A Return (FINALLY) to Bloody Big Battles

My friend Dave introduced me to Bloody Big Battles, the wargame rule system covering the vast conflicts in what I've always thought of as the Age of Rifles, 1840-1900. I've talked about it before, but basically it's for the really massive battles of history, the kind that you just can't play in a single day, if every battalion or regiment is it's own unit, and you have to deal with all the minutiae. Each unit is a brigade or division, depending on the scenario, each 1"x 1" base represents between 500-1500 men, 24-48 guns, etc. etc., again depending on the exact scenario. 

Dave was lured away by the dark side, he's spent months focusing on fantasy miniatures, and I finally got him to come back into the fold and play a Real Man's Wargame. So we pitted Prussians and Bavarians, under Feldmarschall Ernst, against ... Dave's french. I can't think of a french-ified version of Dave, sue me.

On the left, four divisions of Prussian veterans, making up for the shortcomings of their needleguns with sheer nerve and tenacity. Behind them, 5 bases of veteran Cavalry, two divions worth, and four bases of Breach-loading artillery, my true edge against the French enemy.

On the right, three large divisions of Bavarians. Not as experienced as their Prussian allies, but armed with the superior M1858/67 Podewil rifle, they are still outgunned by the French, but are well supported by three more bases of Breach-loading artillery.

Opposing me, the French. About half veteran and half trained, all armed with the deadly Chassepot rifle, easily twice as effective as the needlegun, but with muzzle-loading artillery.

The five villages were our objectives. With three of them close to the French table edge, it was going to be an uphill battle for the Germans arrayed against them.

Unfortunately for me, Dave's entire army arrives in good order on turn one, advancing swiftly to take the nearest villages.

Luckily, my own army arrived on turn one as well, save for a single division of Prussian infantry, who would arrive next turn.

In true French fashion, Dave advances his cavalry unsupported, and the bold cuirassiers find themselves facing the brunt of the Prussian left flank. The lead cavalry division is cut to pieces by massed rifle fire, and, threatened by my own advancing cavalry, rapidly falls back.

In the center of the field, our massed columns shake out into line and prepare to fight over the central village. My plan for the battle was to hold with my right flank, ceding the far village, and pushing strongly with my left to seize 3 of the 5 objective sites.

My artillery blows great, bloody swathes in the French troops protecting the central village, destroying two bases in a single roll. However, working the guns that hard comes with a price, and all four artillery groups run short of ammo (marked with red tokens), right as my infantry assaults move in on their target villages.

On my far left, French defensive fire proves stronger than expected, disordering my combined infantry and cavalry attack, right as it begins it's charge.

Prussians fight Frenchmen, who are cleverly disguised as Italians (we didn't have enough painted french, so...close enough)

In the end, Dave manages to cause too many casualties amongst my Bavarian corps, while stymieing my Prussian assault, preventing me from taking a third village, and thus costing me the game. 

Bloody Big Battles is truly one of my favorite rulesets, and I can't bloody wait for my Pendraken order to come in. I've been waiting months to receive some more miniatures through my local shop, and if my poor judgement gets the better of me, I might just have to order some Austrians online, to oppose my Prussians. 

Bloody Big Battles! Wargaming in the Age of Rifles, 1850-1900

Thank GOD I enjoyed this game, because I bought a French AND a Prussian army starter pack for the Franco-Prussian War in 10mm, without having played the game or even looked at the rules. Stupid? Yes! But I did it anyways. The Prussians in the picture below are what tricked me into playing it, they looked so damn cool. I bought French, too, because the store needs more French players and with two armies I can demo the game to others.

(once I get the rules, still waiting on those.)

These are, I'm pretty sure, Dave's Prussians. Gah, love them. 10mm is so fucking small, but honestly they're not hard to paint. You don't have to go into much detail at all to make them look good.

Here, the table! And Rob selecting his French forces. The objectives are the bridge in the far upper left corner of this picture, and other bridge to the center right (halfway covered by the paper), and the third was the crossroads in the woods.

A Bavarian division under my command. I love Bavaria, and I'm going to buy some asap, but sadly they're kind of shitty in the Franco-Prussian war. Oh well, some cheap troops to fill out a Prussian army.

The Prussian Right flank

A French Infantry division crests a hill, somewhere.

French Cavalry and Infantry advance onto the table in column.

The French general directly opposite my own Corps had Terrible rolls for movement, his only unit that really hoofed it was a veteran division, that beat the Prussians to the crossroads and deployed in the woods. (The woods Really limited movement and weapons range, negating much of the French firepower advantage) (The French Chassepot rifle had literally double the range of the Prussian Needlegun.) But you can see that they have their work cut out for them, with three full Prussian division advancing towards them.

My Corps advances. My Bavarians were 'raw' troops, but they managed to avoid much fire until they were in a position to do some good.

The fighting in the woods was brutal, with ammunition running low for both sides several times. The French took heavy casualties, and the Prussians charged!

Dave's Prussian Division slams into the French, supported by one of mine.

Another pic of the above situation.

My Bavarians cross the field without taking any fire, forming line and advancing on the French artillery! Solid dice rolls see them driven back.

The French are driven back, taking fire all the way!

The Bavarians advance after the fleeing artillery, preparing to confront the cowardly French cavalry...

I didn't get pictures of the final turn or two, but the Bavarians got a bloody nose as some of the French finally decided to fight back. The Prussians won in the end, with two objectives to the single French-held victory point. It was an absolute blast, and I'll have pictures of my OWN miniatures next time I update this blog.

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.