A Birthday Battle of Beneath the Lily Banners

The day after my birthday, I made the trek to Austin for a game of Beneath the Lily Banners with the Great Hall Games crew, and my best friend Evan. I'd cooked up the scenario a week ago, and Lance thought it sounded solid. The outnumbered Franco-Bavarian army, through superior generalship and daring maneuver, had managed to catch the Dutch and their British lackeys before their armies could combine. Stronger than either individual force, but weaker overall, the French left a token force (commanded by me) in place to pin the first army down (Randy), while the majority of the French and their Bavarian battle buddies (Evan and Wayne) moved to crush the reinforcements rushing to aid their beleaguered friends (Commanded by Lance and Biff, though Lance was called away before the game even started, due to a family emergency. All thanks to Lance, for lending us his beautiful minis to use, and we wish his wife a speedy recovery.)

Wayne, in the colorful shirt, commanded the French infantry and artillery. Evan, bottom right, only arms visible, commanded the French Cavalry and Bavarian infantry.

The French main force.

Lance/Biff's troops, British and some German minor principality forces, realize that They are our main target, not Randy's army.

The aforementioned Randy's army, at the other end of the board.

He formed his cavalry on his right flank, and split his infantry to march around the woods.

Close up on some British infantry, because damn that's a good paint job.

My blocking force facing Randy's army consisted of 4 battalions of Infantry, three regiments of Cuirassiers (seen above), 2 of Dragoons, and one of Bavarian Hussars (worthless).

When I initiated my cavalry charge, I rolled quite poorly, and 2/3 of my Cuirassier shock cavalry went from good order to 'Shaken,' halving their close combat dice and getting them utterly slaughtered right off the bat.

A few turns in, and my casualties are really starting to add up. The French line infantry (seen to the right of the photo) kept barely hanging on, slowly getting whittled down by the English and Dutch foes.

The British cavalry cuts through the French Dragoons like a hot knife through butter, and move towards the village anchoring my left flank.

A view from the British side of the river. All my infantry had, by this point, lost at least a third of their effective strength. But their job was to hold the enemy long enough to crush the Other allied force...

Which was going rather well. Evan's good dice rolls and natural cavalry elan made short work of his English/whatever foes, driving them back and slicing deep into the infantry columns behind them. Meanwhile, his Bavarian infantry summitted the hilltop and began to deploy into line, while the beleaguered allied army rushed a few infantry battalions uphill to meet them.

Here you can see Biff's infantry attacking the Bavarians atop the hill, while the French cavalry (right) pushes deeper into enemy lines.

Meanwhile, on Ben's end of the table, the British push into the village and my remaining forces begin to withdraw. But help was coming! A full brigade of fresh French forces had turned from the attack to help shore up my failing lines. (See the road, leading away from the village)

Evan's Bavarians making short work of their foes, begin turning the enemy flank.

Since the store was close to closing, we decided that night had begun to fall, ending the day's battle. I'm pretty sure we ruled that Biff's army had taken a severe pounding, and was in danger of being overrun. However, the holding force had taken far greater casualties than had been hoped, though they weren't wiped out. Overall, I think a tactical victory for the French, though not the overwhelming strategic win we'd been hoping for.

Maybe the next time we play, we can pick this up again sort of where we left off, determine what forces remain, how many reinforcements the depleted units would have gained, and see if the French can survive the counter-attack of both forces? Or maybe the partially mangled French army drives Biff's troops into route, but then has to turn and face the nearly un-touched Anglo-Dutch army under Randy's command?

An Army is Completed!

This might be a new record for me. I painted my complete Prussian starter-army pack in like, two or three days. Now to get started on the French, to oppose them. The miniatures are all Pendraken 10mm, and they came in convenient $40 starter packs.

My Prussians make up five infantry divisions, one Cavalry division? (If they fielded complete divisions, probably not. But four bases, anyways) and three battalions of artillery (three bases) 145 infantry miniatures, 12 cavalry, 12 artillery crew and three guns.

Prussian Dragoons! With the advent of bolt action rifles, the days of the cavalry were nearly at an end. Still, in the era before the use of automobiles in warfare, cavalry was vital in it's role as Scouts, and to screen your own army's movement from the enemy scouts. In our most recent battle, they didn't exactly do a whole bunch, except when they operated closely with friendly infantry.

The flags came modeled on, which is terrible unless you can free-hand amazing looking flags, which I can't. When I order some standard bearers w/ just the flag pole, I'll pry these guys up and swap them out for something more professional looking.

I slapped some white on the flags so that at least from a distance they look reminiscent of Prussin banners.

Krupp guns! In the Franco-Prussian war, the superior French Chassepot rifle had double the range of the Prussian Needlegun, but Krupp breech loading artillery was miles ahead of French muzzle-loading cannons.

Also, my Dad visited this past week, but before he came he was kind enough to print off some Bavarian flags for my Beneath the Lily Banners army of Bavarians. I think it looks pretty damn snazzy, if I do say so myself.

The regiment in the lead there is, apparently, the Leibgarde Rgmt., or Life Guards

While the regiment with red facings is the Regiment de Mercy.

And these guys are French. Still no banners for them yet. Really could use some colored ink.

My Current Projects

I guess honestly the death of our beloved cat, Piglet, has been hitting me harder than I thought. Well, not harder than I thought, but for longer. I sure do miss that fluffy bastard. So I've been throwing myself into the hobby with a lot more enthusiasm lately, I guess trying to stay busy and distract myself.

But yeah, I sold some of my old, unused gaming stuff, and with it bought some 15mm miniatures for Beneath the Lily Banner, the ruleset covering the years 1680 to about 1750, maybe 1760 or so? So the first half of Empire: Total War, haha. My previous post covers it more, but here are pictures of the three infantry battalions that I've finished painting, still need banners.

The blue-uniformed battalions are Bavarians.

While the grey-coated ones are French.

Not content with this project, I'm finally getting my Imperial Fists on! I got a Great deal on the Assault on Black Reach starter set from a friend in SA, but until I get that (soon hopefully,) I didn't have anything to do, 40k related (besides work on my guard heavy weapons, but they're so goddamn boring, ugh), so I bought the new Tactical Squad:

Gave the Sergeant an actual bolter with his chainsword, gotta take full advantage of the Imperial Fist bolter drill rules. These are still very much a work in progress, but lemme tell you: Buy the Army Painter spray paint for whatever color marine army you're going to play. It will save you so much time. Especially if you're painting something as crappy to work with as yellow.

The other secret is my Micron pen. It's got a .2mm head on it, and that's how I did all the black lines on the models. Another Tremendous saver of time and effort. (It's also how I did the script on the purity seals, though I'm not sure the pictures show them that well)

Not content with these two other projects, I let my newfound compatriots at Great Hall Games seduce me with the game Bloody Big Battles. (I'm a sucker for alliteration.) A historical ruleset for battles between 1840 and 1905, it covers the Age of Rifles. Each base is 1,000 men, and the groups of bases in a unit represent either a brigade or a division, depending on how many. The scale of the game is really big, and you can refight the entire three day battle of gettysburg in three or four hours. So HERE you can see my Prussians for the Franco-Prussian war. I also got a French army pack of the same size, in 10mm. "10mm?" you say to yourself, "I can't even Concieve of minis so small!" Well...

They look incredibly easy to paint, you don't have to put much detail on such a small model, and they look great on the table.

This is the Army pack. Four infantry divisions, 5 bases of horses (I don't know how the cavalry was organized, cut me some slack,) and 3 cannons still in the bag. the equivalent of 26,000 men or thereabouts. 

So that's what I'm working on these days, haha. If anybody ever wants to join me in Austin to check out the historical gaming scene, the guys are friendly and they'll let you sit down and join in even if you don't have much experience. Most of them have models enough to share, it all depends on what takes your fancy.

And with my new Imperial Fists company beginning to take shape, I'm hoping to get some more 40k games in under my belt before long, especially with summer just around the corner.

Beneath the Lily Banners- Wargaming from 1680 to the mid 1700s

The Beneath the Lily Banners players in Austin are an incredible group of guys. They let me, with no knowledge of the rules, no miniatures of my own, and very limited knowledge of the period in question, just hover over their game, ask questions, and made me feel incredibly welcome. They invited me to actually play in the next game, which I did!

It was this weird, incredibly fortuitous thing, that I'd just used some of my store credit to buy a bunch of minis for that exact period, intending to use them for another, half assed, barely thought out project. Well now I have a better, higher use to put them too! I'm going to have a force of French and Bavarians. (Background, the period we're playing is the War of the Spanish Succession. The heir to the throne of France was also named heir to the Spanish crown upon the death of their king. England, Holland, the Austrians and most of the Germanies were like "Oh shit, a Franco-Spanish super power would bone us all!" and went to war to keep that from happening.)

Here, you see the field of battle from both sides. The objective was the bridge, and the winner whoever held it. The river was unfordable, and all reinforcements moved onto the table by way of the roads at the table edges.

Some of Jeff's (I'm almost certain his name was Jeff) fantastic Austrians. I love the banners, I wish we had color ink in our printer haha.

Another of the players there had Austrians of their own. This was the era before an army had a set 'infantry' uniform, so while Most french battalions had white or grey coats, with different colors of cuffs and facings, some wore blue coats, while the Irish and Scottish regiments in the service of France (long story) wore red coats. 

(And to add to the confusion, Austrians also tended towards white and grey coated troops. Look at the banners, the Austrians have that black eagle, the French (below) have those striking regimental flags in quarters)

Rank upon serried rank of French soldiery, the pride of the Sun King at the height of French royal power, in the era when French arms reigned supreme.

Above, and below this line of text, you see the initial deployments for both sides. Each general deployed their cavalry, with a few battalions of infantry and some light guns as the advanced guard. 

Our plan was to push our best troops to the bridge as fast as possible. I commanded the French Right wing, which was made up of Dragoons (who are NOT cavalry the same way Cuirassiers and heavy horse are, they aren't supposed to fight mounted against anything but routing infantry), and a bunch of utterly raw conscripts. I was supposed to delay the enemy while the real fight happened to our left.

The initial contact was made by the opposing wings of Cavalry. 

Here, the French Dragoons under my command have the extraordinary luck of catching the enemy heavy horse in a column of manoeuvre, unprepared to fight. Punching well above their weight, the dragoons manage to push them back, eventually routing their foe, clearing the road over the hill for the infantry to advance.

(My favorite French flag)

The Savoy troops to my front turned to their right, as if to advance on the bridge.

They were shortly to turn to the left and form the center of the Austrian/Savoyard battle line.

The French left flank, featuring a cavalry clash where I'm pretty sure the Austrian dragoons kicked our own heavy cavalry from one end of the field to the other. You can see the commanding position our guns had on the hill in the center there, while the redcoated battalion of Irish expatriates was to shortly bear the brunt of the enemy's cavalry.

Here, and below, you see the Savoyard reinforcements I was facing, march across the field into position.

My own brave troops march over the hill, drums pounding and banners flying.

If only they weren't raw recruits. So many negative modifiers to my dice rolls..

Once our battle lines closed, my own casualties quickly mounted in the face of the trained Savoyard musketeers.

Here, and in the next few pictures, you can really get a sense of the main forces for each army advancing on the bridge.

The French infantry speeds towards the bridge, but...

... The Austrian columns reach the bridge first, and because of time constraints, the game ended. I would have preferred to fight for several more hours, honestly. My own flank was caving in, but all our best forces had yet to engage. The Austrians and the French, both, had 7 or 8 battalions of infantry each that had not done anything but follow the road to the bridge.

I still had an absolute blast, and look forward very much to our next game.