Vom Kriege Napoleonic Tabletop Wargaming

This battle is based on the 'Holding Action' scenario from 'Programmed Wargame Scenarios' by C.S Grant. The battle is set in 1812 with the Russians tasked with delaying the advancing, and so far victorious French forces. The Russians have chosen to fight a holding action using a hilly area to form the basis of the delaying action. The French on the other hand is in the full flush of victory and is pressing down the major route brushing all opposition aside in an endeavour to strike at the heart of the Russian army and country before they have an opportunity to rally and prepare themselves. The Russian setup with a Division on each hill and the central town garrisoned. Jagers occupy the woods north of the stream. The heavy cavalry form the reserve. The French are expected to arrive along the road from the north-west. I'm using the programmed responses for both sides from the 'Programmed Wargame Scenarios' book and modified  Age of Eagles rules . The Russians

 An after action report on the Battle of Gordeczna 1812 using Age of Eagles rules and this scenario . The Austrians mut drive Tormassov's Russian army from the field. Take care to minimize any losses to the Austrian corps. The Russians must conduct an orderly rear-guard action. Inflict maximum casualties while trading space for time. Tormassov's Russians are setup on the high ground behind the river. Gorodenzca is at bottom right and Paddubno at middle right. There are three crossings of the river over which the Austrian/Saxon army will attack.

 An Age of Eagles battle using the Ostrolenka 1807 scenario . I've also used the optional features of the scenario. The game setup with the French in control of Ostrolenka and the Russians advancing  behind the sand hills. The Russians start the scenario with a superiority in cavalry and artillery but French reinforcements are on the way.

Battle report for another Programmed Wargame Scenarios battle using the Broken Ground scenario and modified Age of Eagles rules . The map is made up of the following rolled sections.

 I've developed a scaled down version of Age of Eagles for use with the Programmed Wargame Scenarios (C.S Grant). This version uses a ground scale of 1 inch = 60 yards and 15 minutes to a turn. Differences to Age of Eagles are given below with a revised QRS .

 This is my first solo battle using Scenario 1 - Hill Line Defence from Programmed Wargame Scenarios (Charles S. Grant). I am also using a scaled down version of Age of Eagles where 1"=60 yards and each infantry stand=180 men. Terrain Setup Rolling for the terrain setup gave the following left, centre and right sections. The table setup is shown above with the hill line at the top half of the table.

Age of Eagles battle report for the Battle of Caldiero 1805 using AoE scenario . The French under Massena are deployed to the right of the photo while the Austrians under Charles have the township of Caldiero in the centre and occupy the Colognola heights to the right of the town.

Age of Eagles battle report using the following AoE Scenario file for the Battle of Vyazma 1812 . Setup for the game above with Eugene's French column at the top of photo marching into Vyazma, and Russian cavalry blocking the road at bottom of photo in preparation for Davout's Corps. 

Age of Eagles Battle report using the following AoE Scenario file for the Battle of Sacile 1809 .  Start of game with the Austrians holding Porcia (Middle-top) and the French advancing from Tamia (bottom left).

I have number of 15mm cavalry figures in poses that expose the figures swords to being inadvertently bent while handling. These poses appear to be done to make the casting process easier. Recently I decided to try and bend the sword arms on these cavalry figures in positions that provide more protection from damage during handling on the wargaming table. The figures are Essex and have already been painted so this exercise was going to test both the malleability of the lead as well as the paint job. The end result was surprisingly good. I did break one arm early on but I was able to glue it and learnt from that experience to successfully bend 15 other figures. Below are some photos of the original figure next to a figure with the arm bent. The key to doing this was to slowly bend the arm using my fingers while carefully watching for any signs of distress at the bend point. It might also have a bit to do with the quality of lead in the figure. Anyway, it was successful enough that I'

Version 4.0 is a major update of the rules to reflect learnings from recent play-throughs. Some of these changes will be tested in the next solo battle. In summary, the changes include: Command Points: More refined calculation of command points for leaders that reflects command size and leader quality. This provides a better simulation of command differences for each nationality. Command Orders: Addition of command orders that constrain the actions of units in that command. This improves solo play and penalises frequent changing of each sides battle plan. Open Order: Change in designation of skirmish formation to open order. Open order now automatically applies to units in built-up areas. Disorder: Introduction of unit disorder to improve simulate the temporary effects of combat and terrain. Disorder reduces a units effectiveness and requires the focus of the command leader to remove disorder. Major Objectives: Major objectives now count for 20 points rather than 10 points. This bett

I played out the Smoliani scenario using a programmed opponent for the Russian side. I ended up modifying the approach as the game progressed and I learnt what worked and what didn't. Here is a summary of those learnings. The introduction of written orders, and the constraints they impose, was a key element of the programmed opponent implementation. The written command orders also gave a more realistic period 'feel' to the game, mitigating the player's 'god-like' overview of the battle. The factors influencing what order options are available to each command increased substantially as the game progresses. It became clear that trying to set all these options up front wouldn't work very well. The approach I eventually landed on was to limit command order changes to 1 per turn and randomly select from the 2 or 3 most likely options given the game situation. This appeared to work quite well, and gave enough uncertainty that I didn't feel like I was unneccess

During the retreat from Moscow, Victor was ordered to take the bridges over the Lukomlia River to ensure safe passage for the main French army to the south. Wittgenstein must hold the bridges and capture Smoliani to deny the French a line of march to the south (Senno). Note: I didn't have enough Russian or French units for this scenario and have substituted the Opolchenie with Austrian figures. I'm also using Bavarians to cover the Berg and Baden brigades.

With a written order system proposed in the rules, I have now drafted a high level programmed opponent to manage the command orders for one side in a battle. The rules will allow for the implementation of a programmed opponent for solo play. The programmed opponent sets the command orders for each command. The programmed opponent relies on the player setting likely order options based on a reasonable assessment of the current situation for that command. The player will still need to manage the tactical implementation of these command orders through unit orders. When a command has the initiative, a command order check is undertaken. At the start of the game, a command order check is done on every command to allocate starting orders. During subsequent turns, a command order check is done on each command until a change in orders is triggered. Only 1 change of orders can be made by the programmed opponent each turn. Once a command has new orders, no other command checks are done for that t

In the quest for simple, easy to use and fast playing rules, I've avoided written orders. I also mainly play solo and written rules feel like they are unnecessary. However, after many solo games with my rules I think that there is a case to be made for written orders. The pre-planning that appeared to be an important aspect of most battles is missing, and there is a temptation to instantly respond to changing battlefield situations as if each commander had omniscient knowledge of the battlefield positions. The other trigger for considering written orders came when I started to look at how to incorporate a programmed opponent when playing solo. It became apparent that an AI system would work much better with an overall battle plan. A typical army commander would set orders at the start of a battle for each division or brigade under his command. Changes in orders could be made but the fog of war and the vagaries of delivering and interpretting orders could often result in unintended

Below is the Austrian setup for the Battle of Elchingen . The Austrian commander Riesch must attempt to hold the two villages and the Abbey. The Austrian 2nd Division deploys with its right flank on the village of Ober-Elchingen and the rest of the Division defending the ridge joining the two villages. A grenadier battalion defends the Abbey. The Austrian 1st Division will arrive to provide support some time after turn 3.

 I tried out a new terrain system with the Battle for Elchingen . 

Setup for a random battle between French and Austrian forces. The objective is the town in the centre of the battlefield. The Austrians (bottom of photo) have a start position closer to the centre, while the French (top of photo) will have to advance into a deployed position. The better defensive position for the Austrians is offset by the stronger French leadership, the Guard reserve and horse artillery attached to the Cavalry Divisions. The battlefield is criss-crossed by fordable rivers with 4 bridges providing crossings for artillery. 

Archduke John's Austrian forces joined with the Hungarian Insurrection forces (militia) at Raab. He intended to cross to the north bank of the Danube and move northwest through Bratislava (Pressburg) to unite with the main army, which was commanded by his brother Archduke Charles, Generalissimo of the Austrian armies. Napoleon ordered Eugène to pursue and destroy John's army. The Franco-Italian troops caught up with the Austrians in mid-June and forced John to give battle. Though John's 35,000-man army was only a little less numerous than Eugène's 40,000 soldiers, the quality of his soldiers was markedly inferior. Many thousands of the Habsburg troops were poorly trained Austrian landwehr (19,000 men) and Hungarian insurrection militia (16,000 men). The archduke knew this and planned to fight a defensive battle in a strong position.

Constructed two more stone bridges using balsa and plastic sheet. The balsa is easy to cut and can be scored to create the stone look. For the roadway I just painted the clear plastic and sprinkled on fine sand. The completed bridges were then just painted up with a series of washes. The bridges are 80mm in length and nearly 40mm wide. This easily accommodates a 30 mm stand of 15mm figures.

This is my first try-out for the new Austrian army on the new wargame mat. I've selected the Battle of Caldiero scenario . On receiving word of Napoleon's victory at Ulm, Massena ordered an immediate offensive, despite being outnumbered.   Archduke Charles planned to withdraw to Austrian soil, but Massena's crossing of the Adige forced the Charles to check the French advance, offering his army time and space to withdraw safely. Thus, the two sides met in the thick fog of October 30, spread out across a wide, hilly front. Both Massena and Charles had deployed considerable forces on the far bank of the Adige River with the hope of turning their opponent's flank. Their main armies met along main Verona road passing through the town of Caldiero.

I put together my latest terrain system to test out my newly painted Austrian Army. I've opted for the Battle of Caldiero, 1805 between French and Austrian forces.

I've nearly finished painting up around 400 x 15mm Warrior Miniature Austrians over this COVID period. Hussars, cuirassiers and generals will round out the complete army. The photos are taken on a new printed fleece wargame mat with a subtle 70mm hex grid.

I'd just finished priming some 15mm Warrior Miniature Austrian Uhlans, and realised that the figures would look much better with the lance pennants trailing behind the figure. The pennant is cast in line with the figure to suit the limitations of the cast. I wondered what would happen if I twisted the pennant and lance 90 degrees. I had been reluctant to do this as I thought the lance would invariably break. Well, I took a pair of pliers and slowly twisted one pennant. The lead appeared to twist nicely and at 90 degrees still appeared to be fairly solid. I'm sure you can't do this more than once but I'm very happy with the outcome. Here is a photo of three figures. The one on the let is the casting as it comes. The other two have the pennant twisted at 90 degrees. You can even see the casting line on the lance and how it has uniformly twisted.

Just finished painting 9 batteries of Napoleonic Austrian artillery. These are 15mm Warrior Miniatures. I again used a black undercoat technique on both the figures and the guns. It certainly sped the painting up and I love how forgiving it is as you don't have to paint right to the edges. The Warrior Miniature figures don't have the nicely raised features of Essex so I found the white straps a bit of a challenge. Lots of tidying up had to be done to get to something satisfactory for the tabletop.

Just finished painting 48 Austrian Jagers in a single week. A record time (for me). Working from home has allowed me to paint while I'm listening in to Skype meetings! Couldn't do that in the office. These are 15mm Warrior Miniatures.

Just finished painting 4 battalions of Austrian Grenadiers to add to the 17 line infantry battalions already completed since the COVID isolation increased opportunities to paint that pile of lead. The figures are 15mm from Warrior Miniatures. Two battalions are Hungarian and the other two are German.

Just completed painting 3 units of Hungarian infantry. Theses are 15 mm Warrior Miniatures using a black undercoat technique.

My aim was to create a modular system of wargame rivers that would have banks either side of a depressed river. I also wanted the banks to be seamless with the surrounding terrain. I wanted to move on from having the river depressions built into the interlocking foam mats sitting under my wargame mat. This would make it quicker and easier to set up and provide more flexibility in placing rivers on the table. I first created a set of modular rivers using clear acetate sheets painted blue underneath and with gloss medium gel dappled on to give a water surface effect. I then brushed some of the medium gel along the edges of each river and stuck on some flock and static grass. The medium gel dries as a flexible film that allows the edges of the river to mold to the banks it will sit in. The rivers are 4 cm wide and are designed to fit with a 70 mm hex grid on the wargame mat. The next task was to create a set of river banks for each river section. The banks are set 6 cm apart and

After-action-report for the Durenstein 1805 scenario . At Dürenstein a combined force of Russian and Austrian troops trapped a French division commanded by Théodore Maxime Gazan. The French division was part of the newly created VIII Corps, the so-called Corps Mortier, under command of Édouard Mortier. In pursuing the Austrian retreat from Bavaria, Mortier had over-extended his three divisions along the north bank of the Danube. Mikhail Kutuzov, commander of the Coalition force, enticed Mortier to send Gazan's division into a trap and French troops were caught in a valley between two Russian columns.

I embarked on a project to build a folding wargame table that can also store all my miniatures and wargame scenery. The project was inspired by seeing the IKEA Norden Gateleg folding table. However, I needed mine to be much bigger. The table size is 2250 mm x 1500 mm at a height of 1 metre (I'm 6'5"). I used pine with some hardwood for the drawer runners. To keep the build as easy as possible, all joins are screwed and all timber cuts have been done using a table saw.

Following the failure of Wargame Mat version 4, I ordered another fleece mat from an on-line fabric printer . I used a slightly greener base colour and a very feint 70 mm hex grid on a sheet of fleece 2400 x 1500 mm.

After finishing around 120 Austrian infantry figures, I'm now working on some Hungarian units. I'm testing out some alternative painting techniques for this batch as illustrated below.

The Problem I've been pleased with the fleece wargame mat that I had got printed with a subtle 60 mm hex grid. However, given the standard width of my units is 60mm, this doesn't leave much wriggle room to place units. I've now updated the rules to use a 70mm grid which is the same as I have used for the EVA hex modules. I wasn't entirely happy with the look of the EVA hexes so I was looking to update my fleece mat to 70mm hexes.

I've just purchased a whole lot of Warrior Miniatures 15mm Napoleonic Austrians. Now for the task of painting them all. I've experimented a lot with the white uniform and settled on the following method:

The new command identifiers and hit markers have been used in the latest AAR for the Battle of Brienne 1814 . The photo below shows the use of coloured beads to identify 2 cavalry commands (yellow and orange). The red beads are hit markers. The brass washers are bonus command points allocated from a higher order leader.

In early January 1814, Napoleon's weakened forces lost the Rhine barrier and over a quarter of one million allied soldiers began their advance to French soil. After a series of defeats under his blundering marshals, Napoleon decided to take personal command of the remaining French divisions defending Paris--barely 60,000 men. Reinvigorated with his old energy and fire, the Emperor sought to place his army in between the advancing allies, defeating each allied sovereign in detail before they could unite.

I've now added the coloured beads to the command identifier tiles. This means that commands can be identified by either a letter or a bead colour.

I have replaced the magnetic markers used to identifier units in the same command with coloured beads. The beads are placed on the same pin that hit markers are placed on.

The journey to discover the perfect set of rules and modular terrain setup continued with the Friedland scenario . Having reverted back to the terrain cloth over the 3D modular EVA foam boards, I'm really happy with the change. The hex grid on the cloth is not visible to the untried eye, but is adequate to enable units to be properly located and moved on the table. The game identified a few more tweaks to the rules as situations arose that had not been encountered in previous games. 1. One of the commands broke after 3 of its' units routed off the table. Potentially, the leader could have rolled a flag to remove a hit from himself, and stopped the route of the whole command. This wouldn't have been in the complete spirit of the intention of the rule. An adjustment to the rules has now been made so that hits incurred as a result of unit losses can't be removed. 2. The number of command points per leader doesn't feel right. I've now simplified this so that

After years of trying various tabletop terrain options, I finally think I've landed on the best blend of flexibility and looks. The setup uses EVA foam mats as the base for forming hills and rivers, with a printed fleece cloth laid over the top.

After the battle of Heilsberg, Bennigsen had crossed the Alle River and was retreating towards Allenburg with most of the army on the right bank. Bennigsen was under pressure to demonstrate an aggressive move and would keep his detractors at bay. The Russian army was exhausted and low on morale. Napoleon on the other hand was elated. He was receiving news that the Russians were crossing over to his side of the Alle. An opponent does not often execute such difficult movement in the face of enemy, to fight with an impassable river at his back. Napoleon's only fear was that Bennigsen would recognise his error and retrace his steps before he could strike in force.

I've updated the command chit and unit markers to make them less obvious on the tabletop and more reusable across different battles. Firstly, each command is now identified by a letter (A-Z). The command chit is represented by a scrabble tile with a sticker on it as shown in the photo below. Each unit within the command has a magnetic marker (green) with the command letter on it. The command leader also has a magnetic marker (brown) representing its command value. The magnetic markers were made from magnetic sheet with a printed label stuck on top and the markers cut out with a cutting blade. Each command stand has a small length of metal (part of a staple actually) which is glued to the base. It's not very obvious but is enough to ensure the magnetic markers don't slide off the stand when it is moved.

As Napoleon directed the main advance toward Moscow, Marshal Oudinot's II Corps protected the northern flank. Only General Wittgenstein's Russian I Corps blocked the French from marching all the way to St. Petersburg. Impatient with Oudinot's timidity, Napoleon dispatched St.-Cyr's weak Bavarian corps to bolster the French effort to defeat Wittgenstein.  By the morning of August 17, 1812, Oudinot's 20,000 French and St.-Cyr's 12,000 Bavarians lingered at Polotsk. A rural town along the Dvna River, Polotsk represented a crucial road junction in northern Russia. Believing the Russians too weak to bother him, Oudinot had carelessly deployed his force on both banks of the Dvna River, spread out and vulnerable to attack. Wittgenstein recognized this weakness, and hoped to maul St.-Cyr's Bavarians on the northern bank of the Dvna. Skirmishing broke out around 8:00am while Wittgenstein deployed. French Aim:  To hold the approaches to Polotsk. Russian Aim: Capture S