Trends in my games

[hazelbark]

I have noticed the following trends in my games.

1) Mounted arm is arm of decision. Players are moving toward more serious quality and quantity if cavalry.
a) It is easier to destroy enemy mounted than foot.
b) speed of attack if attacker to maximize deployment and first two turn advantages.
c) defender needs mounted force to counter attack enemy mounted assault.

2) Weight of mounted is more important than quality when you can choose. Quantity is also more valuable than Elan.

3) Defender must work a lot harder to win and change dynamic of battle. The odds of victory seem to adjust a lot in favor of winning the battle when you are the attacker.


Now we are working on counter tactics and have developed a number, but these seem more true than not.

[deadtorius]

In our games it seems buildings are very important to slowing down an attack or determining where you wish to deploy. Cavalry is tough alright but can be shot to rout if you are lucky enough, or forget that that French square was standing on the steep slope of a hill .

Personally I find buildings have a huge influence on our games, but weight of numbers of foot or mounted can usually lead to victory. If you can put a lot of troops against a smaller number of enemy, more than likely you will send a division routing off the table and victory is pretty much guaranteed to be yours.

Of course never forget dice rolls, if you are rolling poorly no matter how many right moves you make your army is doomed

[KendallB]

Depth is much more important than width in your deployment and assault.

[deadtorius]

we are playing 28mm on a 4' wide table so depth is a bit of an issue for us.

[bahdahbum]

Perhaps we do not have enough games - but there are only 2 of us in Belgium the rest is waiting - but we found that the attacker had a very tough time going in .

And heay cavalry is good .Dragoons a good compromise shock being very costly at 800 points . But one day i'll try a 800 pts saxon army with a cuirassier division ...very small but should be funny to try .

[deadtorius]

Shock can roll over most anything in its path, worth the 800points. I wish I could take cuirassier more often but Dagoons are nice too. Blathergut and I are the only locals we know of playing the rules so don't feel too bad

[hazelbark]

Square and horse artillery are good counters to cuirassier.

Buildings can matter, but a howitzer or heavy artilllery can clean that out. An unsupported building is rapidly vulnerable as well.

[deadtorius]

squares are good counters to any cavalry from my own experiences.

[shadowdragon]

squares are good counters to any cavalry from my own experiences.

Unless they are wavering squares then they are a disaster about to happen!

[hazelbark]

Squares are good, but if they get hit with two units it gets tough. Then the cavalry pass through. And you have more headaches.

They are good but they have lots of limits.

[Selaurant]

We have been playing 650 to 700 points on a 6 x 4 table. This gives a good game with maneouvre and a result.

We haven't found cavalry such a huge problem. They are very dicey, and can lose as easily as win. Mounted plus cannons is pretty tough, but then you should have better infantry and with the terrain rules ought to be able to put down a few pieces to make life difficult for the mounted commander. Hedges and walls are great.

Our main concern is the uncompetitiveness of Unreformed infantry. They are dog meat. No shooting beyond two inches means the enemy just sits at five inches and shoots you to death. You can't advance within close range in a single turn. What do you do? If you buy skirmishers for every such unit, the total cost is almost the same as reformed infantry, but they are still slow.

I accept this may be historical (eg French vs Austrian Italy 1796-97) but it does not seem balanced. If retained, the cost of Unreformed infantry should be reduced. Alternatively the firepower of any reformed infantry firing at medium range should be reduced. At present it seems too easy to stop Unreformed infantry cold with reformed infantry by firepower alone.

[Blathergut]

Fighting Austrians here I've found just the opposite. The unreformed swarms are difficult to beat.

1. They are always in large units. What hits I do manage to score are always reduced by one.

2. My medium-ranged firepower is always reduced by Austrian horse. (And then reduced by a hit if I hit!).

3. Unreformed with an artillery attachment actually shoot more dice at medium range than reformed reduced by enemy cavalry!

4. Unreformed with skirmishers shoots more since it is only reduced by 1 for my nearby horse (atleast with Dead. who runs them with rifles).

[bahdahbum]

They are always in large units. What hits I do manage to score are always reduced by one.

Austrians are, not russians,prussians or spanish .

I tried twice russian 1805 vs french 1805 . One I won heavily, the other I lost heavily . My conclusion was :this is an entire different army and I should learn how to use it . Very intereting challenge as we would like to play Eylau 1807

Unreformed armies are a new challenge ! ( for me ). As russian I will go for infantry with attached artillery and ...some cavalry .

[Selaurant]

Fighting Austrians here I've found just the opposite. The unreformed swarms are difficult to beat.

1. They are always in large units. What hits I do manage to score are always reduced by one.

2. My medium-ranged firepower is always reduced by Austrian horse. (And then reduced by a hit if I hit!).

3. Unreformed with an artillery attachment actually shoot more dice at medium range than reformed reduced by enemy cavalry!

4. Unreformed with skirmishers shoots more since it is only reduced by 1 for my nearby horse (atleast with Dead. who runs them with rifles).

How do you interpret the skirmishers limits for Austrians? For example 1796 Army of the Lower Rhine gets Up uo one skirmishers per division; two if no grenzers. We assume the first is an overall restriction. Suppose you have three divisions, two without Grenzers. You could get three skirmishers total, not five. Is this wrong?

[bahdahbum]

2 per division without Grenzer and in those divisions and 1 in the division with grenzers which makes indeed 5 .

What I also meant by other nations is that those nations do not always have the opportunity to have large units

[Selaurant]

Thanks, that makes quite a difference.

[shadowdragon]

I have noticed the following trends in my games.

1) Mounted arm is arm of decision. Players are moving toward more serious quality and quantity if cavalry.
a) It is easier to destroy enemy mounted than foot.
b) speed of attack if attacker to maximize deployment and first two turn advantages.
c) defender needs mounted force to counter attack enemy mounted assault.

2) Weight of mounted is more important than quality when you can choose. Quantity is also more valuable than Elan.

3) Defender must work a lot harder to win and change dynamic of battle. The odds of victory seem to adjust a lot in favor of winning the battle when you are the attacker.


Now we are working on counter tactics and have developed a number, but these seem more true than not.

I'm nearly finished reading Alessandro Barbero's The Battle: A New History of Waterloo. From a wargamer's perspective, his detailed description in superb. One could almost see this as a FoGN AAR. He has the best explanation of the cavalry action (both the charge of the British heavy brigades and the massed French charges) that I've read and it seems to me that points you make are historically valid according to Barbero's account.

[bahdahbum]

And what about the Dutch Belgian Cavalry that broke the french charge and did push trough the fench cuirassier or the mad ( and perhaps a bit drunk ) charge of the dutch belgian infantry that broke the french guard ..( young guard as the old huard was never engaged except near plancenoit) .

Just to know if to him the DB are still the so untrustworthy allies that Wellington had to keep in line

[shadowdragon]

And what about the Dutch Belgian Cavalry that broke the french charge and did push trough the fench cuirassier or the mad ( and perhaps a bit drunk ) charge of the dutch belgian infantry that broke the french guard ..( young guard as the old huard was never engaged except near plancenoit) .

Just to know if to him the DB are still the so untrustworthy allies that Wellington had to keep in line

Haven't got to the attack of the Imperial Guard yet, but the DB cavalry attacking the French cavalry are in there..... "Along with Vandeleur's troopers (note: referring to the previous text describing the wounding of Sir Frederick Ponsonby, commander of the 12th Light Dragoons), the Netherlands Cavalry division played an important role in putting an end to the incursion of Napoleon's cavalry. .... The British officers made no effort to hide the mistrust they felt for these politically suspect allies, whose desertion rate was decidedly anomalous. For example, like many Belgian units the 8th Hussars, a regiment recruited thanks to the commitment of a great landowner, the Duc de Croy, who virtually considered it his property, had been equipped haphazardly, so much so that at an inspection in March fewer than half of the men were supplied with horses. Perhaps this disorganization was one of the reasons that the regiment had lost more than 200 deserters since January, but a factor of at least equal importance was the hostility of the Belgians toward the Dutch, coupled with the bond that many Belgians still felt with Imperial France. ....Despite this problem, however, the Netherlands Cavalry performed well in its first charges of the battle, until attrition rendered it, for all practical purposes, useless; the officers in particular gave proof of a combativeness worthy of the Napoleonic veterans they were."

It should be noted that desertion was a problem for all armies. More than one French soldier deserted to the Allies shouting, "Vive le Roi".

It should also be noted that given the state of the Anglo-Allied army's left wing and the destruction of the two British heavy cavalry brigades, the counter-attacking French cavalry (I Corps cavalry plus Milhaud's corps) might have done the same to Wellington's infantry as the British heavy cavalry had done to the French I Corps infantry. We'll never know as the intervention of the DB cavalry division prevented that.

Later, as noted above due to attrition and the large number of French heavy and imperial guard cavalry, the Dutch did refuse to charge, but so too did British cavalry brigades.

Anyway, that's the history of that encounter according to Barbero and he does seem to have consulted German, DB and French sources in addition to the (for English language accounts) English sources. He does raise some questions such as, "how effective were the British heavy cavalry at neutralizing the Grande Battery"....in Barbaro's mind, probably not very....or as he put it, it didn't seem so to the Anglo-Allied infantry who were being cannonaded by it.

I'm sure anyone might have different conclusions but it has been a refreshing read. Lots of "facts" questioned (e.g., that the French infantry and cavalry weren't coordinated....he does a good job of providing evidence to the contrary). Interestingly he questions conventional wisdom that, excluding the many that went missing (captured or deserted) in the rout, the French suffered more killed, missing and wounded than the Anglo-Allies and Prussians. The accepted figures are estimates based on the assumption that an attacking army suffers more casualties. However, the French had a total of 207 officers killed and missing with another 66 who died later of wounds. The Anglo-Allied army suffered 218 officers killed and missing and the Prussians 61 for a total of 279. Figures for those who died later of wounds aren't available. Usually enlisted casualties are proportionate to officer casualties.

So to answer your question, to Barbero the DB aren't untrustworthy and performed well despite their former allegiances with their French opponents, but some British officers did have a prejudicial attitude towards the DB troops.

[bahdahbum]

Seems an interesting book . Could you tell who's the editor so perhaps I can order the book . Anyway already preparing Waterloo 2015 ...it's 30 minutes from home

as for

Later, as noted above due to attrition and the large number of French heavy and imperial guard cavalry, the Dutch did refuse to charge, but so too did British cavalry brigades.

I read somewhere either on internet or in Waterkoo's companion book that the remants of the cavalry DB and british + brunswick was kept behind the squares, not refusing to charge but as the were spent and had suffered heavy loses , more as a reserve in case the squares would break or the more numerous french cavalry push trough .

Wellington lost waterloo but the Prussians saved the day ! and so hurray we have our games ...now back to painting some saxon guards ...