Battle of Hagelburg 1813

 

For the first Horse & Musket themed meeting of the year at the Wollongong Wargamers, we found a scenario that, with a following wind, could be played in an evening: A Prussian Corps vs a French Division:

Objectives laid and deployment complete:

As to be expected, Caesar for the French defenders placed his objectives well to the rear, whilst Darren for the Prussian attackers placed his well to the fore.

I was surprised however that the French did not garrison more of the villages, only 1 Defended Terrrain Feature in Hagelburg was occupied, and none in Klein Glein. Caesar was obviously going for an active defense!

As the third, spare player I offered my sword to the Prussians and Darren allocated me the three Infantry brigades to the north of Hagelburg, on the right of this picture. He took charge of the cavalry horde on the left and the two Infantry brigades in the centre:

The spirit of Blucher was upon us and we lost no time in closing up on the French:

But yes, Caesar fought fire with fire, the French infantry columns meeting our assaults at the charge!

Over on the Prussian left Darren intended to use our hordes of half trained Landwehr National Cavalry as an ablative shield to soak up punishment prior to allowing our regular Dragoons to outflank and undermine the French defense from the rear: 

But a fortuitous combination of fate cards enhanced their combat prowess and ability to rally so that they remained in the front line steadily wearing down the outnumbered French cavalry...

Back on the Prussian right opposite Hagelsburg the French were trading space for time and inflicting severe losses on the attackers. This meant that the Prussians quickly gained two objectives and some very lucky rolling on our Fortitude test spared us too many defeat points...

But whilst the French Cavalry had lost half their strength, suffering defeat points, they somehow managed to keep the deep flank secure against our hordes of cavalry...So as night fell the French retained 2 of the 4 objectives, but had suffered one more defeat point for a minor Prussian victory!

Fightin' Frigates - a War of 1812 game

 

I wasn't sure how many takers I'd have for the themed naval game at the Wollongong Wargamers, so I kept the planning very simple...

In the end it was just Daniel and I, so we set the points at about 100 with an open seas encounter battle. Daniel chose the Royal Navy and went with three actual frigates:

To provide some 1812 flavour, I decided to go with a super heavy 'Frigate', Constitution, 'Old Ironsides' herself, leaving me with only a standard frigate, Chesapeake to get my points up:

Both fleets started in opposite corners with the wind fine on the beam. I sailed my fleet on slightly divergent courses: I was relying on Constitution's toughness to set up a hammer and anvil approach on whichever RN frigate we met first...

Daniel sailed his three as a squadron. Note some of these Royal Navy warships are sailing under foreign colours to confuse the enemy. (Laughs in British...)

With the wind remaining steady, my overthought maneuvering allowed Daniel's HMS Sirius to fire first. Not only was it at point blank range, it gained the extra dice from being the first broadside. USS Chesapeake was fair riven - A second broadside from HMS Themis was enough to sink her! Half my command gone in the first few turns...

However this left some sea room to get in a crafty stern rake on HMS St Elena, also at point blank range and with extra firepower dice!

St Elena was set afire and was barely afloat. However the fire immeadiately spread to Constitution!

St Elena's gallant crew failed to extinguish the fire and she sizzled down to Davy Jones. Constitution's crew however did a stand up job and the fire was extinguished, not without causing a fair bit of damage.

Which meant that further broadsides from Themis and Sirius were enough to force her to strike. Daniel's squadron of light frigates had completed a clean sweep!