Sunday, August 26, 2018

Nearly Waterloo – The Background


The Nearly Waterloo Table

Introduction
This is one of a series of wargames based on famous Napoleonic battles.  It will include battles fought by Napoleon or Wellington.

It is not intended to recreate each historical battle, hence the name of the series Nearly Napoleonic Battles.  

Figures and Scenery
We have used our existing model soldier collection, scenery and terrain boards.   They were designed for use in our 1813 campaign and not for this particular battle.

The aim is to use our existing model soldiers, scenery and terrain boards to set up a wargame which is based on the historical battle.  

We will use our own Napoleonic Wargame Rules to fight each game.

 Nearly Waterloo
This game is based on the battle fought on 18 June 1815, near Brussels in Belgium.

We have used our terrain and buildings to show the Waterloo ridge, cross roads and the important strategic locations of Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte and Papelotte.  

The French objective is to take and hold the cross roads by the end of move 12.

 Table at start of game


British Order of Battle
The Duke of Wellington

Major General Cooke
1st Guards Brigade - 8 figures
2nd British Brigade – 8 figures
3rd Dutch Brigade – 8 figures
1st Corps Artillery – gun plus 4 figures

Major General Clinton
4th Rifle Brigade – 8 figures
5th British Brigade – 8 figures
6th Dutch Brigade – 8 figures
2nd Corps Artillery – gun plus 4 figures

Major General Picton
7th Highland Brigade – 8 figures
8th British Brigade – 8 figures
9th Dutch Brigade – 8 figures
3rd Corps Artillery – 1 gun plus 4 figures

Major General Alten
10th British Brigade – 8 figures
11th British Brigade – 8 figures
12th Dutch Brigade – 8 figures
4th Corps Artillery – 1 gun plus 4 figures

Major General Vivian
1st Hussar Brigade – 4 figures
2nd Hussar Brigade – 4 figures

Major General Ponsonby
3rd Dragoon Brigade – 4 figures
4th Dragoon Brigade – 4 figures

Total British
Infantry – 96 figures
Cavalry – 16 figures
Artillery – 4 guns 16 figures

French Order of Battle
The Emperor Napoleon

Marshal Ney – Imperial Garde
1st Old Garde – 8 figures
2nd Old Garde – 8 figures
3rd Middle Garde – 8 figures
4th Middle Garde – 8 figures
1st Garde Artillery – 1 gun plus 4 figures

General D’Erlon – I corps
5th Light Brigade – 8 figures
6th Line Brigade – 8 figures
7th Line Brigade – 8 figures
8th Line Brigade – 8 figures
2nd Corps Artillery – 1 gun plus 4 figures

General Reille - II corps
9th Light Brigade – 8 figures
10th Line Brigade – 8 figures
11th Line Brigade – 8 figures
12th Line Brigade – 8 figures
3rd Corps Artillery – 1 gun plus 4 figures

General Labau – IV corps
13th Light Brigade – 8 figures
14th Line Brigade – 8 figures
15th Line Brigade – 8 figures
16th Line Brigade – 8 figures
4th Corps Artillery – 1 gun plus 4 figures

General Kellerman – 1 cavalry corps
3rd Dragoon Brigade – 4 figures
4th Cuirassier Brigade – 4 figures

General Milhaud – 2 cavalry corps
1st Garde Brigade – 4 figures
2nd Cuirassier Brigade – 4 figures

Total French
Infantry –128 figures
Cavalry – 16 figures
Artillery – 4 guns 16 figures

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Introduction


 

For the past nine years almost all of our wargames have been provided by our long running 1813 campaign.   Since April 2009 it has provided us with 273 battles to wargame.  There is a blog of the campaign showing orders of battle, campaign diary and all battle reports here

As a break from the campaign, we refought all of Wellington’s battles in the Peninsula as a series of one off games.   We used our existing terrain and model soldiers, but made an attempt to recreate both the terrain and orders of battle.   We fought a total of 13 battles between November 2009 and May 2012.

We then tried to do the same with Campaigns of Napoleon in 2013.  But they are much larger and proved too difficult to recreate.

However we are now going to attempt to create one off wargames loosely based on the battles of Wellington and Napoleon.   They will not be a serious attempt to recreate the historical battle, either in terrain or orders of battle.

All games will be fought using our 28mm figures.   The orders of battle will be similar to those used in our 1813 campaign.   No new figures, nor rebasing, will be necessary to create the required order of battle.

We will use our existing terrain boards, buildings and scenery.  No new buildings will be created for specific battles, nor any new scenery.

We will make the scenery as close as possible to the historical terrain, particularly any strategic hills or buildings.   But we will use what is available, rather than make copies of historical terrain or buildings.

We will use the same orders of battle as our 1813 campaign.   Each corps has four infantry brigades of eight figures, one cavalry brigade of four figures and one gun with four crew.

We will use the names of historical commanders, terrain and villages.   We will use the same historical tactical objective.   All games will last 12 moves, each move representing one hour.

We will use our Napoleonic Wargame Rules to fight the battles.  If interested you can find them here