1870 Battle of Coulmiers in 10mm - Big Bloody Battles

 Nick very kindly agreed to run a C19th game down, and I purposely did not ask what it was as I wanted to see where we ended up. 

Imagine my surprise, neigh delight, when Nick handed us the play sheet for Big Bloody Battles game of the Battle of Coulmiers, one of the few French victories in the Franco-Prussian War, albeit in the Republican phase. He had a well thought out table, and boxes of beautifully painted 10mm Pendraken FPW forces that he hadn't used. Could Dave and I repeat the feat?

In seven turns, quite an ask 

The scenario is well written, with great research, clearly mapped and has clear aims for the French attack and Bavarian defence. 

Yes, French attack. The Republican phase of the Franco-Prussian war actually sees some French attacks as tactics reverted away from defending with superior firepower to desperate or desultory attempts to force the allied German forces to concede ground or territory or even just get armies out of sieges. Gone are the glory days of the French Imperial army and set piece battles envisaged by the army command, it was now a scrappy army of survival that were mostly aggressive, but poorly trained volunteers, reservists and were backed up by what few reserves were not captured at Sedan . 

Looking at the battlefield from the North, Grey bare areas are small settlement/farmsteads, the four town are marked by buildings are larger towns which block line if sight.  These mostly contained objective points (The French need to secure four out of seven to win) are marked with pennies. Coulmiers, centre left, has two. One resides in the woods, centre rear, too. The Bavarians deploy on table, the French enter from the right 

Moving to a view from the West, the Bavarian defenders deploy (Nick's son William was fielding these). Each unit is placed in (roughly) it's historical deployment point. Note the measuring sticks William is using to show himself where each unit goes. The table is mapped in one foot grid squares, units start in certain squares based on given coordinates -  simples!

French Army of the Loire deploys. Yes we have a bigger army, but it's much worse quality than the defending Bavarians(here played by Nick's beautiful 10mm Prussian forces, so you may notice the occasional puklehaub and dark blue rather than cornflower blue coat. They are mostly Reserves, Regiments de March, a few artillery pieces, not enough generals, some Franc-Trilleurs and whatever else the Army of the Loire could scrape up from the floor! 

On the left, a timid French cavalry unit is tasked with taking the middle left objective. Dave's largest division was to clear the road route to Coulmiers, my division to the right of the road was to advance and then swing left onto Coulmiers as support, while my right hand units (joined by reinforcements on turn 2 and 5) were to tie up as many Bavarians as possible with a feint to demonstrate in front of the Bavarians holding the right, tying them down while Dave attacked. Good plan huh?

By turn two, firing had started. First shot of the game and one of my artillery pieces had recoiled nearly off table due to William's accurate firing (we would suffer a lot of this during the night, his to hit dice were incredible). I attempted to assault the central farmstead, with 2:1 odds, while my other forces tried to shift a two stand unit from the right hand settlement. Black fluff on units signifies the unit is disordered, a rally off status, which affects your next firing and manoeuvre, so not as bad as it first felt. Cartridges denote a unit or battery low on ammunition, which happens on a to-hit roll of 11 or 12. This never bothered us all night! However, the left hand infantry unit between the two settlements never lost that status!

The art is to concentrate firepower. We tried that on the left, two batteries, two brigades, no luck. Our shooting dice were bobbins! We very quickly realised that an over average throw was needed on 2d6. But, being experienced wargamers, that was a nigh impossible ask! On 2d6, you know, 8+. Nah! One of my die always rolled a 1 on every shot. I found this quite dispiriting, especially as William could not miss. I even had a mid-game funk, that lasted until at least turn five, which was almost a wobbly bottom lip moment. Notice that this was true except for movement! Eventually, I realised I was maybe thinking about this game the wrong way. Stop being Imperial and relying on shot, get in there , move quickly, and hit them! 

My first piece of luck (which, at times, felt few and far between), my artillery scores an 11, enough to hit and shatter a two base unit of Bavarian cavalry in column on the road, acting as a reserve. These had been the Bavarian back stop, designed and placed to take advantage of any French breakthrough and to run over them. Hussars too! The road was now open (apart from two infantry units firefighting Dave's division and two supporting batteries) and...

Turn 3&4: I tried a feint to the front of the Bavarian centre, and attack a non-objective farmstead with the idea of bouncing through it and into the backfield. Two units attacking in depth onto one, 2:1 odds and a general goading them on,, I should have walked this one. The odds were in my favour.

 Bounced. 

Twice.

Drat it! 

Seriously? Each time you roll an assault, you start with a plus or minus, depending on what you roll and whether it is higher than your opponent tthat will help with the assault. 

Nope, fluffed that one.

And the clock was ticking...

William also had a round of shooting where he could not miss, knocking bases off units, left right and centre 

Double drat!

I also threw three units onto the right hand village as that was actually worth objects and only held by two bases. Should be easy.

 

Blast!

Nope, failed to get in once as there were two artillery batteries behind adding a huge weight of supporting fire on my middle right unit. My right hand unit and fast approaching reserves would have to do it instead.

Turn 5:

Viewed from the South  After what felt like an age, on the right, I finally evicted the two Bavarians with a 4:1 assault. and took the village! An objective point. YES! 

 A unit of Franc-Trillures had also appeared from the South, nicely behind the Bavarians lines. They promptly rolling great movement dice, storming off to find another objective tucked behind the lines, upsetting the Bavarian gun batteries by their presence, causing a retreat that the French line units had preyed for; and making one of the numerous Bavarian general staff leave his lunch unfinished, as he legged it to the woods for safety.

With Dave taking on Bavarian cavalry in another village, in a hot cavalry-on-cavalry action against better Bavaria Hussars, they were bloodying their noses and securing another settlement.

Things were finally swinging our way as he snatched a second objective token!. 

My assault on the right hand village also secured a third VP, beating up the two stands of Bavarians in there with a 7:2 assault. The flank we were meant to be ignoring had suddenly come up trumps. 

Turn 6: On the left, Dave was trying to force two units back, I decided the only viable option was rather than joining in, as it had had no effect for the previous four turns. to walk past this firefight with my infantry, and try grab to Coulmiers. It's a nice enough place!  This chased off the other two gun batteries. Oh, my artillery that got bullied turn 1, was now back in the fight!

The Franc-Trillures took their objective. In the centre Coulmiers fell to the French, and we picked up two more objective points. Suddenly,  things were going well  It was worth two points, we had five and only needed four to win. Approaching was the Bavarian Leib Guard from reserve, only two stands, but if William had committed them, they would have been the hardest troops in the game. That could be an issue. Thankfully, they were out of command range, and only rolled a half move, so they joined their artillery.

We had it, 5-2 up with four points needed to win  At one point I was sure we were losing due to the sheer amount of bases William's shooting was taking out of us. Two brigades were under half strength and spent, nearly every formation had been disrupted, with most haing lost 25%, but things in this game swung quickly. A really hard game. It was good, but a real thinker, you had to commit to the risks.

My glorious French infantry holding Coulmiers while the Franc-Trilleurs hold their patch.

Turn 6: I pushed on towards the town and railway of the extreme right, which was only held by artillery Dave was dueling with Bavarians in the centre, but then I had worked round the Bavarian forces and we were well ahead.

 

2nd Division, 16th Corps, Regt de Marche, under Barry look on at the Bavarian artillery and Leib Guard.

We called it there, there were only three Bavarian infantry units left and their hussars, whereas we had taken many losses, but had not actually lost any units. 

A good game, at times frustrating, but in the end we snatched the victory we saught, Good game.