One Hour Napoleonic - Wavre f2f playtest

 I met up with John at the club Xmas games day to try out my One Hour Napoleonic variant as a face-face playtest as there are still a few wrinkles I'm trying to work out. I just went with Wavre again as it is an interesting scenario and I still had all the toys based up. I took the Prussians and John the French ( I generally find attacking is less confusing in a brand new game). I didn't take blow-blow photos but did take a few of the game in progress.

I set the Prussians up exactly the same as in my original playtest. Pirch lined up to exit to Waterloo, most of Thielmanns Corps in Wavre and a detachment at Limale with the cavalry in reserve in the centre. 

The French came on in much the same way I did in my solo playtest too, Gerards Corps on the right, Vandamme on the left, Army Artillery in the centre and cavalry in reserve. John was quite intrigued by the possibilities of Light Infantry, and went with a different lineup to me - two Lights with Vandamme and just one with Gerard.

Vandamme, supported by the Army Artillery, was soon pounding away at Limale. Gerard skirmished with Wavre, at some disadvantage with two Line Infantry facing off against troops in buildings.

Under fire from four units the Limale garrison was soon reduced to one hit, and scuttled away, hoping to become one of the mandatory exit units. Sadly it couldn't quite get out of the arc of fire of the French artillery and was routed by long range artillery fire. The Prussian cavalry pulled onto the forward slope of the ridge.

Back at Wavre the firefight was more even but fairly slow, both sides average hit potential per turn being one and a third. Both sides concentrated fire on single units and the hits slowly mounted. Not sure what I think about that from a simulation pov, but it works in game terms.

The French put their Light Infantry over the river, accompanied by their Cavalry Corps. The Prussian cavalry manouvered to set up a charge, while trying to avoid flanking fire from the French artillery. Very unfairly the French light infantry ducked into the woods! Eagle eyed readers will note I've based up the cavalry units as columns, looking at Lithographs of the battle, they appear to have been the favoured cavalry formation (fairly thick columns mind).

The Prussians got their charge in first but were hideously unlucky, only inflicting a couple of hits on the French. The French response was....devastating as the Prussians were in range of three French infantry divisions and also flanked by the French artillery.

The Prussian cavalry reeled back, reduced to two and one hit respectively. While this had been going on, the Prussian guns had re-deployed to the central hill and unlimbered and at Wavre one of the Prussian infantry had fallen back exhausted, to be replaced by reserves. Most of Pirch's Corps had now left for Waterloo.

The French cavalry followed the Prussians, and one of the Prussian cavalry was routed, but the other maintained a screen to hold them up - I've started using the same Zone of Control rules as in the WW2 variant, to avoid 'units running around' silliness. The French Light Infantry Divisions meanwhile were going artillery hunting.

The guns limbered up and pulled out, retreating across the plain. There were only four Prussian brigades left now, so exiting the mandatory units was going to be hard. The limbered artillery was a sacrifice to allow other units to escape.

The Prussian artillery was duly overrun, but the Prussians pulled an infantry brigade down the road in march column, and put the cavalry on the exit hex. If the Prussians were really lucky, they'd get the last two units off and still hold Wavre at the end of the game.

Sadly the French cavalry sabered the Prussian infantry columns. All very Lawrence of Arabia.

Wavre was still holding out though, and had managed to rout one of Gerards divisions. The garrison was completely surrounded by French units and under fire from all directions.

The Prussians failed to exit a fifth unit on turn 11 and lost, despite Wavre still holding out. I think the scenario needs a slight tweak to make it four units exited, as exiting five is really tough.

That was a very useful playtest and John raised a number of questions about things which needed clarifying, and we also had a discussion about command and control, leadership and rallying of formations. John raised the very obvious question - how likely is it that an entire infantry division or cavalry corps is going to usefully 'rally' in the time frame of the game? The obvious answer being that it wouldn't (eg in Napoleons Battles, divisions only rally overnight at least five miles away from the enemy). 

I'd also drafted some overly complex C2 rules, which I didn't use in the event, but had a chat about that too as I'm keen to include a role for leaders in the game rather than just adding narrative eye candy.

We eventually came up with a morale type for leaders in the game, and also a simple C2 system which owes something to BBB and Fire and Fury (and also something leaders can influence). I had vaguely thought about some sort of exhaustion mechanism like the PW, but really, it is fairly obvious when units are exhausted, and the 'routed' ones are just combat ineffective to varying degrees which is much the same thing. I could always adopt Richard Brooks approach of leaving the routed units on the table, but cowering in the rear waiting to be sabered by vengeful enemy cavalry. Actually that isn't a bad idea.

Anyway, I can feel another playtest coming on. I've put the current version of the rules up in my One Hour Wargames section, but they are still a work in progress.