was
 less than 1600 men and was represented by four small battalions and a large battery.

The Russian 14th Division moved on from the right flank, but soon became a mass of confused units, as it tried to face two directions and make room for the Russian cuirassier brigade to charge through them. It did not work out to well, especially when a unit of Polish cavalry charged that mass of men.

The attack stalled out so they called the game early. It was at that point a solid Polish victory but the bulk of the Allied troops had not been engaged. Ken in particular had some horrendous die rolls for activating brigades ... even with the attachment ADC he had multiple turns with hesitant brigades.

This game did not flow as well as our first game, though I think this was due in large part to a larger game, more people and everyone still new to the rules. We are also suffering relapses of Black Powder tactics, in that we are used to freely moving around battalions, which is not the case with GdA as the maneuvering of individual battalions is more restrictive.

We have another game scheduled for the end of the month and suspect it (and every additional game) will go smoother as more of us have the rules in hand and have forgotten our BP gaming foibles.

General d'Armee

We had a quick change of plans for our game last Saturday. I had planned on running a Black Powder Napoleonic game based off the Battle of Barrosa in 1811. But one of our gamers received a pdf version of Dave Browns new General d'Armee rules, so we decided to give them a try instead.

French to the left, British to the right with the Barrosa Tower off in the distance.

I have very high hopes for this ruleset; while I do have fun playing Black Powder, the games are lacking in period flavour. Our BP games just end up being fun games with miniatures instead of a fun Napoleonic game.

There was going to be four of us playing, so I divided the forces into five brigades for the French and four brigades for the British. This as it turns out is what a single person per side could easily run. I also believe this is going to be the main "negative" feature for me of the rule set, more on that later though.

BG Dilkes Guard brigade advances up the Barrosa heights to engage Ruffin's infantry division.

As this was a first play through of the rules, and a hasty one at that, we made numerous errors. Most were "fixed" in game, though I did find several other mistakes made after I re-read the rules the next day. Not an issue for me as I never get upset about mistakes in any game, especially one in which we are learning the rules.

French infantry from Leval's division advances upon the British lines.

In the opening moves of the battle the French occupied Barrosa Hill with most of Ruffin's division, while Leval's division cautiously advanced on the British "grand" battery. Just so, as Wheatley's skirmish line broke from the woods and started firing on the flank of the French columns. This forced several of the battalions to turn and face the skirmishers, though the bulk of the division advanced upon the rest of the Wheatley's infantry as it deployed from the woods ... supposedly under the cover of Major Duncans artillery guns. That was the plan, its just that Duncan's artillery brigade was consistently hesitant and provided no support!

This allowed the 1/54th Ligne in column to rapidly charge Colonel Barnard’s flank battalion, overwhelming and routing them. They fled back to behind several companies of the Coldstream Guard that just exited the woods. With poor command rolls on both sides, the rest of the battle for these troops became stymied and mostly limited to sporadic musketry.

The French battalions from Ruffin's division moved down the hill at the small guard battalions moving up the hill. They met in the middle and proceeded to volley and charge back and forth with neither side gaining an advantage.

While this was taking place French Dragoons had swept around Barrosa Hill and were looking to the turn the British flank, just as Colonel Whittingham cavalry and spanish infantry finally showed up along the coast road. The British Hussars fared well and drove back the dragoons, though the spanish cavalry not so much.

Both sides were starting to have more and more brigades falter, so we called it a day ... after five hours of gaming! Ok at least half that time was spent looking up rules or waiting on customers :) Overall it seemed that we all had a good time and are already looking at running another game.

So what did I think of the rules? Did it meet my expectations? I did like the rules, and for the most part they met my expectations for a Napoleonic rule set. Even after just one playthrough I am feeling like they will replace BP as our go to rule set for Napoleonics. They are fiddly, which I like, but suspect many people won't like them because of the tables/charts or the all the little variations on outcomes. My main problem with the rules and ironically one of the interesting features of it, is the ADC command system. It is fun rolling for availability and tasking out the ADC's, I think most people will want to participate in it and as we get more familiar with the rules and stages of games, we will get more nuanced with when and what Tasking's we use.

But we play with 28mm figures where each player generally only has a couple of brigades ... thats two ADC's, so just one or two per turn. I suspect that having four or five brigades for each person will give enough ADC's to fully utilize the system. We'll see how it goes as we play more games, perhaps will just have one person per side roll ADC's and them hand them out.

The only other part of the rules that annoyed me was the obvious British bias in the rules, those however are very easy to take out. As an example, the mains rules state "Counter-charges by Infantry are not permitted. Exception: if defending British Infantry...". I don't mind the rule it self, but that it seems that only British infantry figured out how to counter charge :) I will just change it to read Veteran and Elite infantry instead of British. And of course there is a 60th/95th special rule ... which I will change to elite light companies and so on ...

I really liked the charging/melee sequence, though it does take some getting used to and you will need to use the charts most of the time ... which I do believe many people will not like. But I missed the rolling to charge/stand sequence that BP does not have and suspect charging will be used less than in BP.

We of course will have to play more games to confirm, but it seems that volley fire is much more effective than charging to disperse enemy units. Unlike BP, where you almost always charge right away, in GdA I get the feeling it is best to move up and engage in several turns of volley fire before charging.

Overall I am quite pleased with the rules and am already figuring out how to track hits, ADC's and other markers for the game.