Another day another game - Bataille Empire British vs French 1812 in Spain

Friday and another outing for Bataille Empire with Stephen and I.
I fielded French 1812 in Spain (essentially from Massenas army) against British force with Portuguese and Spanish in tow.
We both like these rules (obvious I guess ?) as they give a good Napoleonic game with nice depth and ticking a lot of 'historical' boxes for us, but we are struggling to assimilate (if that is best word) the rules and keep forgetting some stuff (embarrassingly very often the Command PIP dice !!) and coming up against some problems of interpretation of rules.
Some of this I think is possibly down to translation from original French rather than nature of the system itself, although more in the complex/involved type of game despite turns going much quicker now.
We do seem to spend quite a lot of time discussing what we think is or should be going on but I feel that if we persevere and learn the rules the rules will reward the time investment.
What we learnt from game today is that Artillery is fairly vulnerable to Cavalry and indeed Squares not immune.
Seems that if Cavalry contact an Artillery unit the guns lose cannister bonus (firing better as a supporting unit than a target) and die if beaten.
Squares whilst having a large combat bonus can potentially be destroyed by heavy or good quality cavalry and are in dire straits if Disordered (as zero combat bonus) which if Artillery nearby is a distinct possibility.
In both cases losing Cavalry suffers only an attrition when it is forced back so quite potent.
Cavalry however bit brittle with only 3 Cohesion losses (of course I forgot to count my Elite Berg Lancers as 4 Cohesion today !).
Game was an Assault with my 12 French units assaulting the 16 Allied units.
However in assault scenario 66pts (ie 1/3rd minimum from 200pt army) of defenders are off-table in reserve for 4 turns.
But this still had 10 Allied units facing my 12 and Stephen was fortunate to get a sort of terrain fort with set up dice.
We failed to finish as Stephen had to go early but French up against it once British Cavalry arrived with Spanish still uncommitted.





French attacking defended vineyard

French Light Cavalry thwarted by fortuitously placed defended wall (+2 to defender and -2 to Cavalry attacking across).

British half of table visible ith rough hill on left a stream, vineyard and the wall

French unit shot back from vineyard

The wall stymieing approach

Battle for vineyard continues

British Dragoons (heavy cavalry) have arrived and chased of French light cavalry

My Dragoons (out of sight lower left) failed to dent British right

French square has forced back a Dragoon but Berg Lancers wiped out by second Dragoon unit which as pursued forward Impetuously

French units suffering Disorders

Still unable to take the vineyard

And tomorrow its of to Johns for Lobositz with Black Powder

Bataille Empire solo play (Spring 1813 French vs Russians)

A quick solo game to help get Bataille Empire rules embedded in brain.
They are not difficult as such but have a lot of 'moving parts' and as they say practice makes perfect.
Set up a bash in Spring 1813 using French versus Russians both with 4 Divisions.
For my 40mm UD units I have settled on 150cm x 100cm as ideal for small 200pt game size.
Battle turned out to be an Encounter so only 1 Divn apiece starting on table with others 'marching to the sound of the guns'.
Whilst a solo game it was still rather fun.
Cavalry can move quite a distance in BE moving 8UD in Line with +2UD bonus if charging so some 40cm or nearly half the board.
6pdr guns fire 16 UD but over 8UD its generally ineffective fire or a single attrition (ie half-loss) hit.
Beginning to realise some of the nuances of this rule set although still some book look up required although the QRS is excellent (as is the same authors LADG version).
Pretty much have shooting/movement/shock combat/supports down now but still need to work on Opportunity/Reaction Charges and several outcomes.
Whilst not as slick a terrain/scenario set up as FOGN it has good variety and I like rolling for varied terrain effects as each can have light/medium/heavy effects on movement and/or combat.
I played 6 turns with Russians sort of getting best of situation having taken 2 objectives whilst killing 2 French units to 1 loss of their own.
Another game scheduled for next Friday with Stephen French vs British in Spain 1812.
(Would have played to completion but Tank Duel arrived so cleared table to sort this enticing title out :-) )

Another double whammy game day (Bataille Empire and Pike And Shotte)

Full gaming day of dice rolling joy :-)

First up was at Stephens as we tried Bataille Empire again this time Stephen took Russians 1812 and I had French.
Another interesting game with this very flavoursome set but it is proving hard to assimilate the rules fully (maybe it because we are both pensioners !?) so lots of checking and re-checking what we are doing or trying to do or how we are doing it.
The rules are however fairly logical overall with nothing odd so far.
One or 2 minor clarifications aside the rules are very complete and they definitely give a good game for the period and scale.
The Russians have a couple of Poor commanders and are poor shooters but are tenacious so in Shock Combat they can hold their own and have a couple more units than the French.
The scenario this time was an Encounter which was also interesting with both sides deploying only 1 Brigade on table the others coming on on turns 2 and 3.
I was able to use Operational Moves with first group of reinforcements but unfortunately Stephen had his Cuirassier Brigade coming on on Attack orders in same area and I lost a unit which failed to form square.
Infantry in Line are essentially dead if they fail to form square or cause significant casualties to charging Cavalry as a Retreat becomes a Flee but Cavalry catch Infantry in first 2 UDs of Fleeing.
We also used our full 40mm UD on a 150cm x 100cm table which seemed to work better for us than 30mm on 120x80.

Only a couple of pics (I took loads but seem to have corrupted on phone)

Then in the evening it was off to Billys (after a generous invite) for a game using Pike and Shotte rules (Black Powder stable) with Bryn, Simon and Mike also in attendance.
Game was set in ECW with Billys New Model Army (assisted by Simon and I) against Bryns Royalists (with Mike in tow).
Figures are 10mm Pendraken and very fine they are too.
P&S is a rather odd set of rules in how it 'models' pike and shot units as a 'standard' units is 3 bases 1 of Pike and 2 of muskets, but which can all operate individually if wished (not always a good idea.
This led to some jarring occurrences with single Pike units charging across the field to hit other pikes being able to ignore their accompanying muskets (as not actual targets of charge) and pikes leading the units as they have better saves.
This would be stymied somewhat with house rule Mike proposed that units in same Regt cannot be more than a base width (or maybe the 3" support distance) apart voluntarily.
When muskets are charged (it seems by either Cavalry of Infantry in P&S) they can form hedgehog with nearby by Pikes becoming an immobile block that can spread shooting hits and fights/dies as combined units (ie add all dice together but hits go on pikes).
Chargers can pull up short.
I kept mistaking the 3 base units as single units initially but once we got going it worked better than I thought (the individual option not withstanding)
I faced off against Mike and we had a good old ding dong with his Cavalry Breaking mine easily but my Infantry grinding his down and breaking them, my successful use of Rally order helped.
In hindsight Mike should have used his Cavalry to 'force' my Infantry into hedgehog as dead meat to Cavalry otherwise but they don't move and musketry is lessened so his Infantry could have out shot me.
A very enjoyable and playable game (cannot fault the BP series in this regard) but maybe more game than history as the free flowing nature movement and long shooting ranges seemed a little out of kilter for this period.
The rules do include Tercios, Dutch Brigades and Swedish Brigades but not really sure how they would operate in the game ?
Enjoyed the hospitality and the game which is what it is all about.

Varied quality on pics as I tried to sort new camera app and lighting variable.

Bataille Empire - first face to face play

Game with Bataille Empire today with Stephen.
We used 200pt forces on the small 120cm x 80cm board using 30mm UD despite our units being 80mm wide (works fine on small board).
I fielded my Prussians and Stephen used French both lists taken from Spring 1813 options.
A very nice game was generated although with struggled with a couple of concepts in particular just exactly when Opportunity Fire is used.
Rule a bit ill defined in some ways but we came to consensus that only to be used if a target passing through firing arc or retires to longer range essentially.
Otherwise when a unit moves into range its a simply standard shooting/firefight or reaction fire.
Everything else was addressed clearly in rules and once we stuck to following play sequence for activated commands it all made sense.
We did use Orders which worked fine.
Think we covered most things with Charges/Counter-Chargers, Preparatory/Final Fire, Reserves, Orders and various types of Combat addressed along with Movement/Formations and Control/Morale tests and all pretty straight forward in execution.
Stephen did try a Flank March but needing a 5-6 to appear it is risky (it failed to arrive) but did make me turn a couple of units to face its possible arrival.
We both had 2 units each destroyed but I had a few Disordered which is difficult to Recover as you need to be outside 4UD of enemy and have 1 or 2 Pips left to recover Disorder and Cohesion hits respectively.
Compared to FOGN this has more tactical nuances and depth but consequently slower playing but all Napoleonic combat boxes ticked and like any new set a few more plays would quicken things up (we failed to finish game).
Both sides had 14 units and this seemed fine on table size.
Expect these will see more action in due course as the lists are rather good.