As promised the AAR report of Cam & my latest game, with 100-Days AB lists:
http://wargaming.info/2011/the-hundred-days-continues/
The Hundred Days Continues...
(19 posts) (5 voices)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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Another great AAR, so really the British were defending the wine collection from the French then :)
On a related note how are you finding the British army? Im just not sure about it but I cant quite put my finger on what I feel is missing.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Given most of the wine was French, it was more a matter of recapturing what was ours.
Cam
Posted 1 year ago # -
Spot on Battle report lads...very nicely painted mini's as well:)
I noticed the subcommanders seemed better on the French side, a good tactical sub commander can be a massive help greatly! combine him with good vigor and he can be very decisive:)
moving on to the Brits....I have played the Brits plenty of times and the more I use them they really shine in defense...forget about the non organic cav just setup a good defensive position, advance to meet your enemy and await the arrival of the British cav to sway the battle. keep your fingers crossed that you get some good vigor commanders as a poor one can be a bit of a pain if you need to form square or fallback in time!
I tend to use the Light Division the most with Heavy cavalry reserve, sometimes I use the Brunswick support....the Brits though are not one of the easier armies to use but they certainly can hold their own especially defending...
cheers Paul
Posted 1 year ago # -
Tim: Another great AAR, so really the British were defending the wine collection from the French then :)
Cam:Given most of the wine was French, it was more a matter of recapturing what was ours.
Thanks Tim! And I'm afraid Cam has it about right - about 2/3 of the collection is Bordeaux with some Italian (mostly Chianti) and a little Spanish (Tempranillo and such), the balance (about 1/4) being mostly Aussie Reds - so alas the French have the right of it... :-)Tim: On a related note how are you finding the British army? Im just not sure about it but I cant quite put my finger on what I feel is missing.
Yes there is a bit of a feeling of lacking something, BUT, to be fair I have only defended with it and its far to soon to make judgements - perhaps it's just a bit bland feeling - the troops are all average and with some of Lasalle's idiosyncrasies they just don't seem to have any 'wow' factor...
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I think one the thing that is most noticeable is the puny effect of 3-base Artillery Batteries... I'm resolved in future (after the above game) to try and always deploy them together in pairs whenever possible (ideally with slightly interlocking fields of fire) to try and get some traction - it's surprising how much difference that 1-base (i.e. 1 Dice) makes (or 2 when in canister range)... I'm keen to get some games attacking (i.e. when not outnumbered and with an extra sub-commander) and also some non-standard games with the 95th Rifles & Highlanders treated as the appropriate values not the generic AB list ones...I think the other thing is in the Hundred Days the British & French Infantry are identical and the French have a small edge in commanders (but both sides are above average). So it comes down to a straight numbers game and the strength of the supporting arms - artillery & cavalry. The base lists for French & British 100-Days are identical (as are most of the reserve options) except the French get slightly better commanders & a larger artillery battery for no corresponding benefit of some kind on the British side - whether that's of any real significance in any single game I doubt - but it just reinforces the bland (or perhaps 'toothless') feeling the Brits have. But that's all just speculation - as above I wouldn't really wan tot comment until I've got a few more games in and attacked a couple of times and had a chance to use Highlanders & Rifles and such...
In the Hundred Days such troops were a high percentage of the British Infantry, and I'm surprised you don't get at least 2 Battalions, maybe even 3, in the core Infantry Division force (Rifles, Light Regiments, Highlanders, 23rd Fusiliers, and if you allow the proportion of KGL Riflemen, etc, equal about 40% of the Infantry - 11 of 27 battalions after excluding the 4 Guards Btns as they have their own list). If you exclude the Brigades that didn't actively fight at Quatre Bras and/or Waterloo the ratio is even higher, nearly 50%. So I think bland is the right word - they just don't seem to have any character nor anyone with any Élan on first impressions!
:-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Paul: moving on to the Brits....I have played the Brits plenty of times and the more I use them they really shine in defense...forget about the non organic cav just setup a good defensive position, advance to meet your enemy and await the arrival of the British cav to sway the battle.
Yes - I'm coming to that conclusion - you can't afford to be aggressive - just push forward as far as is safe and then delay, fall back, evade as much as possible while giving as little ground each time... I'll have to try and get some Heavy Cavalry done ASAP (see my related thread: http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/forum/topic/army-builder-lists-whats-the-change-from-2-large-units ) and also try to not hold such large frontages - I have found 6 units very frustrating as you can't even try and hold half the table frontage and have a reserve - you need to fight on only about 1m front, so you can have a couple of units in reserve, which seems near impossible......keep your fingers crossed that you get some good vigor commanders as a poor one can be a bit of a pain if you need to form square or fallback in time!
Sorry Paul - the commanders in the OOB at bottom were wrong I forgot to correct when I copy & pasted from the previous report. The one's in the photos are right. Basically the French had a +1/-1, a +1/0, and a 0/0, and the British had two +1/0 ones... In fact I think we forgot Soye's (Ney's) negative after the first couple of combats on the British Right - Cam pointed it out initially but I don't recall remembering it with all the cavalry charges and such over there and don't know if Cam was doing it automatically and I just didn't notice... Which Reminds Me: I think I'm gonna make myself a suitable marker to put on table amongst my troops to remind me the opposing commander is poor for tactics (e.g. a 3cm square red card with "combat bonus' printed on or something).Posted 1 year ago # -
P.S. Last night I corrected the OOB at the bottom of the article - so the correct factors are now showing for the generals. :-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Cam pointed it out initially but I don't recall remembering it with all the cavalry charges and such over there and don't know if Cam was doing it automatically and I just didn't notice
You get one hint ... then it is up to you.
We also forgot when we used it to see if your officer dies - from memory your officer can die if you try to use my officer's bad tactics, which is not intuitive.
[bit deleted here because next post pointed out it was wrong]
Cam
Posted 1 year ago # -
Umm you sure about that Cam?
I dont have my rulebook here at work, but if the troops are under command, which I would take as within 6 BW then he could use the -1 Tactics of your commander (if he remembered)
Tim
Posted 1 year ago # -
Thinking again - I suspect I am wrong.
I will change my earlier post .. then everyone will wonder what the hell you are going on about!
Cam
Posted 1 year ago # -
Well that seems fair Cam people already think I am a tad odd here, that just feeds the fire :)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Gosh - Now I'm not sure where I am at all?! :-o
BTW - Tim - The more I think about it the more I wonder if it is just a case of allowing a greater number of British units Valiant status (or to be Rifles) in the standard "Infantry Division" list - perhaps 1/3 to 2/3 of the standard line Infantry - just to give them that extra punch factor so they can charge after exchanging musketry with a slight advantage in most cases). Essentially in line with the ratios I mentioned above in the 100-Days and the similar (although slightly lower) ratios in the Peninsula.
BTW - I presume you've seen the related comments on the British in this thread: http://www.sammustafa.com/honour/forum/topic/battle-of-fuentes-de-onoro
One 'off the cuff' thought would the Standard British Infantry Division & the Brigade Option (of 6 and 4 standard Infantry Battalions each) could instead be something like:
Division - Peninsula
2 x Valiant Infantry
4 x Standard Infantry (as current)
1 x Valiant Infantry (as current)
1 x Standard Infantry (as current)Division - Hundred Days
3 x Valiant Infantry (1 may be chosen as Rifles Infantry instead)*
3 x Standard Infantry (as current)
2 x Standard Infantry (as current)Reserve Infantry Brigade Option - Peninsula or Hundred Days
2 x Valiant Infantry
2 x Standard Infantry (as current)* The Peninsula has the Light Division, but the 100-Days doesn't really have an equivalent and there needs to be an option to have a Rifle or Light Battalion represented in some formations (Brigades)...
Of course it might just all be too much hassle to bother with and/or the difference in the game to be too subtle to worry about... As Paul mentioned in the Fuentes de Oñoro thread there were British Battalions that were especially noteworthy for combat performance, over and above the Highlanders, Rifles & Lights, and most of the Fusiliers, so it may be the Brits just need that touch of Élan added? :-)
...and I'm not just trying to jack my Brits up cause I've lost a couple of games - but instead just toss a few ideas out there to be shot down... ;-)
Posted 1 year ago # -
John I have long felt there was something missing in the British list one of my posts was even quoted on TMP about it(which made me feel very odd). I just dont want to make the British an uber army and I think that your list might strike the right balance.
Of course now we will need to have some games with it to see if it is any good ;)
Posted 1 year ago # -
Regarding the British in the Peninsula, I have written something up here: http://sites.google.com/site/honourscenarios/alternative-peninsula-british
Regarding the Hundred Days:
At Waterloo Wellington put his best Anglo-Hanoverian troops in the frontline - the Hanoverian Landwehr were placed in the second line, and some of the inexperienced British battalions were placed in the rear (i.e. Brussels!). Most of the units Wellington relied on at Waterloo were "old Spanish infantry", and were thoroughly battle-hardened professional outfits.
Wargamers focus on Highlanders or Fusiliers as being somehow special. But ethnic or county titles or glorious honorifics counted for little. More important was whether the battalion was (a) a first (or senior or old) battalion and (b) one of the original BEF battalions selected in 1808 from Moore's Portsmouth camp or Wellesley's Cork camp.
Each of the frontline divisions had either a battalion of the 95th rifles or KGL light battalions who had a high proportion with Baker rifles. So one of the core battalions should be Rifles.
The British/Hanoverians should be linear tactics. The 1792 instructions were quite clear - battalions deployed into line once within firing range of the enemy.
It is still sometimes argued that the British were peculiarly effective at skirmishing. This arises from Oman assessing the Light Infantry and Rifles at Bussaco, and generalising it to all British infantry (Oman also confused "flankers" and light infantry companies...). More recent work by Arthur Harman concludes the opposite - that the British Line were inferior at skirmishing to the French and depended on attached riflemen to give them cover. Have a read of Mike Robinson's awesome "Quatre Bras", which describes how British battalions suffered horribly from French skirmishers, and needed to make repeated bayonet charges to force the French back. Even at Waterloo, the 1/52nd Light Infantry got pestered by French skirmishers and needed to make a bayonet charge to drive them away. So I'd argue that, except for the 95th Rifles and the KGL Light Battalions, British infantry should be SK1.
So my Hundred Days British (based on Picton's Division at Quatre Bras and Waterloo) would be:
1 Rifle (Val/Exp/SK3 Rifles linear tactics)
5 KGL/British Infantry (Val/Exp/SK1 linear tactics)
1 RA BTY
2 KGL/British Infantry (Val/Exp/SK1 linear tactics)Organic Brigade: Hanoverian Landwehr.
Cheers
Paul
Posted 1 year ago # -
Guys - please note my Domain just got hi-jacked about 20 minutes ago - got the security guys in U.S. looking at it - so if you try to get to the game reports you'll just get a spammer 'search site'...
Posted 1 year ago # -
OK - Looks like we're back - Phewwwwww!
Posted 1 year ago # -
So my Hundred Days British (based on Picton's Division at Quatre Bras and Waterloo) would be...
Me: Permission to say Points System in a loud and annoying voice
Forum: Permission reluctantly granted
Me: "POINTS SYSTEM!"FWIW based on the points system I derived (http://awc.wargaming.info/napoleonics-1790-1840/in-search-of-points-lasalle), Paul's British-are-really-1805-Austrian-Grenadiers list is 88 points - same as the French 1815 core list. I would have no problems playing it to see what happens.
John's Peninsula and 100 Day Divisions lists above are both 93pts - a bit too strong in my opinion.
Cam
Posted 1 year ago # -
Paul: Regarding the British in the Peninsula, I have written something up here: http://sites.google.com/site/honourscenarios/alternative-peninsula-british
Very good stuff Paul - I generally agree with everything you are saying - my only concern is that a SK1 rating is a bit too arbitrarily low? I don't argue with your conclusions about the British reliance on the surprise of the bayonet to decide things, but the way Lasalle works a drop from SK2 to SK1 is quite major (as it's effectively a 2D firing disadvantage) - you almost need a SK1.5 rating from a gaming perspective? otherwise I can see French sitting 3BW away and blasting away in firing line keeping just outside British charge range... Perhaps the British "charge" 4BW idea you chaps raised a while ago needs to also be allowed - BUT ONLY if they were shot at or something?Paul: Wargamers focus on Highlanders or Fusiliers as being somehow special.
Well to be fair I only did this because that's what's in the rules... :-) My point being that under the Lasalle Rulebook criteria almost 50% of the Troops in the Hundred Days were either 'Elite" (i.e. Valiant) or Rifles & Light Btns (Over 50% if you exclude the Btns left in the Brussels/Ostend area), but under the list they are all just average run of the mill types... :-)Paul: Each of the frontline divisions had either a battalion of the 95th rifles or KGL light battalions who had a high proportion with Baker rifles. So one of the core battalions should be Rifles.
Yep exactly. There were definitely proportionately a lot more in the 100-Days than the Peninsula, and no Light Division taking the Cream - but then the overall British/KGL part of the army at Quatre Bras & Waterloo was notably smaller than it's equivalent in the Peninsula Army was on most occasions...Paul: Even at Waterloo, the 1/52nd Light Infantry got pestered by French skirmishers and needed to make a bayonet charge to drive them away. So I'd argue that, except for the 95th Rifles and the KGL Light Battalions, British infantry should be SK1.
Perhaps the 1/52nd and similar should retain SK2 (vs. Line Btns being SK1) - so they can be broken down and or act in Irregular formation, but without them being able to out skirmish the French Veterans?Cam: FWIW based on the points system I derived (http://awc.wargaming.info/napoleonics-1790-1840/in-search-of-points-lasalle), Paul's British-are-really-1805-Austrian-Grenadiers list is 88 points - same as the French 1815 core list. I would have no problems playing it to see what happens.
Well I'm happy to give it a crack Nigel! Whenever you are next free for a game... :-)John: Guys - please note my Domain just got hi-jacked about 20 minutes ago...
P.S. This turned into a false alarm... Hosting Provider in Texas had an internal network outage for about 30 minutes and they have a generic 'search' page that pops up if their system can't access the actual hosted website... :-oPosted 1 year ago # -
Me: Permission to say Points System in a loud and annoying voice
Forum: Permission reluctantly granted
Me: "POINTS SYSTEM!"
OK I hear you!!!So just on a related note if British Light Cav Bde were also Paul's Reliable/Experienced/Shock rating(instead of the AB Rel/Exp/Pursuit) then points wise (incl. RHA Bty) they'd be 53 versus the existing 47. Thoughts?
P.S. BTW - I wonder (incidentally) if the pursuit value is a little underrated - since while it adds nothing to combat value on table it does help prevent the enemy getting a decisive victory if you lose, and helps achieve it if you win? In a competition sense that would be a critical benefit surely?
Posted 1 year ago #
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