Nap Campaign: Battle of Tremleurr. 18th April 1808. Turns 11 - Conclusion

What began with full of hope for the allies in destroying Grouchy's army has turned sour over the last couple of turns. They had a clear advantage in rolling over the French centre and right flank but both assaults have floundered. At the same time the allied right flank has all but collapsed.

The allies have now suffered 9 broken brigades out of an original 18. The French have lost 5 broken out of 19. Black Powder provide a victory option of breaking half or more brigades but I chose to keep this open and decide upon the outcome depending on what happens on the tabletop. That said the difference is so stark that it may be a factor on what happens next.

I decided to play a few more turns which of course could impact the campaign.

 TURN 11

The French begin an encirclement of the last of the Brunswick infantry with a Guard Chasseurs unit sweeping around the rear towards the startled Brunswick Hussars regiment. 

All that remains of the Brunswick are 2 infantry battalions and an artillery battery commanded by Specht. The Prince of Orange and Duke of Brunswick made a hasty retreat!

While the Chasseurs and 2 battalions of the Young Guard reform to deliver the coup-de-grace, the 2/1st Tirailleurs fancy their chances of breaking the square. They charge taking fire from the nearby battalion in line and from the square. The Young Guard battalion suffers heavy casualties generating a break test which they spectacularly fail leaving them broken and failing to make contact.

Continued -

The aftermath of the action. As the Cuirassiers recover and reform after their prolonged fights with the British heavy cavalry, they begin to encircle the Brunswickers.

At the top left of the photo, the Hussars of the 4th Cavalry Division race across the battlefield to bear down on the rear of the allied infantry.

The Young Guard are not having a good spell. The 1/3rd Voltigeurs of Guye's Brigade, charge the Hanoverian Bremen Field Battalion. They received a blast of canister from the accompanying 1/2 battery and a full throated volley from the Hanoverians. Like their compatriots, the casualties were such that they failed to make contact and broke from the field.

In the centre the stalemate continues. The French are simply too weak to mount an offensive move and the British continue to suffer from a series of shaken and/or disordered units. Two artillery batteries are positioned to give the lancers some grief but fail to make an impression.

On the French right flank the action hots up. The 1st KGL Light Dragoons charged and destroyed a French infantry battalion defending the fence line on the left. Bruno ordered his brigade to charge the KGL with the 7th Hussars in the lead accompanied by Bruno himself. The KGL counter-charged causing the Hussars to retreat from the field following the combat. Flush with success, the KGL mounted a sweeping charge towards the 3rd Chasseurs who counter-charged. The result was a draw but with both sides shaken both needed to take break tests. Both failed!

The French right flank now looks decidedly bare. Dornberg will be shocked having lost his KGL regiment, especially when he sees ...... 

...... a French light cavalry regiment galloping across the rear of the allied position threatening their supply lines to the rear.

The remnants of 2 broken Hanoverian brigades are retreating from the field unaware of the approaching French cavalry.

TURN 12

A frustrated Col. Best receives the order to withdraw. Once again his brigade outperforms but events elsewhere have dictated his future direction.  

Dornberg races across the battlefield to head off French cavalry threatening their supply lines and the route of retreat of several allied units. The presence of the rapidly approaching Anglo/Hanoverian cavalry has the desired effect with the lead French cavalry regiment turning to meet the threat (bottom right).

An overview of the centre and pretty much the entirety of the allied position. With the imminent loss of the right flank, all allied units are now ordered to withdraw aiming to preserve as much of their fighting strength as possible. 

The last of the Brunswickers are entirely surrounded. They bravely try and fight on but shattering blasts of canister and musketry into their tightly packed squares inflicts significant casualties. Although both infantry battalions hold their positions they are both shaken. 

This will give the green light to the Cuirassiers to charge into shaken squares with little chance of survival for the Brunswickers. A call for them to surrender is complied with signalling the end of allied resistance on this flank. 

There is little point in carrying on with the game and victory is declared for the French. They now have overwhelming cavalry superiority but their infantry element is too small to make any impact on the retreating allies. Rather than lose unnecessary casualties to allied artillery in particular, the French are content to break off combat and allow the allies to retire from the field.

An unexpected victory for the French and one that could prove an important lifeline to their beleaguered forces. 

For the allies a humiliating defeat and a blow to their confidence. They will fall back on their supply lines to recover and await reinforcements still arriving from the UK.

In total the allies suffered 10 broken brigades out of 19 and the French 5 out of 18.

A note about how I calculate casualties for the campaign in Black Powder: 

The figure is the number of bases lost per unit. The total number lost is calculated for each brigade and then adjustments made to the orders of battle. e.g. A brigade of 4 standard sized battalions of 6 bases lose 4 of their 24 bases. 2 of the battalions will therefore be reduced to small units of 4 bases each. If more than 6 bases are lost then a unit will be deleted from the orbat. Odd numbers will be rounded up or down as appropriate which will be a rather subjective decision by me based on roughly how much action they had seen. 

Black Powder Rules.

This is not a review, rather a few observations and changes I have made or considering making to suit large games in 6mm.

It has proved to be a faster moving game than GdeB, at times considerably so! So far I have allowed 32 moves per campaign day and will be reducing that to 24 for Black Powder. I may reduce it further still depending on my experience of the next game which will be a little larger than this.

In general, I thought the rules played well and once familiar, involved far fewer references to charts etc. Simpler mechanics lead to a more free-flowing game with genuinely exciting moments. There are a few minor issues though that I feel I may need to address.

Most of the scenarios in the supplements involve managing 4 or 5 brigades. As a solo player I managed 37 brigades in this game and trying to remember any 'useful rules' attributed to individual units was virtually impossible requiring regular references to the unit charts. On several occasions I forgot to conduct re-rolls of such things as missed hits or morale saves. In the future I intend to minimalise the use of such rules to those that are easy to remember, desirable though it may be to add further chrome. 

As mentioned in an earlier post, I changed 'First Fire' and 'Steady' which would have involved either more markers or continual references to the orbats to establish if these attributes had been utilised by individual units. 'First Fire' became 'Controlled Volleys' involving a re-roll of a missed shot. 'Steady' units were awarded a +1 to break tests.

For the next game 'Controlled Volleys' will be changed again. Each unit with this level of skill will get 1 extra dice when shooting (as 'First Fire') provided they have not fired in the previous turn. To avoid becoming too powerful, the -1 to morale save will be cancelled. I use 'smoke' to indicate when a unit has fired which will make it easier to remember when this should be applied.

Disorder occurred frequently as a result of shooting and was the primary reason why the main allied attack in the centre broke down. Just two French battalions and a battery of artillery stalled 2 attacking brigades of infantry. A similar problem occurred on the Hanoverian flank. It could of course just be fluke dice rolls but I am considering in expanding the 'Elite' recover from disorder tests. The default is 4+. For the next game I may trial an expansion of that with trained troops testing on 5+, elite such as Young Guard, British light infantry etc. on 4+ and guard troops 3+. Militia will remain disordered.

Another issue was the seemingly impregnable Cuirassiers. At times it was just plain odd! e.g. the standard sized Scots Greys charged a static shaken small Cuirassier unit with the former also having the 'ferocious charge' rule allowing to re-roll all misses on a charge. The Scots Greys scored all 8 hits, the Cuirassiers 2. The Scots Greys saved 1 (4+ morale) but the Cuirassiers saved 6 (3+ morale). Both had the same support but the Cuirassiers rolled high on its heavy cavalry D3 roll defeating the Scots Greys. As a one-off this would be less of an issue, but time and again allied cavalry were bounced off and eventually thoroughly defeated by the Cuirassiers for no loss to the latter although they were occasionally defeated forcing them to retreat. 

The 3+ morale save appears to have been the cause of such one-sided combats but that said I will need to play more games to establish if this is just unusual or another method is used to recognise the strength of Cuirassiers. An alternative would be 4+ saves for all with enhanced 'useful rules' taking care of quality differences.

Overall though, I am relieved that Black Powder is a set of rules that I am happy with. I will be trialling them with other periods in due course such as the ACW and even Colonials, along with Pike and Shotte for the ECW and Hail Caesar for Wars of the Roses.