Battle of Gilly - Field of Battle 3 - conclusion to solo game

Finished up solo game of Gilly with a session last night and final session this dull wet Ulster morning.

Prussians have taken a drubbing with so many hits sustained across their units with only minimal damage to French.

Prussian shooting has been miserable and its only as French closed to Melee that Prussian have really inflicted any losses.

The Prussian right is in dire straights with a Line Battalion and Gun Battery destroyed and Skirmishers scattered to the winds.

The remaining two large Infantry Columns have pulled back onto the slope with Dragoons moving to threaten oncoming French columns.

However the French Cavalry and their guns are all across the ford including the impressive Empress Dragoons.

In the center at Gilly a French assault on a portion of the town has been repulsed but a column has been formed to assault across the bridge.

On French right whilst the opposing Landwehr have stood up quite well the French are across the stream and pushing past Gilly.

In FOB terms the Prussians are down to 2 Army Morale Points (out of 25) whilst French still retain 22 (of their initial 30) so rather than flog this horse to its doom the Prussians will retire to Flerus having delayed Napoleon only a trifle.

Great game even solo with FOB and the GDA scenario worked fine with only a few tweaks for FOB purposes.

French Infantry pressing forwards on their left

Overview with French Cavalry massing to cross the ford.

Action around Gilly itself

French cross stream en-mass on their right

Prussians at Gilly looking well outnumbered

Prussian right wing withdraws on slopes as numbers reduced

French mounted waiting (a bloody Move card) to cross the ford

With Prussians having pulled back out of range the effective French Artillery Brigade limbers up to rejoin the fray

French Cavalry across stream and supporting their victorious Foot. Prussian Dragoons hovering. 

French about to cross the bridge in Gilly

Prussian right wing about to be turned after loss of Fusileers Battalion and Gun Battery

French Attack Column bypassing Gilly

Landwehr Brigade still in the action having done better than expected (couple of good rallies)

The end at Gilly as Prussians about to retire.

Field Of Battle - Prussians Charge at Lutzen May 1813

Game using FOB2 today at my gaff with Bryn and Luke as Prussians and Billy and Simon as French.
Have played this scenario (adapted from GDE scenario) several time but this time on larger table layout with 'full size' (ie 4 base) units.
Billy and Luke have played once with FOB (at Elimination Club) but new to Simon and Bryn.
Game was played to completion with minimal rules issues (FOB is a mechanically easy game to teach/pick up).
A vicious fight occurred over the central Grosse-Gorschen which changed hands twice before a Prussian Grenadier unit managed to hold on to village despite repeated charges from Simon and Billys French Conscript units.
Bryn on Prussian right pushed up slowly against Klein-Gorschen which the Prussians took at first blush again repulsing several attempts to re-take the village.
They were unable to get within striking distance of the other two villages however.
On Prussian left Luke controlled their Cavalry which forced a French Brigade into squares.
One square was ridden down, another unit failed to form and was also routed but the two outer squares held forcing back the Prussian horse.
The high attrition level in the center saw French Morale Pool dwindle quickly before most of their Reserve Formations arrived to make any real impact and therefore the French yielded (despite passing their first Army Morale Test).
As ever with FOB a lot of 'narrative' to the game with several key combat being decisively resolved with some extreme dice rolls (several 10-12 vs 1-2 outcomes).
To make things easy I made both Generals D12 both with Average decks and all Brigadiers D10 (although Billy managed to lose 1 who was replaced with a D8 type).
There were a lot of Lull rolls as we had a couple of re-shuffles with several being 'stolen' by other side.
Hopefully the players enjoyed their initiation to FOB2 and see it as a nice alternative to Black Powder (not a replacement).




Pre-game view of table from French side (units not deployed)

French defend Klein-Gorschen as battle is joined at Grosse-Gorschen

Bryns wing approaches Klein-Gorschen

French Conscripts try to evict Prussians who have ousted initial defenders

Billys French faced by Prussian mounted arm as Reserves move up

Pressure mounts at Klein-Gorschen

Luke and Billy facing off as Bryns strength grows

Solid Prussian lines

Klein-Gorschen has fallen to Prussian Fusileers

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.

Bataille Empire solo initial try

A quick solo effort (due to game planned for Tuesday with Mr B) using 200pt (3 Commands) on a 4' x 3' table using forces of Prussia vs France, Spring 1813.
After reading through the rules I thought it best to try to get concepts into brain cavity with a solo run through.
Being a Napoleonic set there is quite a lot to them (certainly compared to Ancients version) as it covers Line, Column, Square (and Closed Column) along with Infantry Cavalry and Artillery and associated interactions as one would fully expect.
Similar to LADG in respect of Commanders, PIP dice for Command and Cohesion levels but similarities pretty much end there.
Units are multi-base (I was using 2 bases as per Shako) but accommodate most basing conventions as measurements are in Base Widths.
Units are rated for Morale Level (Militia 1-3 Line 1-3 and Elite 1-3), Status (Guard Line or Poor), Type, Special Abilities and Cohesion levels.
Commands (Brigades/Divisions) are activated based on Orders (optional but recommended) and a dice off to choose to activate 1st or 2nd.
Activated Commands can then use Prep Fire (skirmishers and artillery only) Charge (into Shock Combat), move/maneuver and issue Final Fire.
Units that fire, fight or multi move are marked with an Action Marker (cotton puff) restricting them to reaction fire/combat only.
Charges include, supports, safe flanks, emergency formation changes (Control/Manv Tests) feints along with retreats, flees and routs.
Units can stop retreats or flees behind rear supports (I like this in GDA too).
Firing is straight forward enough with small amount of modifiers depending on type firing inflicting Attrition (essentially 1/2 hits) or Cohesion Losses.
Have not played enough to use all aspects of rules but they seem rather good and I expect once learnt the QRS will be sufficient to control a game.
As an all in one volume a points system, scenario generator (and a couple of historical scenarios) and a huge amount of army lists (some battle specific) are included and so like LADG whilst rules are not cheap (I paid £35 including P&P) they do include everything without need for supplements.
More once played face to face.



After a Cavalry combat French Dragoons and Chasseurs have fled from Prussian Cuirassiers (Dice is Cohesion loss, yellow is Disordered and white Action Marker)

Assault scenario so only 2 of 3 Prussian commands on table at start (3rd arrives on Turn 4)

The flags denote Objectives 

Field Of Battle - demo game at club

Rolled out FOB at club tonight.

A quick match up between Prussians and French circa Autumn 1813.

Set up for 4 players and that is what we ended up with, Billy, Luke, David and Chris.

They all seemed to enjoy the game and as always with FOB lots of action and incident, groans at poor rolls and cheers for good rolls (its all about the history really).

Over The Hills scenario played

Played the Gross Eckau scenario from the Over The Hills Version 2 book today against Stephen using my Prussians versus his Russians (scenario set July 1812).
An interesting scenario with Russians nominally in defence with Prussians attacking from two directions.
A proper run out with the rules as well highlighting a few issues mainly with implementing orders with mixed Brigades.
If an Attack order is issued then ALL Cavalry and Infantry units must move at least 1 full move segment towards the enemy and then once within Engagement range they must charge to contact.
This can be an issue with Cavalry who can charge to their doom (as one of my Hussars did) or an Infantry unit forced into square but then compelled by orders to charge.
We house ruled a few of these issues.

Also the flanking Prussian Brigade would strictly be out of Command of the C in C meaning half moves but allowed full moves but no change of initial order.

One major lesson we learnt (which we should have recalled from V1) is that built up areas are akin to mini fortresses !
A unit or units attacking a Wood & stone village suffer a -4 whilst the defenders gain a +4 so whilst the attackers gain a +2 for initiating the combat they are always up against it (unless a more powerful Elite unit) as they will generally only score 1 hit whilst defenders can cause 2 this means attackers are in dire straits in second round (as defenders no gain a further +2).
In our game I had 2 Infantry units attacking one in a built up area (and taking a couple of hit on way in from shooting and defensive shooting).
Attackers roll for both units but only use best roll and achieved 1 hit however defenders caused 2 thereby causing Morale test on my units which the passed (worst outcome) and then suffered a further 3 hits in total in second round retiring 1 move with one now Wavered,
The chances of rallying all these hits off are slim and so time consuming that effectively both these units were hors de combat (the wavering unit took another shooting hit and routed off table).
Tough proposition to take a built up area which was aim of scenario.

Skirmish formation (optional) for a full we found too powerful so reverted to Open Order.
Skirmishers move better (no problem there) shoot better (no real problem but seems odd they shoot at 100% strength) but also seem to shield units behind as -3 to hit them then half hit factor for bounce through.
We house ruled this to allow artillery to ignore the skirmishers.

Game not fully finished but two Prussian Brigades were teetering on Breaking (both within 2 Fatigue) so day went to the bloodied but unbowed Russians.

As Stephen pointed out this is exactly the same scenario as in Black Powder Clash Of Eagles (which I had not realised) and I suspect it possibly needed amending for use with OTH, maybe giving the Cavalry units separate Brigade Commanders, but of course this may not have been in keeping with the historical make up of the units involved.