AAR Battle of Bussaco II at the Wargames Holiday Centre

We swapped side and went at it again. I requested the smaller of the three French Corps due to feeling rather drawn with Ken getting the VI Corp under Marshal Ney. The plan was to batter the British in the centre with an all out attack. On our left Mike had a fairly large force that was intended to force a passage through the area I had defended the game before. My job was to tie down the British facing me and stop them reinforcing the centre. But how did it go?

 

 

Column Attack against the British

Just like the first game my attention was most placed on my forces and I paid only a small amount of attention on the rest of the battle. We managed to keep the mist for a lot longer than in the first game which aided me with the dummies as I held them in reserve as a possible cavalry screen that kept Ralph from pressing too hard on my extreme right flank with his Dragoons.

 

The First four turns were played out on the Saturday evening. I had missed a possible opening on set up where I could have driven at the weakest part of the line leaving much of the British with nothing facing them. They would be able to reposition but before they could get the  troops into place they would have been forced to commit their reserve to the battle against m. This would have been very bad news for my Corp being only 10 infantry brigades but would have reduced the force facing Ken by enough to make the central defence too weak which in turn could have forced Lee to send some of his troops to help Adi in the centre. As it was I was driving my whole force into the teeth of a much stronger force that had all the advantages of defending.

 

The Allied strategy was to hold this flank with a strong force of two Corp's of 12 infantry battalions but many of these are the feared light regiments including the rifles. I was matched for artillery units though Ralph only had three guns in each compared with my 4. 36 Skirmishers faced my 24 and he also had the Dragoons on hand to fight against my light cavalry which I had already had two units forced to turn and flee after a mauling.

 

Light Cavalry face off British Dragoons.

I was taking heavy casualties on the leading Column marching up the road from very accurate artillery fire but it was on my right flank the first major clash was to happen. I still had 6 squadrons of lights to face the four of British Dragoons. I had brigaded two squadrons together in two positions to give me the upper hand in the melee whilst positioning the other two squadrons behind the others so I would be able to support the melee in coming melee rounds. The first clash was actually going my way after round one but Ralph through two more squadrons into the melee. The end result after some fairly poor rolling by both of us was that the British were forced to flee whilst I was forced to return to own lines. This left just one British Dragoon squadron facing the two attached squadrons with a third ready to join the melee. I was licking my lips with anticipation and knowing it was almost impossible for me to fail I rolled the dice.

 

Throw anything but three to charge home.

So yes I stood to face the charge and was rewarded with an automatic casualty and was to fight the melee rounds at a major disadvantage.

 

Dice Gods have a great sense of humour.

I then rolled well whilst Ralph had another bout of low rolls (he only had these with his cavalry by the way). Still he only lost the one figure so he was lucky in that respect. I believe this was the first action of the Sunday. Saturday finished fairly late (later than normal from what Lee was saying) and I was quite dizzy and feeling ready to barf up. As such I stayed at the hotel whilst Lee and Adi hit the town. Well a Pizza joint, followed by a chicken place as they messed up Adi's order. I was still feeling shite when Lee got back and was worried I would not be able to play on the Sunday. Totally unlike me  could not face food till breakfast the following morning by which time I was recovered and ready for the day.

 

I was suffering such great casualties moving up the hill that I stopped the attack on he hill and started to reposition units so that I could attack the left flank. The biggest issue I had was it I seemed to be in canister range all game which was taking a huge toll of my units. Ralph decided to come down the hill to take on the holding force and take pressure off his flank.

 

Defending the village

Finally I have the advantages. Here came the British I would have first volley from my vets, rested muskets and in a village with only open order counting in the Brits favour. The Brits also would have first volley but having moved would loose that advantage and suffer a massive minus mod for my hard cover. The dice were cast and I gave him a real thumping, my arty also coming on strong. Ralph returned fire AFTER taking the damage as he was advancing so was short by 5 or 6 figures but did a whopping 5 casualties and I think an officer in return as he rolled boxcars! However he was soon retreating the unit as he just could not afford to keep in place whilst my arty was able to join in the fun.

 

The repositioning continues.

Being the eleventh of November we paused for the two minutes silence which was even more poignaint with us standing over our toy soldiers especially as one of our group is an ex marine. I can not speak for the others but it was a strange sensation to turn back to the figures about five minutes later and pick up the game again.

 

The other light regiment and the rifles though were coming down the hill unhindered and I was still all over the place. At this point I did have a look see how things were going elsewhere. Our centre ws fighting on the table edge as most of Adi's troops had withdrawn to the next table drawing Ken on. It was looking like we were doing well but the vast majority of Ken's troops were not involved in the fight. Our biggest asset had been turned into a traffic jam! Worse still was our cavalry advantage was right at the back and guaranteed never to get involved but was not released to help either flank. Over night it looked like Mark would punch through Lee with some ease but a mixture of lack of experience or rule knowledge and some edge of the seat play by Lee was starting to turn the battle in his favour. The French troops were starting to fail morale tests causing problems for the following troops.

 

Ooops French troops flee from the guns.

Not that I did not have problems of my own, the column that had taken a pounding was under orders to come back down the hill but after a poor morale roll decided to flee and pinned the unit behind it. I was able to recover it but due to it's losses it was never going to be sent back into the front line again.

 

One last mad dash.



Knowing that at best I was facing a stalemate and at worst being pushed off the field I prepared to attack all along the line to the left of the village. To make this possible I would need to pin the units and to do this I was sneaking a spent cavalry unit into position to charge. Unfortunately Ralph saw him peaking out and shot at him rather than the infantry and caused enough casualties that they were done for the day. This made the whole prospect of a mass charge unappealing and I set myself up for keeping up a delaying action as casualties would continue to mount.

 

Meanwhile Lee was sitting on a comfortable sofa reading one of the many great books for such an occasion. Lee it seemed had turned a odd routing French column into a mob of broken men. Only two of Mark's troops were not routing and they were under retreat orders so would have routed the following turn.

 

Infantry routing from the British.

I was still overall in fair condition but I had a unit routing in my centre again pinning another unit. My troops were so shot up that they could not stand against Ralph's still fairly intact units. Our centre was not managing to break Adi or when they did Adi managed to break a battalion of Ken's so it was looking a stalemate in the centre.

 

I believe I could have kept Ralph busy enough that he could not help out the centre as I had a couple of fairly fresh battalions on my left flank that could have again attempted to attack the hill forcing a reaction whist Ken had the troops that could move uncontested to a point that would halt the Allied advance and indeed he should have done this earlier as he would then force Adi to defend. The problem though was Lee. He now had the troops and the position to attack Ken's flank which would have halted any momentum Ken had gained and either force him to try and break off and retreat or risk a very dangerous battle were breaking units would cause major problems and any collapse would loose the whole Corp and as such the army.

 

Again another defeat for our team but it was fun getting there. Ralph was great fun to play against and we just had such a great time. We talked about our own personal objectives in the game finding out that both of us had managed what we set out to do. Better knowledge of the rules would have changed a few of the things I did and better dice would have helped too. In the first game poor dice seemed to get under my skin a little but I was rolling worse in the second game but I must have been more accepting of fate, who knows. Both games were fun and the experience was great. It has not however made me want to start collecting 28mm Naps or a deep desire to paint them just for fun, though I do have two Battalions of French 25mm that I need to paint up at some point, but that's another story. Would I like to go to the WHC again? Yes definitely and whilst they do have 20mm WWII and 15mm WWII (using FoW with a few changes to allow for big battles) I would still prefer to go back and try those Naps again, next time though with more usable cavalry.

 

Mark has a light handed approach to running the games, whilst at the same time seeming to be there at your shoulder if you need advice or are unsure. He obviously has a vast knowledge of the rules, period and scenario chosen. He inspired confidence in the scenario being played and his light banter matched the atmosphere that prevailed over the games. If any of the three posts have wet your appetite then get in touch, please mention you read the AAR's here so Mark gets an idea how blogs can promote his business.

The Battle of Bussaco AAR The Wargames Holiday Centre Style

First up sorry for the delay in getting this posted, whilst the weekend was fantastic it managed to knock me about a fair bit and I have been either to tired or in too much pain to get anything written about the games themselves. Now I will put that right with a battle report of the first game.

 

In total the Anglo-Allied have 6 divisions with 60 battalions of infantry, 6 9pdr foot batteries of three guns each and some Dragoons on a walk about with horse artillery attached. These did nothing all game so it's OK to forget about them now. You have? Good.

I now know facing us in three Corps were 51 battalions of foot, 5 8pdr foot batteries each of four guns, 6 regiments of light horse and 3 more of Dragoons, these with three 6pdr guns. Both sides had mixed quality of troops between Elite and 2nd Line. Also plenty of skirmish troops per side which are rather powerful in their own rights.

 

Originally we were to share these troops out between 8 players but with the two no shows we had to pick up the slack. I started with 3rd Division Picton, 4th Division Cole and 5th Division Leith for a total of 30 Battalions, yes half of the at start troops! I had been saying all throgh the planning that I should have less but it was only from turn two that the 3rd Division was taken off me and this was the smallest of the three! Well as I was to have part of the massive VI Corps and the much smaller II Corps thrown against me I was to be busy all game.

 

QRC's that are about 5 foot long!

As can be seen at the bottom of the picture we start with rectangular tiles that represent either dummy units or one to two real units. This adds a nice fog of war that through ASL I fully grasped. Seems the rest of my team did not as the  dummies were advanced right into site of the French and removed in just a few turns where I kept the dummies in the second game for as long as possible. Adding to the fog of war was a very real mist that covered the French advance but fortunately for us was lifted when a French player managed to roll a 6 at the end of the second turn and thus reveal a whole lot of French columns.

 

Red tiles behind cover awaiting the placement of the French tiles.

French Columns coming at my troops, these commanded by Adi

I used the river to secure my right flank and sent skirmish troops into the houses (these are too small for Battalions who can only enter towns). French light cavalry were the first troops I encountered and their job was to scout out my frontal defences but seeing the outlying buildings already getting garrisoned turned and went looking for trouble elsewhere.

 

French Cavalry try to gain information.

Due to my placement of the skirmishers I was soon rewarded with information on French numbers and direction of attack. A couple of French Light Cavalry cross the river at a ford in the hope of getting behind my flank.

French mass for first attack.

All my forward troops were British with the Portuguese providing support. The main reason being that at this point all my Portuguese were 2nd line troops and I hoped to win the day with steady fire from the good old Brown Bess.

 

British it steady lines supported by guns and Portuguese (red tiles).

Lee was approaching the hill which would be a tricky place to attack. As his columns marched up the hills they would become unformed and subject to constant fire as they slowly climbed upwards. Lee though had a plan, mean wile Adi was closing on the village and taking casualties from my skirmishers.

 

Portuguese fall into position behind the British  ready to lend a hand were needed.

Towards the centre of my position my artillery started to make it's prescience felt as it caused a couple of French units to loose troops and regular tests to keep moving forward. I was doing enough to slow down Lee in my area that my short owned 3rd Division under Ken's command started to go onto the attack.

The guns mark the boarder between my troops and Ken's.

Much talk was had regarding the possible weak point between our Divisions, I had to smile to myself as we had a special rule that allowed support between Divisions if Wellington was in the neighbourhood. I also have learnt you can learn a lot by looking at the battle from the enemies position so off I trotted to look at my positions from the other side and was struck by how formidable my position looked.

 

Standing in Adi's shoes. The white ring is a French trooper not going home.

One thing that struck me was that during the game I often had no idea how it was going for the other players involved in the battle. Just looking down the length of the table did not help as it was hard to tell who was moving forward and little evidence to the damage done. This was great in my mind as it really gave a great feel for the game. The whole experience of the weekend screamed NAPOLEONIC at you that went far further than just the model figures. I went looking a few times at the table but mostly I was so engrossed in the action in my part of the table I just did not think to go looking.

 

The opposite flank to me from the French side of the battle.

The view down the length of the table was a thing of beauty. Here was no straight line facing the hammer blow of the French column. No here we had islands of redcoats blasting gaps in French columns and for all the talk from Lee and Adi that if they were the French they would deliver a single punch all down the line, the blows were going in staggered as terrain slowed down some units whilst others moved as fast as possible to try and limit the time they had to face British musket.

 

The French attack breaks down to individual struggles.

In the centre Ken made a dash for a village beating out the French but being unable to support it straight away he lost the best part of the Battalion which was sent packing after a few turns of vicious fighting. It was Lee who gave Ken the punch on the nose and did so as he saw Ken's mistake as Ken was making it.

 

The Centre starts to warm up.

 

Adi in an attempt to take the pressure off the oncoming columns charged a squadron of light horse at a British double line. It was already down a single figure but lost another two from the volley and never made contact turning and fleeing back to their own lines. They did rally but for them the battle was over as they became a liability as other units morale started to become shakey.

 

Seeing off the French Cavalry.

The village was starting to look very tough to take. Adi used his artillery to kill the skirmishers holding the most forward of the houses but having no skirmishers in this area, (they were dying on the hill to my left) he could not take the building so I just stayed behind it ready to attack anyone moving round into view. I had interlocked units that could fire on the flank of any unit attacking another head on. The flanking cavalry thought better of it once I had a Portuguese regiment line the near bank. Due to impassable terrain they would have to spend two turns in effective range, chances are they would be forced to route before getting past my line.

However Lee was using the road to send attack columns against the hill. To his left he kept my infantry busy with a screen of skirmishers that are nasty!

 

Skirmishers refusing to play the game and die.

The French columns charge at two regiments that happen to have part of their bases on the road. This was a bit desperate as the French should be cut down by the British fire and if they did get in the shooting casualties would have made the melee tough for the survivors to win. The problem was that the fire was mostly at long range due to nervous tummies and the act of firing unformed both units. This lead to a chance for the French and they did so well that my troops fled after just one round of melee instead of the usual three. Both rallied at first asking but the damage was done. Lee still had fresh battalions behind this one.

 

Paper does not wrap stone on this occasion!

I managed to halt Adi as he tried to support in the middle but due to some poor shooting rolls and good morale rolls Adi saved two units that were fully expected to rout which if they had would have given me some spare units and made Adi's command very brittle. Give me a couple more turns and I think I would have got them running but by this point half of my artillery had fled the ridge and Lee was about to punch further through though I had the Portuguese in position to fight . Certainly I felt I was starting to loose control but Ken had by this point turned the French round and secured his part of the ridge and was in position to send troops into the flank of Lee's attack.

The Portuguese stand as the British rout past.

At this point we had to make a decision, stop here and start again and expect to get a second game played out through the rest of the Saturday and Sunday (it was mid afternoon) or carry on to a conclusion which would probably take us to Sunday Lunch. We choose to make a second game out of the weekend so Mark called it. French Victory, but close. Rather a shock, especially to the French who though we had won.

 

Actually all of us had as the game was great fun and whilst I would have loved to carry on to the end I understood that it would be a better call to go for two. So all the figures were put back on trays and we swapped sides. That though is another story and I will tell it in a few days.

Wargames Holiday Centre (a weekend with the boys)

I will deal with the games in a couple of separate posts, one for each game. First though I thought it might be a good idea of giving you a feel for what the experience was like for me and what you could experience if you get a chance to go.

 

First up the Wargames Holiday Centre (WHC) is under I believe it's third ownership and has been transferred from Scarborough in Yorkshire down to Bassingstoke in Hampshire and is now ran by Mark Freeth who is using a mix of the previous centres figures and new units he is steadily collecting. Some of the original figures are now looking tired but mark is cleaning these up and breathing life into the old dogs of war.

 

Lee was picking me up, the idea being he would call round at 10am for a coffee, chat and sought out the various items each of us have got the other (it gets complicated). After that we would collect Adi and Andy. Well as always plans don't work out exactly as planned as Lee collected me at !! and we shot straight off for Adi after exchanging goods. Andy was now not coming as he had work to do at home (bummer that) and we were soon on our way down south.

 

 

We paid our respects and sacrificed our pocket change at the Golden Archers as I am sure so many Generals have done before us and finally made it to out destination about an hour early. Lee game Mark a call and he made his way over to us about 30 mins later. The outside of the Holiday Centre will not inspire any Armchair General, it's main characteristic is it's totally normal and boring industrial unit look about it. New unit I grant you but boring none the less. Just behind Mark was Ken, very much a WHC vet and not long after Ken Mike and Ralph arrived with the bad news that the last gent was also not able to make the trip. No boring chores in his case unfortunately, his was more dramatic as he was in hospital with a leg injury! Ralph had played the rules some years before but had not in years whilst Mike had only played at Naval in any period and even though that was Napoleonic it really was not a good basis to work from. I on the other hand HAD played Napoleonic many times with many rules but never with the rules they use. These are In The Grand Manner, designed for the use at the WHC but used by plenty away from the centre as well. Most of the way down, Adi and Lee had been giving me primers on the rules which surprisingly helped when it came to the games.

 

When it came to sides Ken stated he would like British but would play the French almost as happily (just the week before Ken had been mauled rather badly in a game so we all felt for him and agreed to his choice). The rest anyway may well have had sides they would have liked but not enough to request it. Me and Mike were drafted into Ken's side whilst Adi, Lee and Ralph had the French. This meant the least two experienced players were on the same side and this was no problem as it meant we would automatically be opposite an experienced player. We as the Allies had to set up first after assigning Divisions. As it worked out I was playing mostly against Adi with some of Lee's troops coming in as well. Lee had Ken and Mike was fighting Ralph who he had traveled across with. I was to find out in the second game that being paired to fight Ralph was a rather nice experience. He took his time to explain some of the details of the rules which helped build more depth to my rule knowledge. Adi had also done plenty of this in the first game so I was fortunate indeed. Basically we had a good bunch of players and it has to be said that all the vets had significant number of games at the various incarnations of the WHC and could only come up with a pair of bad experiences with players they would not wish to play again but even in these cases they said it did not spoil the experience. I think that says a lot about us wargames and dispels my concern that when someone pays for such an experience the need to win can reduce the experience. Winning it seems is good, having a great weekend leaves the rest so far behind it's almost invisible!

 

You do not put units on the table at start, rather it's sets of Formica tiles which can represent between zero and two units with a maximum of 8 blanks for our force. To make our force look rather chunky we had 1 unit per tile. The French mixed it up rather more.

 

The Unit is fairly square in shape and the three tables are 28 feet long!! and 6 feet wide with a good alley between the tables to allow constant movement of the players. What makes this more impressive is the racks shown above line one side of the building and hold a mix of buildings and units. WWII and Napoleonic occupy half the wall.......

 

......the other half the wall is all Napoleonic and buildings. The shelves are deep and packed with figures. We had plenty of French that did not grace the table, never mind the other nationalities such as Prussian and Austrian.

 

These are just some of the other buildings that are on the opposite wall. Simply put he has buildings to cover all theatres and scales.

 

Under each and every part of the three 28 foot tables is racks of either WWII tanks and infantry or yet more terrain squares or yet more buildings. It's hard to get a grip on just how much gear is stored here. No wonder the place has a modern alarm system and security. The site itself is only accessible trough barriers and protected by 24 hour on site security. Mike obviously took a great deal of trouble picking a site. I was talking about this and along with the obvious security needs was a second and to the user more important aspect. As the unit is so new it was already clean and dust free. The upper walls were clad in wood that had been painted brilliant white (Mike has painted the lower walls a light blue. With the ceiling being made up of metal panels with large clear see through panels the need for artificial light is postponed till mid afternoon and the lights are powerful. At no point was light an issue.

 

It also has a small kitchen and a rest area away from the action and lunch break. Mike has a way of running the whole weekend that promotes a relaxed atmosphere but still keeps the turns moving along at a pace that gets results with out a feeling of being rushed.

 

Weekend games such as the ones we had are £150 which includes playing from about 3.30pm to gone 7pm on the Friday, Saturday from 9.30 till way past 7pm and starting again on Sunday at 9.30 till finished which in our case was pre 4pm but can go on past for longer if it's close to conclusion.

 

For those of us staying over a B&B is £30 including breakfast (£25 without) or better value was the Hilton at £35 twin room (each) including a buffet breakfast that really set you up for the day. The negative with the hotel is eating in is very expensive but the town centre is not a terrible walk in or a quick nip in the car. If you take the latter two options plenty of restaurants to choose from including a excellent buffet Chinese that we used on the Friday night. Mark puts on a great lunch and I never thought I would say this but spending £150 on wargameing and not getting a single figure, building or paint can be great value!