The Sharp End Gaming

May 5th, 1811 Massena slips past Wellington. On April 23, 1811 Wellington was encamped at Elvas, Portugal some twenty kilometers from Badajoz, Spain.  Massena's French army of three corps was far to the north of him across the Agueda massing to enter Portugal at Ciudad Rodrigo. Determined to keep his army between Massena and the Portugese interior (Coimbra) through which his supply lines flowed, Wellington rode north to meet Massena, corresponding as he did with his brother Henry, the British envoy to Spain, about his possibly taking overall command of Spain's armies.  Wellington we learn from his letter didn't like the idea, preferring to remain focused on Portugal and it's defense, but at that moment he deferred to Henry's guidance. Elvas, Portugal Two days later and over eighty kilometers closer to Massena, Wellington would follow Henry's letter with a letter to the Earl of Liverpool, Robert Jenkinson, about his fear that Massena, the French Ar...

Battle of Vimeiro, Portugal - Final Turn Doug at Cry Havoc and I just completed the 16 turn Battle of Vimeiro from the new John Tiller Software release "Peninsular War." I highly recommend purchasing this game.  It is now my favorite title from JTS and my favorite game right now. I've always been interested in the fighting in Spain since I first read about it in C.S. Forester's " Ship of the Line , "  (a great Horatio Hornblower title). Vimeiro features Sir Arthur Wellesley and the British holding a superior position with a slightly superior force.  His infantry advantage is almost 2 to 1  and the French advance is split into three columns. It is an incredibly tough nut to crack as the French player, compounded by a skilled opponent (Wellington in the real battle and Doug in the cyber battle). Doug and I have played a few PBEM scenarios from the JTS Leipzig campaign and I know he won't miss anything. He is well versed in this period of warfare...

This morning I setup a fictional firefight on a portion of the C&C map with a Bde of British Infantry (2 Line Regts and 1 Light Inf Regt) and a battery of Foot artillery vs. 2 French Line Regiments outside of Rolica in Portugal. I've not absorbed all of the rules yet, nor have I applied stickers to all of the wooden blocks that come with the game so I minimized the scope deliberately.  My purpose was to play a little of the game since I have been staring at it for days now without getting the time I need to fully dive in. I am not sure I used the combat and maneuver rules correctly either but I had fun and began to appreciate the complexities of the game and also the smoothness of play. Two French Line regiments cross a lazy stream in Portugal and approach the village of Rolica.  An under strength British Light infantry regiment occupies the hill overlooking the riverbanks.  Regiments are differentiated by the number of blocks they have which represent their siz...

The British line consists of Ronal Ferguson's 2nd Brigade: the 71st, 40th and 36th Foot regiments.  Opposite them in the center is the 4eme Swiss Infantry in their red uniforms.  A regiment of light infantry and the large 70eme French line regiment.   Miles Nightingall's 3rd Brigade is in reserve on the 2nd line. Well the first run through was fun. I made some mistakes and definitely need to adjust the rules.  My biggest mistake was ordering skirmishers forward and then forgetting about them.  I don't have counters that track things like that yet but I will create them soon. I cut the cards I created out last night and then slotted them in some protective card cases I have (see above). The core of the game play: movement and combat was exciting. I kept things simple focusing on the formations the units were in, the discipline checks to determine order or disorder of a unit and the Rate of fire and hit accuracy combat system I came up with. The first th...

The approach to Rolica Tonight I am going to run through the combat and maneuver system for Regiment.  I am using the Battle of Rolica's OOBs to do this. Background: Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Portugese army approached Rolica as he marched towards Lisbon.  His goal was to link up with additional British troops under Generals Acland and Anstruther who would make their landing along the Portugese coast closer to Lisbon and then engage with the French army and destroy it. The outnumbered, French force under General Delaborde conducted a delaying action at Rolica while General Junot and his larger French army hastened to close with Wellesley. Notes: I am going to only use the French and British infantry components for this battle and ignore the artillery and cavalry that participated, Ferguson's brigade which went on a flanking maneuver, as well as the Portugese troops under Lt. Col. Nicolas Trant. British OOB (10000 troops): 5, 9, 29, 36, 38, 40, 45, 71, 82, Foo...

My evening reading these days is broken into books and articles about:  the New York campaign during 1776-77, the British invasion of Portugal in 1808 and anything about the early years of the World War 2 on the Eastern Front. From my Napoleonic reading last evening I learned that Arthur Wellesley's habit was to ride at the front of his armies and reconnoiter with his cavalry and light infantry ahead of the army. That seems atypical for commanders of the period and most modern commanders. On the eve of Austerlitz Napoleon went outside his army's pickets with his bodyguard to try to gain some insight about the terrain before the battle but aside from this recorded moment, I can't think of any other 18th or 19th century army commander that did this as regularly as Wellington did. In every Wellington battle, his use of terrain seems to be worth an extra brigade or two and always has a major impact on the result.  It was a secret to his success and I suspect that the m...