Bavarians vs Russians (in my first game)

[Tyler]

I had my first proper game of Field of Glory: Napoleonic at the League of Ancients on Sunday. After reading the rulebook, watching a couple games, and reading some reviews and AARs (including Trailape’s: http://trailape.blogspot.com ), I was already pretty enthused about this game. Actually getting to play it for the first time was thoroughly enjoyable, and I’m glad that I’ve been spending some time and money getting into it.

So, because I’m in the slow part of my work-week, and because some of you might like it, I’ve written up a little report.

Now, I should point out that, until recently, I didn’t know much about the Napoleonic era. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a Hussar and a Cuirassier to save my life, and I hadn’t ever played a Napoleonic-era wargame before. I’m learning a bit now that I’ll be gaming the period, but my insights definitely come from the point of view of a gamer looking for an enjoyable game, who appreciates a bit of historical ‘flavour’, rather than an amateur historian who is going to get upset if a trooper’s jacket has one too many buttons. I don’t know the correct amount of buttons for a Russian Guardsman’s jacket. I don’t care. I’m just here to roll dice and drink alcohol, and as long as the historical aspect is correct ‘enough’ to capture the flavour of the period and avoid glaring errors, I’m happy.

So, on with it.

I turned up earlier than the other participants, and got to chatting with my mates Emil and Floppy, who were there for the Epic tournament down the other end of the hall. I failed to see the other players in my game arrive behind me, and so they set it all up while waiting for me to turn around and notice them. I ended up paired up with a gentleman by the name of Jonathan for our 2 vs 2 game.

Richard, was playing ‘umpire’, as he knew the rules quite thoroughly and the rest of us hadn’t played before. Jonathan and I would be running Bavarians against Noah and a moustachioed gentleman who I think was named Steve, with Russians.

I didn't really know who the Bavarians were, but they seemed very ‘pretty’ in their largely-white uniforms with either yellow, black or pink facings. Yes, pink. Something I like about this period is the brightly-coloured grandeur of the armies. Jonathan’s Bavarians looked fantastic, frankly. I might even venture to say suspiciously flamboyant. I know the whole powdered dandy thing was mostly from a slightly earlier period than this, but if anyone on the battlefield is a dandy, it’s probably the guy with the immaculate pink facings on his white designer jacket.

We had three divisions. I took command of the small cavalry division on our right flank (three units of cavalry and a unit of horse artillery), and an infantry division in the centre (four infantry units and some heavy artillery). Jonathan took our largest division (a mix of good cavalry and crappy conscript infantry) on our left flank. Facing us was a slightly outnumbered corps of Russians, with the expected mix of infantry in the centre, cavalry on the flanks and several artillery batteries spaced along the line. The biggest concern was a couple of units of Guards in the Russian centre, which I expected to be a tough nut to crack. Their high points-cost was the reason the Russians looked a bit outnumbered.

There was a village in the centre left of the table, and some gentle hills on the flanks.

We rolled for initiative, and it turned out that the Bavarians would be attacking. With everyone learning, Jonathan and I decided to go for a straight-forward advance all across the line. With a stirring of perfume, a fluttering of eyelashes, and encouraging pats on the bottom, our fabulously dressed corps commander sent his dozens of 20-something junior officers simpering off with the orders, and the Bavarians marched.

The Russians tried some cleverness, rushing a unit of infantry forward to garrison the village, pulling back on the right flank (which faced Jonathan’s mixed division) and concentrating strength in the centre and on their left (our right, against my cavalry division). This display of basic tactical thought brought our Bavarian schemes to a crashing halt, so Jonathan and I had a quick little conference on how to react.

We knew that infantry defending towns and buildings were supposed to be hard to dig out, so what to do about the brigade in the village? I pointed out that ‘conscript’ rating hurt a unit’s ability at manoeuvre and shooting, but that it was no disadvantage in close assault (units in FoGN are rated on skill and motivation, and the bayonet part of the game hinges on fighting spirit, or ‘elan’ as they call it, rather than the unit’s experience and drill). So, with nothing more than that half-formed insight as our guiding light, we pointed the two units of conscripts and one unit of average infantry at the village, while the rest of the infantry and artillery advanced past it, towards the filthy, illiterate vodka drinking peasants of the Russian army.

Meanwhile, on the right flank I had pushed two batteries of artillery (one horse, one heavy foot artillery) up onto the gentle hill, and lined up my dragoons and hussars between them. Noah had three units of horse opposite my cavalry, but only one, less impressive medium artillery battery. The idea was to batter Noah’s numerically superior horse for a couple of turns, in preparation for a glorious charge. The actual result was three turns of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In a series of preposterous dice rolls, neither Noah nor I could get any result from our artillery firing except to fill the right half of the field with smoke. Perhaps the Bavarian gunnery officers were too busy painting their nails to aim a gun properly? Meanwhile, the Russian gunners probably needed to cut back on the vodka.

In the end, some of Noah’s cavalry was manoeuvring to threaten the flank of my advancing infantry, and I charged down off the hill, hoping I could win the two even combats, then roll over the third unit with the remains of my two (cavalry quickly becomes ‘spent’ in FoGN (ahem...) and a unit’s second or third charge are almost never as effective as the first). The cavalry division’s commander threw aside his glass of chardonnay with a flamboyant flick of the wrist and made the possibly ill-advised decision to personally lead his beloved Hussars from the front rank. I had a disadvantage, but didn’t want to let my infantry division’s flank be threatened, because they were doing big things...

You see, in the centre of the field miracles were happening. One unit of conscript infantry had marched into the village with drums beating and flags waving, ignoring casualties, while the second conscript unit and the theoretically-better infantry had both been halted by the Russian defensive fire. In an absolutely devastating round of combat the conscripts had smashed the Russians down two cohesion levels, without taking any hurt in return (except for a few broken nails, which were simply terrible, darling).

Now, an assault on defended buildings or obstacles is the only kind of combat that can stretch across multiple turns in FoGN; everything else results in the loser breaking off and falling back, usually rather shattered (the winner can sometimes be pretty messed up, too; point-blank volleys and bayonet work are bloody). The point is, now that the defenders were tied up with the one conscript unit, the other two infantry brigades were able to walk right up and join in the fun. Very soon the village was in Bavarian hands (and what soft, feminine hands they were).

With their left flank defended by the garrisoned village, their right flank defended by the best-dressed cavalry in Christendom, and their rears under the watchful eye of the corps commander and his staff (and they were watching closely), the infantry in the centre were free to focus all their attention on the Russian Guard and Line infantry. We had put our best infantry in the centre, with light infantry attachments to improve their shooting ability a bit and a small artillery battery firing through the gaps between units. One unit had been disordered by enemy artillery, so I dropped it out of the advance and closed up the line. This worked out well, as the corps commander was able to comfort the poor lads (don’t ask how) and then send them in to provide rear support (ahem...) to the rest of the infantry division.

I convinced Jonathan that we should halt to maximise our better shooting. The Russians, seeing a disadvantage in the shooting game and a slight advantage in assault, advanced on us. Luckily for us the Russians got slightly tangled in their manoeuvring and came at us two units at a time, allowing us to concentrate fire.

Meanwhile, our cavalry on the right flank was disintegrating. The Dragoons had broken and driven off their opponents, but been badly mauled in the process. The Hussars had torn holes in their opponents, but been broken in return. The cavalry division commander was reported to be very upset about some tears and stains on his Versace shirt, and was last seen headed towards whatever the hell the capital of Bavaria was, in order to try to have it dry-cleaned and mended. This wouldn’t have been a terrible result, if it weren’t for the fact that there was a third, fresh unit of enemy cavalry set to ride down our poor damaged dragoons and then hit the infantry’s flank.

Luckily, the rest of the corps was winning fast enough that it might not matter. I turned the rear-supporting infantry to face the enemy cavalry, just in case.
Once one of the Russian Guard units was disordered and the other fragmented, we charged with four infantry brigades. The Guards fought back hard enough to disorder a couple of our units a bit, but then broke and ran. Not only did their flight dismay a few of the other Russian units, our pursuit then smashed into the next line of Russians, quickly breaking two more enemy brigades and an artillery battery. The commander of the Bavarian infantry division looked up from his copy of Vogue briefly to offer his men a not-very-sincere-sounding, “Well done, well done.”

The majority of Jonathan’s mixed division was advancing on the left to hit the couple of batteries and units that had been arrayed to hold them off. The trouble was, the Russian strategy of refusing to fight on our left while concentrating on the centre and our right depended on holding the town as an anchor for the bend in their line, and on winning in the centre and on our right. Since the town was firmly Bavarian (several wine bars and a nightclub were already under construction) and the Bavarian centre had gone through the Russian centre like a fabulously dressed and heavily perfumed knife through poor, smelly, peasant butter, our shabby enemy’s plan no longer held up. It wasn’t long before the Russian corps broke, and the fabulous Bavarians had won the day!

The game was great fun, finished in under two and a half hours, the rules seem straight-forward and quite playable, and I had the afternoon to eat lunch and watch the second half of the Epic tournament. Great day!