More Like Lions Than Men - Book Review

If you thought things couldn't get any better from Helion then the 51st volume of their Century of the Soldier series will blow that thought out of the water. They've done it again with a superb account of the English Civil War in Cheshire from the perspective of the Parliamentarian commander Sir William Brereton. The first thing to notice about this book is its size, at 375 pages. I found the book well written, clearly referenced and laid out, with some useful maps and lots of tables and such relating, for example, to individual unit muster rolls, recruitment, supply, ordnance, pay and even tailor's bills for cloth. Most of these are transcribed from original documents. The first section covers in great detail military operations in Cheshire, culminating in the capture of Chester by Brereton in 1646. Then we have Part II, entitled 'Anatomy of an Army', covering recruitment, organisation, leadership, in fact everything to do with recruiting, paying and feeding an army. Part III provides some pretty comprehensive information on each of the regiments of the Parliamentarian Army of Cheshire. There is a detailed summary of the history of each unit together with biographies of the commanding officers and where known other officers of each regiment. This is a positive treasure trove of information and clearly the depth of research required to produce such a detailed book was significant, as evidenced by the extensive bibliography. To top everything are lots of contemporary b&w illustrations and sixteen colour plates illustrating uniforms, flags and even a real-life dragoon on his nag! It is certainly refreshing to read about the conduct of the Civil War focussed in a single county or region. The author and publisher are to be commended on producing such an excellent work. Highly recommended for all ECW war gamers. And no, ECW is still too far down the list of projects I might consider before I pop my clogs! (Later rather than sooner of course but with more FRW to do, Italian Wars, 1/72 Marlburian, 1/72 Russian Civil War, more 1672 stuff and the rest I have plenty to keep me occupied).

French Revolutionary Wars Military Band

These figures are from Trent Miniatures, I think from their late 18th century Wars in the Caribbean range.They're rather splendid I think only spoilt by my average paint job. African bandsmen were quite a common feature in many armies, and have been before and since. These chaps are currently attached to my 1793 Hanoverian forces battling with the French in the Austrian Netherlands. Rock On!

FRW Campaign update #3 The battle at Hondschoote

So, following on from the previous post, in ‘Campaign Time’ the game today commenced at 9.30 in the morning on 3 September 1793. Only those Campaign players directly involved in the battle had been invited to The Burrow; as I’ve said before I need to at least try and keep the anonymity of the players secret for as long as possible, which everyone seems happy about. That being the case I will not be naming the players and any photos in which they appear will have been suitably edited. Of course if I wanted to keep everything under wraps there wouldn’t be much of a blog post, so that bit of the secrecy has been ditched. It won’t matter so far as the campaign goes.

Feld-Marshal-Leutnant Von Freytag deployed his Hanoverian and Hessian infantry around Hondschoote. The cavalry brigade was held in reserve. I decided that due to the closed nature of the terrain the Hanoverians and Hessians could deploy using the ‘Fog of War’ rules and large pink cards were used to mark the locations (or not if they were blanks) of their units. A couple of Freytag’s units were already carrying casualties, received during the skirmishing earlier that morning as they withdrew from their outposts at Warum, but none critically.

General de Division Jourdan ordered his forces boldly down the main road, the brigade of General Colaud taking  the lead while the other brigade of infantry under d'Hédouville pushed on through the massed hedgerows between the road and the marsh. The artillery and cavalry supported the right of the main push. This was not good cavalry terrain. In a way this factor favoured the French as their cavalry were outnumbered and outclassed by their Hanoverian counterparts.

In time honoured style I will let the photos take you through the key stages of the battle. Suffice to say it did not go at all as I had expected and has posed me some interesting issues to resolve before we move on to the next day or sets of orders and stuff.  As is now usual we used General d’Armee, and the 28mm figures and terrain are all mine. Each turn represented half an hour of ‘Campaign Time’.

The French massing to advance down the road towards Hondschoote.

This was the better of Jourdan's two brigades of infantry, tasked with advancing between the road and the marsh.

Hessian defenders quickly revealed themselves to open fire

The French advance on the left moves steadily forward.

The road to Hondschoote packed with French infantry.

Jourdan's cavalry had nowhere to go due to the closed nature of the terrain.

Hanoverian skirmishers of the 14th Light Infantry Regt.

The French put all their cannon on the right. Their fire was largely ineffective although the horse battery did inflict  four fatigue casualties on itself during the game!

The French on the road get closer to their objective.

DISASTER! Gen d'Hédouville is killed by a stray cannonball. His brigade immediately falters.

The following turn, the French have to roll on the 'faltering brigade' table and manages a 1. Sauve qui Peut! The brigade retreats rapidly, taking more casualties in the process. They did however rally the following turn and were in a position to advance again.

In the centre a charge down the road is bundled back by Hessian musketry and canister. A second charge met the same fate.

The Coalition right flank was held by the Hessian brigade

French line up dinner in their sights

Hessian infantry and artillery threw back two assaults by the French, inflicting heavy losses.

The Hanoverian left flank. 

The Hanoverian brigade 

The French horse artillery galloped to a more advanced position.

The French had the upper hand in the skirmisher duel on their right but it was to make little difference.

By now the French were exhausted. Two attacks down the road had been bloodily repulsed and two battalions were close to breaking. The other infantry brigade had recovered after failing their 'faltering' test but with losses mounting among his artillery (mainly fatigue casualties thanks to some dire dice rolls) Jourdan ordered a retreat, covered by his cavalry. It was 4pm Campaign time, and we'd played 14 turns.

The Hanoverians and Hessians  defended the town with relative ease as the French were dogged by bad luck from the start. Nothing worked for the French. But, it was a fun little battle and the outcome will certainly provide me with some interesting problems to throw at both sides. I had my fun during the game by sending both players a few emails from messengers arriving with news from elsewhere in the vicinity, namely around Dunkirk and Bergues. While the battle had been raging the Dunkirk garrison had sortied out to distract the Anglo-Hanoverians, and York had ordered troops south along the causeways over the marsh to try and cut off the attack on Hondschoote from Bergues, but these were driven back.

I shall now send a flurry of messages to the players as we start day 4 of the campaign.

Flanders 1793 Campaign update #2

This is frustrating. Actually no. It’s going exactly as planned. The campaign has reached 6 a.m. on 3 September 1793 and we have what could develop into quite a battle as the ‘day’ progresses. I can't say much if I am to maintain the secrecy element of the campaign but that will probably all go out of the window as we get more action. Suffice to say it should make for a few good blog posts when the time is right.  So on Saturday the battle, or possibly the first phase, will be played here at The Burrow. I am limiting the players to those actually involved in the engagement and as nobody knows who is playing who in the campaign it should make for an interesting cup of coffee before the game starts! Given that the various elements of the French army are quite dispersed and that the Anglo-Hanoverians, Austrians, Emigres, Dutch and Prussians are similarly spread around the Austrian Netherlands it’ll keep folks guessing and/or the dark as they would have been back in 1793.

Here is the table set up for tomorrow.  North is to the left. The water feature running the length of the table is a canal crossable only by the single bridge or a bridging train. The marshy area are a major obstacle while area covered by hedges and trees is passable with some reduction in movement.  The main town isn't especially defensible but is protected by some hastily prepared earthworks. All the ground below the level of the raised roadways is prone to flooding so we might have some random instances of getting bogged down!

Anyway, that's it till after the game.

Hanoverian Light Dragoons, 1793

 This week I've managed to complete this fine body of horsemen using the venerable Hinchliffe AWI British Light Dragoon one piece castings. This figures is for me timeless, and they'll fit in with the rest of.my collection perfectly. This is the 9th Light Dragoons.

I think this is a 1st Corps casting of the death of General Wolfe. A head swap for the guy holding him up was all I needed to do to use in the FRW.

Somewhere in the Pyrenees 1814...or is it?

John the Red kindly took me to the Club in Durham again last Thursday. (After a lapse of quite a few years I have  rejoined the club I first became a member of in January 1972). Shaun had been giving Gen d'Armee another run out, again using his gorgeous Peninsular War collection. We were playing the final week of the game (I'd managed each of the three weeks thanks to lifts from John, and Malcolm and Shaun in the middle week). As the British commander its fair to say we were in deep trouble from turn one, and that didn't change at all until the end of turn 14 when we were in less deep trouble. Shaun was the French commander, assisted at various times by John, Richard and Nigel doing a great impersonation of a 'Grognard'. Another John (H) had assisted me in the first two weeks and in the final week Conrad joined me as John H couldn't make it. So, we had continuity of sorts for the entire game and it was actually quite interesting coaching the other players as they came and went.

The game was a disguised scenario, set in the Pyrenees in 1814. The British began the game outnumbered and were tasked with holding the main road and crossroads until turn 14. Reinforcements would be drip fed in as the game progressed. The French started with lots more troops and their reinforcements came on quickly and in vast numbers. Anyway, here's how it panned out.

Shaun taking a photo of his brave lads!

Facing our left wing was a brigade of French cavalry and one of infantry. This was going to be tense.

For some reason I'd deployed our lone cavalry regiment on the crossroads with thoughts of brave charges down the road in my head. Actually, no matter how deluded this idea was, the hussars would have been really up against it if they'd been on our left facing the French cavalry.

After a conspicuous absence and a slow start the French artillery arrived. The infantry in the centre had halted while their skirmishers were pushing through the wood in the background. Our skirmishers were doing a good job at holding their own against the French voltigeurs.

Overview of the battlefield towards the end of week 1.

The proximity of the enemy cavalry forced the British into square.

Reinforcements at last!

The French were very slow getting going in the centre thanks to a series of turns where they were 'hesitant'.

The hussars had charged down the road and forced a battalion into square. Our cavalry bounced but the French attack was stalled. They were still pushing through the wood and had started to press hard in the centre.

On the left the British were suffering from long range artillery fire from the French reserve  that was pounding  our square relentlessly.  During the course of the game the French launched several infantry and cavalry attacks against the British left and centre. All of them were repulsed but at great cost as several battalions were very close to reaching the magical '12' hits and running away. All our skirmishers in the centre, including the 60th Rifles, had been destroyed by this point.

The final British reinforcements arrived and halted any French attempts to turn our right flank. The enemy were pushed back into the woods.

The last of the French cavalry charges fared no better than all the others and was blown away when attempting to overrun the British artillery. British heavy dragoons were also now in the game, just out of shot to the right.

My hussars make their fourth charge of the game down the road. They again failed to break the enemy but kept them in square and unable to advance any further.

At this point we had reached the end of the 14th turn. Two British infantry brigades were shattered, or 'demoralised' as per the rules. Both had been faltering but had rallied.  One French brigade was also demoralised after its failed assault on the British centre and the French skirmisher screens were close to breaking.

The French had failed to achieve their objective by turn 14 but the British would now be faced with making a fighting withdrawal off the table, as with only three or four relatively fresh battalions supported by three cavalry regiments and a couple of batteries of artillery we would struggle to hold back the enemy indefinitely. But, hanging on at all costs and indefinitely wasn't in our plan. Given the losses suffered by the British Shaun declared the game a draw.

This was a great game. We played it over three evenings and with some different players but the whole thing was thoroughly enjoyable. Not everyone who took part is a fan of the rules, but I think most of us are firmly on board with using General d'Armée for the time being. Certainly I intend to use them in favour of Black Powder at home.

Oh, and the scenario, for anyone who hadn't guessed it, was Quatre Bras.

The War of the Waldensian Succession - 1669 in Piedmont-Savoy.

The War of the What? Well, its a fictitious conflict based on a small uprising of Protestants living within the borders of the Duchy of Savoy in the late 1660's. In reality it was crushed with ease but in my version of events the Waldensians were supported by Louis XIV of France, not because of any religious common ground but as a means of retarding the growth of the Duchy of Savoy on his southern border.    For an account of an earlier game set in this reality click here.

So, I had almost a full house on Saturday. John the Red, Conrad and Paul S were joined by  Roger from Bradford https://gapagnw.blogspot.com and Paul from Grimsby http://grimsbywargaming.blogspot.com.

Paul, John and Roger took the French, tasked with driving off the covering Savoyard force which would lead to the fall of the fictional (?) city of Citta Santa Menen-Disimulata before the Savoyards could be reinforced by Spanish who were marching to their aid from the East. Conrad and Paul were the Savoyards. I was the Spanish, who would arrive on the throw of a D10. I threw an eight so it was to be turn eight before they appeared on the Eastern table edge, which for reference when looking at the photos is the 'kitchen door' end of the room.

We used my own doctored version of Pike and Shotte, as the rules as they stand don't really work for the late 17th C.

The Savoyards deployed with all their horse on their left wing, with the three infantry brigades covering the centre and the front of the city. The French had the advantage of numbers and deployed all their horse facing the Savoyard and Allied cavalry. Their dragoons were on the left, initially tasked with crossing the river which they thought was fordable (it wasn't), which led to a costly but successful assault across the bridge.

The end result was a surprising (for me anyway) resounding victory for the French, but I will let the photos below tell the story.

The Savoyard left flank.

Both armies deployed for battle.

French Gens d'Armes clash with Imperial cuirassiers in the service of Savoy. The former were eventually to prevail.

After finding out that the river was not fordable (the report from the French scouts was  wrong)  Roger  sent one of his dragoon regiments over the bridge. In the face of heavy fire from the Savoyard outwork they were forced to pull back, but on the Western side of the river.

Paul R pushed his foot forwards to engage Roger's French, all the while under heavy fire from the French artillery.

Savoyard artillery on the city walls.

The main French battery caused significant losses on the enemy.

A massive cavalry scrum was developing on the Savoyard left, one that despite a few local successes they were loosing.

French Cheveau-Legere covering their right flank, and facing annoying fire from the  dragoons in the  olive grove. An attempt to drive the dragoons off was initially successful but ultimately the cavalry were unable to exploit their advantage and the dragoons re-occupied the olive grove.

The scrum continues......

Conrad throws in the Savoyard Guardia del Corpo to stem the tide of French horsemen.

The cavalry scrum is STILL going on, but the Savoyards and their allies are weakening. By now one brigade is broken and  another is forced to pull back. 

French horse clear the dragoons from the olive grove but only temporarily.

The French centre

Roger's dragoons have destroyed the Savoyard battery in the outwork across the river.

D'Artagnon observing the battle.

Turn eight and the Spanish arrive, but then hold their ground observing from the wings.

Only the Spanish cavalry and dragoons move forward.

Back in the centre the Savoyard centre is crumbling after an heroic battle against the French

One last charge just isn't enough!

Paul's infantry are holding their own but are under heavy artillery fire. The Gardia regiment are shaken and will shortly break under the pressure.

The French have driven the Savoyard and their Allied cavalry almost off the field but many of their squadrons are almost spent.

The Spanish cavalry make short work of a rallying squadron of French cheveau-leger, breaking them. The Spanish however are not going to gain anything as their cavalry are sill badly outnumbered by the remaining French.

The French left under Roger begins to advance on the wavering Savoyard infantry before them. 

Well, that was actually quite tense. The Savoyards, especially their horse, performed well, but it was the loss of the massive cavalry melee in the centre that was the key factor in securing a French victory over them. The Savoyard cavalry were unlucky but many squadrons were newly raised, as indeed were many infantry battalions. The French too had quite a number of newly raised battalions but they were not really engaged.

Hopefully everyone enjoyed the game and for Roger and Paul R especially, their visit to The Burrow, but also Conrad who's command got well and truly minced. They did however get minced in style and the French cavalry ended the day with 30 per cent casualties (i.e. adding up the hits held by units at the end). Pike and Shot, or as I call the amended set, Black Shotte, are ok as like with Black Powder everyone knows the basic concepts, but they lack something when playing the mid-late 17thC. I'm sure I can come up with an alternative in the.

Probably be a couple weeks before I have another game here but I will be I hope back at the Durham club this coming Thursday where we shall be finishing the 28mm Napoleonic game we've been playing for the past two weeks.

I will also be able to reveal a little secret in a day or two......hehehehehehehe!