Our good friend, Ed M. planned and executed a wonderful Napoleonic themed game day at our local club. The game was simply MASSIVE with several hundred figures on each side. Prussians vs. French with the Orders of Battle from the Waterloo Campaign and the terrain we fought over was the field of Ramilles of 1706 fame. We used
Napoleon's Rules of War written by our very own club member, Charlie G. It is a great set of rules with the main maneuver element being an infantry battalion, cavalry squadron and artillery battery.
For this event, I had the honor of playing the role of Marshal Grouchy, Commander of a reinforced French
Corps d'Armee. In the weeks leading up to the game day itself there was a lot of planning. We set the order of arrival for each of the divisions (3 line, 1 Young Guard, and 1 Reserve Cavalry - Dragoons) along with an artillery reserve and an attached Hussar Brigade. Along with the sub-commanders I was able to develop a general plan to assault and secure the town of Ramilles. The plan also included the deployment of four advanced guard detachments each of a
Legere Battalion and two squadrons of
Chasseurs a Cheval. During the approach march on game day we were able to adjust our assault plan on the fly, but there was not much that we needed to modify as we had a pretty solid plan.
The table-top game was a hard fought affair and we wish we had more time to really get to a conclusion. We had the typical ups and downs as determined by General Dice. We were not able to push the Prussians in the North as much as we wanted, but our Hussar Brigade was able to hold off a major push by a full Prussian Brigade in the southern part of the field.
Overall the battle was adjudicated to be a draw, but it was a tremendous amount of fun for all involved. Many thanks to all of the hard work that Ed put into the preparations of the game and for Ed and Charlie for running a great game.
Following are a few of the photos I took of the game in progress:
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| The Prussian opponents from across all three sets of tables. Closest is the French (our) approach table, the center main battle table and then the Prussian approach table. Players were nominally not allowed to go to the center table until they had troops on the main board. No one from the French table was allowed to go to the Prussian side of the table during the game. |
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| The indomitable French command team. |
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| The French approach table. |
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| Friendly conversations as the first units arrive on the main table. The conversations would soon turn into banter between commanders locked in the grip of mortal combat! |
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| An advance guard force composed of a battalion of the 36eme Legere and two squadrons of the 4th Chasseurs a Cheval. |
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| The French advance guard forces move onto the main battle table. |
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| The French 2nd Division maneuvers south of Ramilles. |
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| Prussian commanders look over their options on the game QRS sheets. In the foreground is the French 2nd Division. In the middle distance left is the French 1st Division moving to secure the town of Ramilles. |
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| From the top of the table is the French 3rd Division moving to secure the Corps' Left (North) flank. In the middle 1st Division and the Young Guard move to secure Ramilles while 2nd Division moves just south of the town to put pressure on the Prussians covering on Ramilles and to secure the French Right (South) flank. In the foreground is the heroic separate Hussar Brigade which held off a combined arms attack from a full Prussian brigade. |
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| The Young Guard and reserve cavalry move on the French approach table. |
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| Prussian commanders try to figure out how to stop the mass of the French Dragoon division as it appears on the main battle table. |
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| Prussian commanders on the French Right flank as they face yet another attack from the dreaded Hussar brigade. |
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| Another view of the dashing Beau Sabeurs of the French Hussars! |
