Last night we played the Quatre Bras scenario from the Napoleon’s Last Gamble package (OSG). 

Historical Background - The French (Ney) task is to pin Wellington’s Anglo-Allied army in place while Napoleon with the rest of the French army attacks the Prussians over to the right at Ligny (dealt with in another scenario).

This scenario - Victory points are based around the control of Gémioncourt and Quatre Bras, plus of course damage inflicted to the other army.

There is another scenario in the package that plays both the Quatre Bras and Ligny scenarios at the same time and in that scenario, the lateral road that connects the two battlefields also yields victory points.

The photo here shows the initial set-up. Off picture, further down the map (at Gosselies) sits d’ Erlon’s 1st Corp, which famously marched and counter-marched between both battlefields, arriving at neither, but his arrival at either would likely have been decisive ….. will he turn up today!

In our scenario, there is a chance that he will arrive to support Ney (position 1 on the map) …. but also a chance that he will march off towards Ligny! (Position 2)

The turns are hourly. The eight turn scenario starts at 2 PM and ends at 9 PM, which is a night turn. Map scale is 525 yards (50 acres) to the hex. The weather starts as ‘Heat’.

AAR - The French early advance is successful and they take Gémioncourt, only to be immediately pushed back out by Kempt at 4 PM.

It starts to rain, which reduces visibility, preventing the artillery from using ranged fire (bombardment).

Kempt’s advance into Gémioncourt was unsupported and he is soon ousted, leaving Quatre Bras exposed and which in turn is captured by Soye.

At 6 PM the weather worsens and thunder storms rage, making artillery slower to manoeuvre and infantry becoming less effective in combat (halved).

Pack re-takes Quatre Bras from the French, who immediately counter-attack and push Pack back out. By this time, the Anglo-Allies had been taking the worst of the casualties and Wellington was considering calling a General Retreat, when Cooke’s Guards suddenly appeared from Bossu Woods and flung themselves at Quatre Bras, in one final glorious Hoorah, capturing it, literally on the last combat die roll of the game!

Darkness descended and the two forces disengaged. Wellington had indeed spent the day pinned in place, as the French had intended, though that last minute capture of the cross roads caused a swing of 10 Victory Points from French favour to Wellington, reducing the French Victory from a potential Strategic Victory to a ‘French Marginal’ victory.

As for d’ Erlon, he did not reach either battlefield, but for me as the Anglo-Allied player, it would have been great fun to see him activated and for the French to think he was moving up to support them, only for him to veer off to the right and advance towards Wagnelee (Ligny battlefield) …. I’m sure that would have demoralised my opponent :-) Note - I was managing the activation of d’ Erlon, so that his behaviour, based on die rolls, was kept secret from the French player, until intention was visibly obvious, giving Ney an emotional connection to the hopeful arrival of d’ Erlon that he actually had during the real battle.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable game, with both sides fully involved and key locations changing hands several times.

I quite like doing anniversary battles, so I will explore the individual battles in this box and then in mid June, in time for the 210th Anniversary of Waterloo, the full campaign can go onto the table, which combines the battlefields of Quatre Bras, Ligny, Wavre and Waterloo into big scenario.

Mike and myself did that with the original Napoleon’s Last Battles game, on one long hot summers day in the 80’s …… so it is certainly time for a re-visit.

Two more titles enter the collection from the Library of Napoleonic Battles series. Napoleon's Last Gamble, which covers the three days of battle at Quatre Bras / Ligny/ Wavre and Waterloo and Napoleon's Wheel, which covers Danube engagements with the Austerlitz battle as the main event.

I am working with the Napoleon's Last Gamble game first, while I have the rules under my belt. Having recently played Wavre with the older Napoleon's Last Battles package and having over the last 12 months done Quatre Bras with three systems, NLB, JdG and Eagles of France, I know the Quatre Bras situation well enough to be able to then make a reasonable judgement of merit between the games.

I have just put the Quatre Bras scenario on the table. It has a limited order of battle, so should play relatively quickly.

Of interest with this system is that each side gets a number of potential 'alternative' reinforcements that may or may not arrive during play (a random determination).

For the French, this includes d'Erlon's Corps, which famously marched and counter-marched between the Quatre Bras and Ligny battlefields without arriving at either. Their arrival may likely have changed the outcome of one or other of those battles and I suppose it is always a game design quandry what to do with d'Erlon. Most games seem to keep him remote from the field.

If d'Erlon does activate, there is a 50 - 50 chance he will be available to Ney at Quatre Bras ....... but also a 50 - 50 that he will march instead towards the Ligny battlefield - nice.

I like that here, the player gets the emotional feel of playing Ney with a hope / belief / expectation that d'Erlon will arrive ..... but where the hell is he!

The playing area is large enough that d'Erlon's I Corps set's up on the map, which I think will add to French player's expectation / frustration as to his arrival, since he is tantalisingly visible.  I will know by tonight :-)

These are the 28 Epic strips (280 figures) that I sent to a commission painter.

I have put them on 55mm wide MDF bases rather than the supplied 60mm, which tightens things up a bit.

Here I have shown them as 7 battalions of two bases, which work well in bigger games when there is a demand on bases, but for relatively small contacts, when say running a campaign game and playing out thos incidental meetings, I will go to three base units. This is what I have been doing with my ACW stuff.

These figures use lighter colours than I would have used and it has been an important lesson for me for my future painting. I think the lighter colours really help bring a brighter aspect to the smaller figures to get some pop and show off their character.

For now, I will keep this as a 7 unit infantry force and just add a gun battery plus two cavalry regiments. that will give me the core of a 'Pocket army'. Ccertainly enough to do '1 Hour Wargaming' style scenarios.

I can mirror that with a Prussian force to get some small games going and then add to them bit by bit as need and opportunitty arises, again, this is what I have done with the ACW stuff.

Anyway, very happy to have had a 'leg-up' with getting this period started. 

I have just been watching a YouTube video of a lovely Napoleonic game in 28mm. I asked how big the table was, thinking perhaps is was just a bit larger than a 6x4. It turns out is is a 12x6, which reinforces my view that for my domestic setting, the Epic scale will do me fine!

Warlord Games announced this week that in June they will be releasing the latest period in the Epic series ...... American War of Independence.

I have been enjoying my own figure rules the last few weeks with the ACW Graysville Campaign, a set that I always intended to diversify into three periods - ACW, Napoleonics and AWI.

So to get the AWI set up to a playtest stage, in time for the Warlord Games release, I thought this rather nice Osprey title (bought from Waterstones UK) would help me dislocate the rules from any innapropriate ACW / napoleonic hangover. 

I already have the 'Live Free or Die' rules and scenario package by the Little Wars TV people, so in the end, that might become a playing option, though it does use a lot of bases, but perhaps that might drive me to cut the Epic strips in half ..... or have 1 Epic base count as two LForD bases.

Battle of Fismes as stated a few posts lower down is an introductory title to a Napoleonic series game.

I have just played through it once and have put a post up over on the blog that discusses the game from the perspective of a newbie player. I.e. does the introductory package do what it is intended to do.

It is too long to repeat here, but here is a link for anyone interested.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-battle-of-fismes-introduction-to.html

Our face to face game last night was Battle Cry by Richard Borg, a hybrid board and figure game, related to the WWII memoir '44 games and from which the various GMT Commands and Colors block systems would follow.

For those that don't know, the battlefield is divided into 3 sectors, centre and flanks. You have a hand of cards, each which typically allows you to activate a number of units in one sector, plus there are event cards etc.

To inflict damage on the enemy, you roll dice that have unit symbols on them and if you can match a symbol to the unit type in the target hex, one figure is removed from play per matching.

This is the sought after 150th Anniversary Edition and very nice it is too. We played the scenario twice, with a different winner each time, so what initially seemed slightly unbalanced against the Confederate side, actually appears a well crafted scenario, though in the second game, the Confederates drew the 'Breastworks' card and that helped them strengthen their centre sector.

As always, it is an entertaining, light and fun game that just simply works. It is ages since we played and we were able just to get straight back into it without any rules faff. 

Having sold off the 20mm (1/72) WWII stuff last year, I have been buying the bits to put some 10 / 12mm (1/144) forces together.

In the first instance I am going for a German mid war starter force - a new ‘Pocket Army’. 

WWII can pass across the painting table at surprising speed compared to other periods and so it makes for a good quick project to fit in between other bigger projects, that you sometimes need a rest from!

Anyway, kampfgruppe Schmidt is ready for action, comprising as follows;

9 x Infantry bases (6 figures per 45mm base)

1 x Mortar base (with 2 mortar teams and an observer)

2 x HMG bases (1 HMG per base)

1 x OBA observer team (radio operator and observer with field glasses)

2 x PaK 40 bases (75mm anti-tank guns and crew)

1 x HQ base (Horch car and two officers)

3 x StuG III vehicles.

1 x Opel truck

The infantry, mortar and HMG and OBA observer team are Victrix hard plastic figures from their German Infantry pack costing £30, but there are still enough figures left to do quite a few more bases … perhaps even another company of infantry if I get a little creative.

All the vehicles are from Anschluss Wargames. They are resin and the StuG’s cost £3.75 each, the Horch car cost £3.50 and the Opel truck £3.25

The Anti-tank guns are metal from Pendraken Miniatures, costing £3.20 for the pair.

So for around £50 a flexible WWII Pocket Army can hit the table, and for say just over £100 plus associated postage two small forces can be had.

I have tried to base these so that they can fit into both rural and urban scenarios, but I am not sure that I have achieved that as much as intended. The problem is that if the base goes too dark, you visually ‘lose’ the figures in them. I had to add some light turf (a sort of dusting) to brighten these, but I think that has left them a bit ‘messy’.

Although the Horch car is based, that was really just to create a HQ scene and for this project, for now at least, I am generally not going to base the vehicles. The advantage of basing would be the raising of the vehicle so that they look right next to the based infantry, but I think un-based vehicles sit better on a variety of terrains - we shall see!

The infantry bases each represent a rifle section, so the nine base gives a company of three platoons, a fairly perfect size for my own rules, rather small for ‘O’ Group and also on the small side for Rapid Fire Reloaded scenario books that I have, though the ‘head count’ on the bases might make for a better visual for Rapid Fire games. 

In any case, it is just a starter force and it will be easy to introduce other bases and broaden the versatility.

My intention now is to do a mirror force for the mid-war Soviets. I will look to add a 7th figure to the infantry bases to represent bigger platoons and see what that looks like and probably run one of the platoons with three sections of sub-machine gunners.

After which … ‘Attack on the Rail Station’ and others beckon! 

Progress can then slow down a bit, perhaps a platoon of Hanomag half tracks for the Germans and a truck platoon for the Soviets, before turning to either a British / commonwealth or American force for another ‘Pocket Army’ .... or Napoleonics or ACW or ECW or Punic Wars .... Oh Dear! :-)

I am not a huge fan / consumer of historical fiction, but while in the local garden centre the other day (Dobbies in the UK), I saw these two Scarrow titles.

They were on a 2 for £6 deal and since each has a list price of £9.99, I thought ‘why not’! I see these sort of things as good stand-by for hospital visits etc.

I was a bit hesitant to buy at first because the prose felt a bit stilted, but from somewhere at the back of my mind, I recall that language corrupts at a given rate of 1% every 19 years - something that apparently helps specialists track the movements of ancient populations. Anyway, if true, It would stand to reason that the text should certainly not feel modern and I trust that Scarrow understands his subject a thousand times more than I do, so that is that!

Could this all possibly lead to some Britannia based wargames! 

I also picked up ‘The Return’ by Harry Sidebottom, this one relates to 145 BC - Calabria, Ancient Rome. I thought a 'contrast and compare' of the prose by two different authors would be interesting to me.

I will read the Britannia book first ….. because I like that cover the best, yes, that’s how shallow I am :-)

Recent additions to the boardgame collection - two games from Operational Support Group (OSG) run by Kevin Zucker, who is also the designer. Napoleon Against Russia and the Battle of Fismes.

Zucker was the designer of the old SPI Napoleon’s Last Battles boardgame, that sold zillions and surely must have a place in the heart of many a 70’s gamer. From that game he developed the system further and began a series of games that have become known as the Library of Napoleonic Battles - a common ruleset applied to a host of napoleonic battles.

I have recently been playing the old ‘Napoleon’s Last Battles’ and wanted to dip my toe into the Library series. 

They do a ‘starter’ game for £25 which covers Fismes (a 'what if' game that itself comes from the Napoleon Retreats - 1814 module), though some charts etc need downloading to support play. Of the 8 downloaded documents, all are display charts except one, the Study Folder. This is a 20 page document, a sort of play book that details scenarios and gives a historical background. I decided to send this particular document off to a print on demand service, so that it would look like the booklet that comes with the official parent module. It cost an extra £10 including postage, a bit of an indulgence, but the sort of nice thing that just elevates a game. 

I also had a scout around and tried to judge which of the volumes might be closer to going out of print. Anyway, my pin landed on Napoleon Against Russia and so here were are.

The two main features of the system seem to be that the Library series not only offers the battle itself, but has scenarios that cover (usually the previous day) the approach to battle. The maps at around 500 metres per hex give you enough room for that manoeuvre and so of course, by the time you reach contact, you might have a very different looking (say) Borodino.

The other feature which seems to be liked and disliked in equal measure is the Combat Table, which is low casualty based, instead favouring pushes / retreats. The way to destroy the enemy is to surround them, so that units cannot retreat and are removed from play instead. The realism of that can be argued either way, but at the higher level of play it seems to work and you end up with good narrative such as units being pushed out of villages or brushed aside at strategically important bridges etc, plus the Library CRT compared to the NLB CRT includes a result called shock, which can lead to losses.

Either way, the system puts an emphasis on manoeuvre.

There is a load of support material in the Russian box and the presentation of the Study Book just leaves you feeling that a lot of knowledge and passion has gone into the game.

These are small counters and small hexes, which is necessary to have enough ‘cells’ on the map for all of that manoeuvring and the maps themselves are quite beautiful. If you like just looking into old maps, discovering obscure village names, following campaign narratives in books and understanding why some geographic features are so important, then these maps are for you.

Anyway, as always, it all takes its place in the playing queue, but I suspect this will have an outing that is sooner rather than later. 

The creation of the German Pocket army is fair moving along on the painting table. Today I gave Kampfgruppe Schmidt a command vehicle. Not all of the rules I use will need one, but it is a handy thing to have.

Here we have the Korch 108 Staff Car, sold by Anschluss Wargames in a 3D print. The two officer figures are taken from the German infantry set by Victrix.  The scale for both is described as 1/144, so is a good fit for 10 or 12mm figures and for 'N' scale model rail terrain.

There is a photo in my osprey Bulge book of a Kubelwagon on a muddy road, next to a road sign and an officer stepping into the car. This command base is loosely reflecting that scene.

I’m generally not basing my vehicles (well not at the moment anyway), but this little scene is an exception and shows my ongoing  experimentation with basing styles for the WWII stuff. I am aiming for a look that will allow the force to be used pretty universally between rural and urban settings without too much distraction.

Here a basing paste has initially gone down and then dry brushed with a lighter value. Some of this has been left exposed, while a few bricks, stones and some vegetation, have been added.

I am not too far away from completion of the force, which I will show here in due course. 

Graysville - it is late evening on the 19th. The confederate defence has started to solidify and the first opportunities to hold the union advance in check present themselves.

Once again we end up with three actions to examine as their outcomes are becoming of increasing importance and will likely define the direction of the campaign from here-on-in.

On the Old Mine Road, there are various possibilities available to the union, including the risky one of just pressing on in the face of a reinforced defender.

As the ‘umpire’ I know much more of the dispositions and strengths of all parties, much more than the commanders on the ground would have, so I decide it is time to turn to the trusty D6 for it to make a strategic decision for the union!

All is explained in the most recent entry over in the Graysville Campaign Diary (menu on the left). 

Picked this up today at Waterstones book store (UK) as a companion read to the Assault Sicily game, from Sound of Drums that I bought a few days ago.

The book is typical Osprey, very readable and full of illustrations. From flicking through a few pages, I saw a photo of a knocked out French R-35 tank, which apparently were part of the Italian order of battle.

I did a quick check in the game and there they were, four counters .... so all is good :-) bu it this sort of thing that I like about linking a book to exploring a boardgame.

The only thing of annoyance was that the shop copy had a slightly bent front cover because a previous customer had forced it back onto the shelves without care!  I keep my stuff pristine, so this sort of thing just irks.

Anyway there are a whole lot of localised accounts and together with logistics and campaign overview, the book allows a broad appreciation of the character of the campaign.