Battle of San Pietro

Napoleon in Italy Campaign

Battle # 2

Background

After the French victory at Mortadella, Austrian commander Wurmser retreats towards Milan. Leaving a blocking force at Turin, Napoleon pursues. Near the town of San Pietro, Napoleon catches up with the Austrian rearguard.

Set Up

Napoleon leads the attack with 2 divisions of line and 1 of light infantry against a Austrian line division and a battery of artillery.

For this battle, I'm using scenario 4 - Take the High Ground from One Hour Wargames. In this scenario, the Blue forces (in this case, the French) are supposed to start with all 6 units on the board. However, my rules add activation and Napoleon was only able to bring on 3 units at first.

The Austrians will get reinforcements in later turns.

The Battle

Napoleon launches an attack on the Austrian right. The Austrian line begins to waver. But reinforcements are heading down the road.

As more Austrians arrive, disaster nearly strikes. The Austrians repulse the French attack. While rallying his troops, Napoleon is wounded!

Lesson learned. Keep Napoleon out of harm's way!

I had him accompanying the infantry attack. After the French were repulsed, I rolled to see if anything happened to him. A 1 - definitely bad. I decided that another 1 would spell his death. But the roll came up a 2 so I decided he was out for the rest of the battle instead.

General Massena takes over. He presses the attack on the hill, wiping out the Austrian infantry. Unfortunately, a cannonade routs a division of French infantry.

Meanwhile, the Austrian cavalry catches another French infantry division marching up the road. The Austrians rout their foe.

Wurmser brings up his army.

And launches an attack on the French center, overrunning the French guns.

Massena tries to salvage the situation by assaulting the hill.

To no avail. The light infantry routs.

With this, the rest of the army loses heart. Massena calls for the retreat.

Aftermath

The French retire, allowing Wurmser a chance to reorganize his army.

Napoleon recovers from his wounds, and is determined to make the Austrians pay!

What happens next? Stay tuned to find out!

GAME NOTES

I made one enhancement to the MicroBattle rules. Units that are more than 3 spaces from an enemy can route march for double movement. That worked out well.

I have been investigating various Napoleonic rules. I'll make a separate post about it.

Battle of Taplaea

My original plan was to follow up my Micro Marathon battle with Micro Plataea. I had even jotted down some notes using Lost Battles. When I found time to do a battle this morning, I did not feel like pulling out my notes. I decided to do a fictitious battle instead.

The mighty empire of the Sherpians (blue) has invaded the independent city-states of the Kreeg peninsula. The Kreegs (red) form an allied army and march out to meet the invaders on the plain of Taplaea.

The initial Kreeg line forms between some woods and a vineyard.

But the archery of the Sherpian infantry forces the Kreegs to advance. One phalanx of infantry is decimated by bowshot.

The left phalanx smashes into the Sherpian Eternals but are in turn surrounded by cavalry.

The middle phalanx comes to help and drives off the light cavalry.

The left phalanx rolls over the Eternals but is in turn overrun by the Sherpian heavy cavalry.

The remaining Sherpians converge on the remaining phalanxes.

The right phalanx gets scattered by bowshot.

The remaining Kreegs retreat from the field.

The Sherpians can now advance deeper into the Kreeg homeland.

Notes

• I am planning to run this as a 5 game campaign. So now the Sherpians are up 1-0.

Micro Marathon

I've been on a LARP kick recently but that hobby will have to go on hiatus for a while, as South Florida is battening down the hatches against the coronavirus. My company, for example, has now gone to full-time telecommuting for the time being. Given that I am a high-risk individual, I am social distancing, which means no more LARP. Well, that gives me more time for miniatures at least.

I saw a post on the Wargames Website featuring an Athens vs. Sparta battle. It whet my appetite for some ancients battles. I decided to dig out my MicroBattle rules. They are very simple rules for big battles in small spaces. They may not be the pinnacle of historical accuracy, but they give me short, fun games.

I decided to play out some historical battles using my rules. I pulled out Philip Sabin's Lost Battles and started with the first battle - Marathon. I modified his scenario for my smaller armies.

The Persian Empire (blue) has invaded Greece. The Greek city-states (red) have allied to drive out the invader. The Greeks field 5 units of hoplites (Heavy Infantry) while the Persians have 5 units of bow-armed massed infantry (classified as Missile Infantry) and a unit of Heavy Cavalry. I had to borrow some infantry from my all-black army of evil to fill out the Persians.

The armies line up on the plain.

The Greek left wing advances. Persian cavalry sets up a flank attack.

The Greeks advance. The Persian horse attacks the hoplites. They cause some casualties but the infantry holds.

The battle lines clash.

The Greeks rout Persian infantry in the center and on their left.

After an extended melee, the hoplites on the left drive off the cavalry.

The victorious center unit of hoplites hits the flank of the Persian bows. The Persian unit breaks.

This puts the Persians over 50% losses. The Persian army loses heart and routs from the field. Despite suffering some heavy casualties (3 of 5 units suffered serious casualties), the Greek infantry refused to leave the field. A hard won victory!

Rangers Run for It

Although I initially said I was going to do a 15mm sci-fi project, I ended up ordering some 6mm from Khurasan. I spent some time over the weekend painting them, but could not wait for them to dry. I decided to run a quick scenario using wooden figures. In particular, I wanted to experiment with a Pluck roll akin to In Her Majesty's Name, as discussed earlier.

Game Report
Our heroes are investigating a derelict ship when a detachment of Imperial troopers board. Ace and "Spades" need to make it back to their docking bay.

They run into some Imperials. Ace blasts one.

Then Spades takes down another. But Imperial reinforcements are on the way.

A blaze of fire. Ace is hit, but shrugs it off. (Ace failed his Pluck roll but used his hero point to ignore the wound)

Ace rushes a trooper and bludgeons him. Spades downs the other Imperial.

The way is open and they make it back to their ship.

Notes
Overall, the new rules worked out well. The proportion of hits to misses and of Pluck saves to fails seemed appropriate. The addition of a hero point for the main PCs seemed to resolve the issue of losing a hero too easily. Things look promising and will warrant more experimentation.

Escape from Antacca

In the land of Palmyra, Duke Rodrick has given orders to detain the Followers of the King. Instead of complying, the King's Men in the Ducal lands have resolved to escape from the Duke's grasp.

I recently kicked off a new Christian-themed LARP, and am using the LARP's setting for this wargame. I used my recent skirmish rules, treating each stand as a character.

As night falls, the Followers of Antacca gather together and make their way to the town gates.

First, the paladins had to cope with the greater cat beast, who decided to sit upon the gates. Fortunately, judicious use of treats resolved the situation.

The Followers form two columns (lower left and right), each with a unit of paladins (the group's warriors) in front. Following behind are the civilians.

The paladins approach the gates but the town guard will not let them pass. The paladins engage while the civilians fan out to the flanks. On the left, the guardsmen are driven back. But the Duke's horse approach.

The paladins scatter the guard on the left and thin out the ranks on the right. An angry mob of townsmen join the fray (left)

On the left, the civilians reach the gate while the paladins guard their backs. On the right, the paladins scatter the guard. More horse approach!

The civilians escape on the right. On both flanks, the paladins engage the Duke's horse.

The paladins are cut down on the left.

The remaining unit of paladins get attacked on both flanks. Suffering serious casualties, they still hold on.

And manage to hold off the horse long enough to escape through the gates.

The Followers bar both gates from the outside, allowing them to slip away into the night.

NOTES

• I generated the scenario on the fly, randomly drawing a cityscape with two gates. 
• I decided to start all of the Followers' forces (4 units) on the board while the Duke's men would only start with the gate guards.
• I randomly rolled a D3 to determine each unit's movement. I also rolled a spare die for the Duke's men; on a roll of 4-6 they would get a unit of reinforcements. The Duke's force was limited to 6 units
• I also rolled randomly to determine what kind of unit would come - infantry, mob, or cavalry - and where it would start on the board.
• As you can see, I was still using hit points (2 per unit).

Fall of Fort Henrik

Battle 2 of the Sikamuki Campaign

As the survivors of the Griswold Massacre trickled in, Captain Hareld Havinger prepared to defend his hastily erected base, which he designated as Fort Henrik (after the Bluderian king). A company of infantry and a battery of guns manned the walls. Two more infantry companies, a squadron of cavalry, and some skirmishers operated outside the cramped confines of the fort.

Soon, the tribesmen emerged from the woods.

The Bluderian rifles and an infantry company advanced on the hill, hoping to use its defensive benefits to blunt the assault.

But they were quickly overwhelmed by the Sikamukan natives.

The cavalry squadron struck a band of natives.

It too was overrun. Then the fort's guns wiped out a native band.

The Sikamukans rushed the fort. The guns obliterated more natives.

Two warbands concentrated on the infantry company outside the walls of the fort.

Soon it was gone.

The guns were silenced by the deadly native archers and the warbands swarmed over the walls.

Havinger managed to escape to a waiting longboat, which whisked him back to his ships.

Having suffered two devastating defeats, Havinger realized he could not sail home without redeeming himself. If he returned without anything to show, he would be forced to resign, or worse. No, he had to accomplish something.

Realizing the effectiveness of his guns, Havinger plotted to lure the natives into a rash attack on multiple emplaced batteries. First, he would need a better defensive position. He sailed off, looking for a new place to establish a fort.

Notes

• This was the second battle of the Sikamuki campaign, where the Bluderians are attempting to conquer a new world empire. The natives are having none of it.
• The natives are leading 2-0. One more defeat will force Havinger to sail back to Bluderia in disgrace.
• By the way, Sikamuki is a play on Miccosukee, a tribe of Native Americans in South Florida (they branched off from the Seminoles).
• One of the main reasons I played this game was to try out my new terrain cards. In the past, I used dice to determine terrain randomly. It was a bit time-consuming so I ginned up a randomizer in Excel. However, that meant that I needed a computer to set up a game. I decided to take a new approach. I made up some cards to represent terrain features. I then dealt out 8 cards and then drew out the terrain accordingly.

Above you see cards for woods, clear, hills, and a river (which I turned into a bay). There are also fields, buildings, and rough ground. In all, I have 24 cards so there should be enough variability. It will be easy to modify the card mix to account for different geographies. For example, if the game is set in an area of hills, I can remove some of the clear cards. I thought the experiment worked quite well.

The Griswold Massacre

Introduction to the Sikamuki Campaign
The Grayrockian sea captain was mad, or so said the court. Yet King Henrik of Bluderia listened to his tales intently. The ancient mariner told of a vast land across the sea to the west. Peopled by savages, yet it was a land of great wealth and splendor. With a determined band of adventurers one could win great wealth.

Shortly thereafter, Captain Hareld Havinger found himself in command of a three-ship flotilla, bound for the legendary western continent. After months of harsh conditions, his command landed upon the shores of "New Bluderia" (the natives called this island Sikamuki). Alas, the natives did not welcome the Bluderians, and skirmishes erupted.

As a result, Havinger sent a party under the command of Lt. Griswold to reconnoiter.

Griswold's Expedition
Lt. Griswold embarked with a band of riflemen, 3 platoons of regular infantry, and a small cannon.

Griswold's party (bottom left) advanced along a native path while various tribesmen gathered.

A band of native spearmen attack the Bluderian column. Massed firepower wipes them out.

Native skirmishers strike. Griswold sends in his best troops with a bayonet charge. Alas, the natives just melted into the forest and sniped at the infantry with their bows.

First platoon took serious casualties.

Meanwhile, the riflemen advanced to a river crossing where they got ambushed.

They didn't last long. Neither did Third Platoon.

Griswold withdrew to a large clearing and got his artillery into action. It temporarily halted the native advance.

Temporarily. The natives used their woodcraft to approach closer and snipe at Griswold's command. Casualties mounted.

First Platoon fell.

Then Second Platoon.

The natives surrounded Griswold and the gun, then rushed in for the kill.

That night, there was a great feast at the native village. Griswold's severed head was the "guest of honor." Meanwhile, a lone survivor, who was wounded and left for dead, made it back to Havinger's camp, bringing the dreadful news.

Notes

•  I have started a new campaign. This time it is a colonial campaign, loosely based on the conquest of the New World. There is a continent to the west of Francesia that has attracted the attention of the Bluderians.
• It is not looking well for Bluderia - they are now 0-1 in the campaign.
• For this battle, the Bluderians were restricted to the path while the natives could move through the forest. This allowed them to flank the invaders, with devastating effect.
• This was the first outing for my new block artillery and leader. The artillery features a stylized cannon while the leader is a flag.
• I used my latest version of my lazy gamer rules. I am still tweaking them.