Napoleon at war Tournament at Montmelo, Barcelona 13th Sept 2014



"I say Picton how many of these damn peajes do we have to march through"

A few weeks ago I was invited to a Tournament of NAW in Barcelona, this came with impeccable timing because  my youngest daughter was starting university there, so we could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

The event was the second NAW tournament in a year and had changed venue to a Little town, North of Barcelona called Montmelo and was hosted by the kind fellows from the Ludus Historiae. The venue came with its own free parking and was bigger than the hall we used before in Gava. Unfortunately due to it being a Bank holiday weekend in Barcelona, there were quite a few players that could not make it . In the end there was six of us , three French armies, two British and one Austrian

This time I wanted to play British but not wanting to defend all the time. I decided to go with a Heavy Cavalry Brigade with all my other forces being in reserves.

                                       My 1500 points Heavy Cavalry Division consisted of;
                                       
                                                                      Organic

                                      1 Heavy Cavalry Brigade of 3 British Heavy Dragoon Regiments

 

                                                                      Reserves

                                      1 British Infantry Brigade of 3 line Battalions and 1 Light Battalion

                                      1 British Guard Brigade of 2 Guard Battalions

                                      1 Brunswick Infantry Brigade of 3 line Battalions

                                      1 Brunswick Hussar Regiment

                                      1 Brunswick Horse Artillery

                                     

 

               The list was a bit of a gamble due to having only one forcé starting on the table at the beginning of the games. But with my terrible dice throwing I was sure I would get the reserves on quite quickly. Also it was the only British list which you can attack with.

The first game was against Eloi's French Infantry Division and was the scenario, "Attack on a prepared position" from the rule book.

 On turn one, one of my cavalry regiments charged a infantry in line. Eloi decided to stand and fire, I succesfully rode down both of his skirmishers and his regiment fired. He managed to get one hit and you guessed it , I rolled a one and lost a base, I then failed my unfavourable Elan test and so fell back. If I was able to charge into combat I probably would have eliminated two infantry battalions and exhausted one of his forces straight away. Instead my cavalry limped away.

 

My Infantry brigade arrived on the table on turn 3 and I directed them straight ahead to try and capture his objective in the enclosed field. With my cavalry protecting their left flank from the French Dragoons.

 

My two forward infantry regiments formed line and advance to attack, unfortunately they lost their firefights and fell back behind their supports.

 

With the French centre and left flank being kept busy with my Brunswick reinforcements, on turn 5 my two Infantry support battalions charge the French and rout them. Also my cavalry finally charge the French dragoons after a stand off and rout them off the field. Afterwards they wheel and threaten the flank of the French Infantry.

 

My cavalry charge the surrounded French infantry in the enclosed field capturing the objective. Unfortunately with time running out. I lose due to needing 1 more VP point to win.

 

There was quite a few lessons learnt from this loss, one was independent cavalry regiments are very weak. I lost my Brunswick Hussars in the final turn. It was either being blasted by the French Artillery, or charge some French Hussars. I chose to charge and lost with the unit being eliminated.

 

After the first game we left the venue to go for lunch. It was then I remembered that when my Heavy cavalry went into Close combat they have an advantage (2D6) for being brave and with both opposing cavalry brigades being Battle cavalry they would cancel each other out. If I had remembered that during the game I would have charged earlier on and avoided the stand off. After a lovely meal with good company we returned back to the venue.

 

My second game was the third scenario in the book, Rearguard. I was playing against Jose Luis and his French Light Cavalry División, as we both had Agressiveness of 3 we had a dice off to see who was the attacker, unfortunately I lost and was the defender. With only only my Heavy cavalry Brigade on the table I placed two regiments far up the board to keep the French away from the Objectives and kept one regiment in reserve. Unfortunately the Jose Luis could deploy where he wanted and deployed his Grand Battery in front of my cavalry.

 

 

Luckily both my forward regiments just about manage to survive the artillery onslaught. There was no way I would be able to charge the cavalry, the only option would be to retreat out of the fire zone and attempt to rally.

 

 

A French light brigade  advanced around my left flank and captured the first objective, so I advanced my reserve regiment to contest the objective. I made a mistake of trying to rally my other two regiments instead completely moving out of the fire zone of the Grand battery and lost them  to the Grand Battery. With the special rule of not being able to roll for reserves until turn three I had no chance of surviving and lost in turn two.

 

With plenty of time on my hands, I helped Bob and Julian,  newcomers to the rules with their game.

 

 

My last game was against Bob's French Infantry División. The scenario was flank attack, I was the attacker so decided to use my cavalry to clear his left flank for my reinforcements to come on. Bob decided that keeping his infantry in line and firing was a good option, however my Cavalry finally lived up to their reputation and began riding down the french infantry for the fun of it and quickly destroyed two of his brigades. Bob,  a little war weary from a whole day playing a new set of rules conceded defeat, and I won without my reinforcements appearing, a total reversal of my second battle. 

 

 

Jose luis was the winner with his French Light Cavalry División

 

 

I came fourth and won some Man at war French Imperial Guard Infantry, just actually  was on my shopping list to buy next, so I was very pleased 

 

 

Players and umpireat the end of the tournament. 

 

 

I really enjoyed this tournament and of course the excellent company . I definitely will be there in Febuary for the next tournament to attempt to reclaim the title for Alicante. I also learnt a few lessons;

 

1) Have your forces as organic and support, they may cost more but will start on the table on turn 1.

 

2) If you do decide to choose a forcé that is reserve, make it cavalry so it can move quicker into the action.

 

3) With equal points it's alot harder to attack than to defend.

 

4) Dont take one unit independent forces, when they are eliminated you lose a victory point.

 

5) Check what forces the other player has before deploying, so you don't have any surprises like facing Grand batteries.

 

6)  Make sure you take dice that have fives and sixes on them. Im sure mine didn't.

 

On a little side note, there was a few small issues that came up from the players that were experienced with playing Napoleonics but were new to playing the NAW rules. I know from experience you can't please all the people all of the time and everybody has their own opinión of how a Napoleonic battlefield should feel. However to attract more players to this great set of rules I have a view ideas that I will be writing in different articles on my blog in the next few weeks in the section on NAW rule variations. Will keep you posted

 

Phil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Band of Brothers "Day of Days" Part one 6th June 1944

 

 

A few months ago me and my friend Steuart, decided that we would do a series of scenarios based on the great tv series "Band of Brothers." Due to my having the figures already in 15mm before I discovered the rules "Bot action", we used them and kept the measurement for shooting and movement the same as 28mm. 

 

Steuart played the U.S playing the 1st Platoon of Easy company using the historic strength and organisation of the Platoon rather than a point system. I played the German forces that were spread out over the battlefield but were entirely unknown to the the U.S player and were not activated until discovered by the paratroopers, also there were a few surprises thrown in as well.

 

The U.S mission is to lead his Platoon from the landing zone and secure the village of Saint Come-du-Mont and to blow up the highway bridge over the river Douvre. The Intelligence Corp had informed them that there were a few German squads of mixed abilities in the área and also a pillbox that due to being well camouflaged they have failed to locate. The Platoon would be transported by 2 Dakota C47s, The Jump would be at night at around 02.00 a.m, also they must  careful there would be other platoons landing in the área so they would have to watchout for friendly fire.

U.S force consists of as follows

Platoon HQ 1 officer with SMG, 1 NCO with SMG , 4 Pvts with rifles.

Mortar Squad 60mm Mortar 6 Pvts with Rifles

1st Rifle Squad  1 Sgt with SMG, 8 Pvts with Rifles, 2 Pvt with LMG, 1 Cpl with SMG

attached 2 Pvts with Bazooka. Squad also include antitank grenades

2nd Rifle Squad  1 Sgt with SMG, 8 Pvts with Rifles, 2 Pvt with LMG, 1 Cpl with SMG

attached 2 Pvts with Bazooka. Squad also include antitank grenades

3rd Rifle Squad  1 Sgt with SMG, 8 Pvts with Rifles, 2 Pvt with LMG, 1 Cpl with SMG

attached 2 Pvts with Bazooka. Squad also include antitank grenades

Attached from Company HQ  4 Pvts with 2 LMG.

The topography of the terrain, with the photos that air recon have been provided below

 

 

 

The German Force misión to  hold and secure the village of Saint Come-du-Mont and to defend the Highway bridge over the river Douvre.

 

German Forces consists as follows

 

Ostruppen Squad of 6 Pvt with rifles and NCO with SMG,

 

Regular Heer Squad 6 pvt with rifles, 2 pvt with LMG and NCO with SMG in a lorry.

 

Fallschirmjager Squad 7 pvts with SMG, 2 Pvts with LMG and officer with SMG.

 

2 MMG teams

 

SDKFZ 222 Light Armoured car.

 

SDKFZ 251/1 Half Track "Hanomag"

 

Panzer IV.

 

With it being a night drop we used the Bolt action night fighting rules for spotting enemy units before being able to fire.

 

The mechanic we used to simulate the parachute drop was the old method of dropping tissue paper over the drop zone, each piece of paper had a number on it to correspond to the actual figures. We used two boxes to simulate the two different Dakotas.

 

The first Dakota "flew" over and most of the paratroopers landed in the correct zone. If the paper landed in rough terrain or the road, then Steuart had to throw 1D6, if the score was 1 then the paratrooper was injured badly and removed from the game. If a paper landed in wáter or marsh then a 1D6 was thrown and if a 1 or 2 was thrown the paratrooper was removed fron the game. If the paper fell off the table a 1D6 was throw each new turn and they would be allowed to enter if the result was the same or less than the current turn number.

 

The Paratroopers from the first drop succesfully land with only a couple of troopers going astray. 

 

The second Dakota flys over the landing zone.

 

This landing is more spread out with a couple landing further north of the table and one unlucky paratrooper drowning in the marsh área.

 

Because Bolt Action uses dice to give activation to groups of soldiers. I introduced a Regroup phase where the dispersed paratroopers would move to their NCOs. This meant when any U.S Squad was activated it could only move or fire etc with the troops within 1 inch of the NCO. 

 

On the batlefield there was 12 black plastic squares all labelled underneath with either a German forcé or other things that could be triggered into action by spotting moving paratroopers or paratroopers being able to spot them. The first things discovered was a herd of cows and a lorry full of supplies. During the regrouping phase a squad of Obstruppen spotted some running Paratroopers and came out of the house they were billeted in. They killed a couple of Paratroopers only then to be fired on by a LMG that had landed very close to the house. 

 

A Bazooka team advancing on the left flank came across a medium machine gun nest over the stream, but due the the darkness was unable to do any damage.

 

The 3rd Infantry Squad grouped together and began a flanking operation on the right, being careful to use the hill for cover.

 

On the left flank the advance is being held up by the stubborn German MMG

 

With the Obstruppen squad getting doublé pins they are soon routed and the U,S units begin to move up the road in the centre, lead by the platoon HQ squad.

 

A German arnoured car is spotted on the road on the right flank by a LMG squad who are the first U.S unit to be eliminated.

 

As a Bazooka team makes a dash between áreas of cover it is spotted by a MMG team in the Pillbox and eliminated 

 

The 3rd Squad carry on with their flank move and Steuart declares an advance and fire move on a black square ahead and in the open. We work out the firing and the target figures are placed and fire back. Next Steuart then uses a whole squad to fire on the target, this he does with devastating affect with only two surivors. It is now I ask him to look closely at the figures that I had placed before. They are a lost squad from another división commanded by their own Company Commander Dick Winters who had landed off the table . luckily Winters has survived the friendly fire, but not he is not very impressed with his own  troops,

 

The Platoon HQ advance over the hill to spot a truck with a German regular infantry squad just disembarking. The Hq squad gets cut down and retreats with only the Platoon officer surviving.

 

The 2nd Parachute Squad advances over the hill and blows up he truck and eliminates the German squad.  

 

A bazooka and mortar tean both take on the armoured car. The bazooka team hits causes massive damage. But their luck runs out when Steuart throw a 1 and a 3 on the damage table. Only panicking and setting the armoured car on fire.

 

The remnants of the HQ Squad run towards the objective, only to see a German Fallscirmjager Squad on the other side of the river,, racing to defend the bridge

 All 3 Rifle Squads mostly in one piecet, rendevouz near the hill to prepare an assault on the bridge.

The German armoured car's crew pass their morale test and put the fire out. they then fire their light cannon and MMG at the bazooka tean killing them instantly. They next set their sights on the mortar crew.

 

Steuart's fear of tanks is realised when from the village a Hanomag and a Panzer IV roll out to start shooting up the 1st Rifle squad.

 

A Bazooka team that has crept around the back of the pill box and now entered the town prepares to fire point blank into the flank of the Panzer. Steuart needs 3+ to hit, The Bazooka operator must have been nervous because he rolls a 2 and misses.

 

 

The HQ officer charges  heroically to the bridge. Because he has a SMG he throw 2D6 and does extremley well, getting a 5 and a 6 killing two German  Paratroopers. All the German paratroopers apart from the LMG have SMGs which I need one 5 or 6 to kill the officer with 10 dice or I lose the combat and the game. I managed to get about 3 hits and the U.S Officer is cut down and the game, set and match point for Steuart  was gone. 

 

Seeing the heroic deeds of their officer, the rifle squads charge forward, but the 1st squad is pinned by the tank.

 

Whilst one squad shoots and weakens the Germans guarding the bridge, the other squad crosses and assaults.

 

   The Germans sell their lives dearly, but lose the combat due to the tenacity and overwhelming numbers of the U.S Paratroopers.

 

The paratroopers quickly set the charges on the bridge ready to blow it up, missión accomplished.

 

Finally due to me forgetting to move the tank out of the way because I was too busy trying to stop the Bridge assault. The bazooka team get a second chance and finally knock out the tank.

 

This was a great game with plenty of cinematic moments. It had been a few months since my last game of Bolt Action and Steuarts only second game, but we managed to finish the game in the alloted time. The rules for nightfighting were fun and didn't really slow down gameplay. We might have not actually got all the rules right but as it was a scenario and not a points or tournament game, it didn't seem to matter. Next Game will be Brecourt Manor, I just have to get my hands on some 105mm artillery.

 

Napoleon at War Tournament in Gava, Spain

I've had the NAW rulebook for a couple of years now , well two rule books actually because I kept winning them at Lasalle Tournaments but hadn't really looked at them a great deal due to the different basing system. 

It was only after Kevin decided that Lasalle wasn't for him and had wanted to know if I would mind trying NAW with him as soon as he had painted his French Army. That was over a year ago, Kev finally finished painted his army and we played  half a game which had to come to an abrupt end due to my underbuild flooding. (My fault entirely because I had switched off the pump so the noise wouldn't get on our nerves). Only for my wife to discover all the water when she started wading through it with our cups of tea whilst we were sitting there oblivious to it all,  carefully reading our rulebooks. 

Although we only managed half a game, we both liked it especially the special rules that give the armies their distinct flavour, which is certainly lacking in Lasalle. We didn't play another game due to playing Bolt Action and still playing Lasalle at the club with the other guys. Then towards the end of last year the guys in Barcelona announced they were changing the annual Napoleonic Wargame Tournament from using the Lasalle Rules to the Napoleon at War rules. Kevin jumped at the chance straight away and asked if I would play some practice matches with him. 

After the first game I was hooked, although we went slow getting to grips with the mechanics there was hardly looking up of charts but what was the best thing was that it felt like a Napoleonic battle should be, without getting to complex. I then decided that I would enter the competition as well. At first I wanted to enter with my British but because there were more coalition players than French, I volunteered to swap over to the French.

My French Army was from the Hundred Year War book, it consisted of

Young Guard Division 1500 points

Organic 

 1 Young Guard Brigade 4 infantry Units & 1 Artillery

Support

1 Light Cavalry Brigade  2 Light Cavalry units (1 understrength)

Reserve

1 Infantry Brigade 7 Conscript Units all under strength

My Conscript Brigade officer valeur was upgraded

I was attracted to the Young Guard due to it having artillery included in its force therefore harder for the other player getting 1 VP by killing a single artillery unit. 

I used the Light Infantry ability of the Young Guard to give all my conscripts a extra skirmisher base. However this meant that now all my infantry units were understrength. In the three practice matches we played this didn't seen to matter as we could only manage one attack and then no time to rally.

 We drove up to Barcelona from Alicante on the Friday (took about 5 hours) and stayed in a Hotel so we would be fresh for Saturday.

There was twelve of us playing in the tournament,  six French and six Coalition. The tournament was to be umpired by a couple of guys from the Man at War business that own NAW. So there shouldn't be any problems with rule intreptations. 

My first Game was against David who was also quite new to the game. He had a Russian Army containing:

 2 Heavy artillery unit that could form a Grand battery. 

2 Infantry Brigades of 3 units each.

 1 Light Cavalry Brigade of two units

1 Cossack unit

and I think a Heavy Cavalry Brigade of 2 units

The first game was the Fight at dusk scenario. Myself and Kevin had played this game as one of practice matches, so we were quite familiar with it. 

                       My Conscript Brigade advancing.

I was the attacker, so David deployed his Vanguard of infantry around the village. I chose to use my reserve Infantry as my Vanguard and decided to just go for his objective.

His other infantry Brigade appeared on the flank of the village and his Grand Battery covered his objective.

I then bought on my Young Guard to attack his right  flank and hopefully catch him in a pincer movement.

His Grand Battery fired on to my conscripts and severly reduced a couple of battalions. My other conscripts battalions began to move away from the fire zone, the attack on the objective came to a halt.

My Young guard Artillery managed to set a enemy occupied building on fire and in the next turn a Young Guard  Battalion unit assaulted it only to be repulsed. Then  one of my conscript battalions had a go . This time they managed to clear the Russians out of the house.

David rolled for his reserves on turn one and managed to get a  one which also meant Dusk had arrived in the first turn. This was a blessing because it meant his Grand battery could only fire cannister so it had  lost most of its threat. 

On turn three my reserve cavalry finally arrived, unfortunately on this scenario you have to dice where they come onto the table. I threw a five meaning they came on my far right, which wasnt a ideal position because his cavalry were in that area and were able to attack. I could not fall back because it would mean they would retreat off the table and be eliminated so I went into combat. Unfortunately I came off worse and lost a unit and so my cavalry force was exhausted and David had won his first VP. 

Due to a few discussions on the rules we only managed to get up to turn 4 and time had run out. The game ended in a draw with David gaining extra points for exhausting one of my forces.

At this point, I have to mention Kevin's first game on the adjacent table, I know the rules are classed as fast play but he must hold the world record for winning a game, as it only took him five minutes.

His opponent Josep Maria  with his Austrian Army had mistakenly placed his objective near the middle of the table and his vanguard  at the back of the table. All Kevin had to do was advance his cavalry up to the objective and game over. After making a quick  note of the points won, they then carried playing on and the now renamed "the unfortunate General Josep Maria" lasted for another three turns before losing again.

My second game was against "the unfortunate General Josep Maria" so I was feeling pretty confident although it was me who had made a mistake . The scenario was a game I hadn't played before called Flank attack. I opted to be the attacker once again.

Josep Maria had placed his army in a long line with a single infantry battalion guarding his flanks.

                  My Young Guard advancing in column attack

My plan was to create a diversion with a attack on his right flank. Whilst my cavalry kept the rest of his line busy and then my Conscript Brigade would come on his left flank and grab the other objective. 

                       My cavalry keeping his left flank busy

For the first time in playing NAW, I threw a one on turn one for my reserves to come on. Actually I wanted them come on a bit later because I hoped to pin most of his army with my Young Guard, but their was a problem. The mistake I had made was that my Conscript Brigade had 7 Battalion and with a Austrian Battalion positioned in the middle of each flank, my brigade was too large and  could not physically fit on either flank to be able to come on in one go. Like I said this wasn't a great set back at the moment because I was planning for them arrive on turn three.

My artillery firing on his line whilst the Young Guard advance quickly in column.

My objective now was to get rid of the Austrian infantry on his right flank with my Young Guard and artillery to give room for my conscript Brigade to come on this flank instead.

Joseps Maria's Austrian "thin white line" holds up against the Young Guard. 

Unfortunately my Young Guard's first attack was repulsed and because they were out shot in the firefight due to them being in column  two battalions ran away.

I moved my cavalry brigade to support a new attack by the Young Guard. This time I approached in line to make my musket fire more effective. It worked and I managed to eliminate a Austrian Battalion. With my cavalry moving across , the Austrians had no threat to their left flank and centre, so Josep Maria moved them of his "Pratzen Heights" to reinforce his right flank. 

This was the moment and  I saw my chance, he had left his other objective behind the hill unguarded so I advanced a cavalry unit  in the movement phase and support move twenty four inches to capture the it. 

The other objective was still being contested and I needed to eliminate a Austrian Infantry Battilion to do this. It was in front of my artillery so luckily I threw enough dice to kill two bases and eliminate the unit. Now both objectives were mine and I had won with one initial phase left. It truly was victory grasped from the jaws of defeat.

                     The Battlefield at the end of turn six.

A photo of Kevin's second game against a nice looking British NAW army which also ended in victory for the French.

The Tournament was supposed to be three games but with the first two rounds taking longer than expected, the organisers deemed there was not enough time for the last round. We still had nearly two hours of game time, so I played a quick friendly game with Alex and his British Army. As we were playing, they gave out the prizes and first Prize went to Kevin, I just missed out on the prizes coming in fourth place. Which means our club in Alicante has won the tournament three years in a row.  

The final results were:    

In conclusion, yet again another enjoyable tournament and thanks to the organisers and sponsers with special thanks going to the NAW guys for coming all the way from Murcia to umpire and answer all our questions . Also there were plenty of other Napoleonic demonstration games going on in the hall and trade stands. Unfortunately both my games went to the maximum times so I didn't get much time to have a look around.

The two guys from NAW as well as umpiring had put on a demostration game with their own figures which did look superb. I have a few boxes of NAW Prussians I had been given as prizes at Lasalle Tournaments before and I thought they looked a little to big to mix with my normal figures. However after seeing this demo game, this year, one of my projects is to paint and base a Prussian NAW army hopefully to use in the tournament in Barcelona next year.