Little Great War - Naval Battle
The Little Great War has begun, with a seaborne expedition by the Ruberian army upon the Norromandy Coast of Azuria. The 1st Battle Squadron protecting the oceanic flank of the invasion fleet, they came under attack by the entire Oceanic Battle Fleet straight out of the l'Elorn Estuary. Reserve cover was to be provided by the powerful 2nd Battle Squadron, but would Admiral Jellibene arrive betimes?
Napoleonic Battle: Aspern-Essling, May 1809
This has been long planned, and is still ongoing. Big, complicated action that I probably could have made a great deal simpler! I'm using Bob Cordery's Portable Napoleonic Wargame 'Army' level game, with some minor tweaks. The following pictures show some of the early action.
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| Marshal Massena's IV Corps about to occupy a bridgehead flanked by the villages, Aspern and Essling |
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| Austrian Army closing in on the bridgehead. By the way, the pontoon bridge was knocked up a couple of days ago in about 10 minutes: a piece of cardboard bridge upon balsa pontoons. |
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| Here they come - most of them anyway! |
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| Aspern bitterly contested between Molitor's Division and Nordmann's Grenzer Brigade |
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| Boudet's Division under strong attack by Rohan's more numerous formation. Casualties already have been heavy on both sides... |
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| Austrian general advance in the centre. The space between the villages is covered by French cavalry - including d'Espagne's Heavy Division... |
The narratives of both will be written up in due course. But I thought it high time at least to get this blog spot back into action!
To be continued...
To be continued...
Great to see you back with two fantastic looking games Ion - I'm particularly interested in the Napoleonic battle (featuring the classic picture of toy soldiers crossing a pontoon bridge), and I'm looking forward to reading more about it.
ReplyDeleteThere's been a fair bit of action already, Maudlin Jack! A big cavalry charge in the centre did some hurt to the Austrian light troops, but retribution may be at hand. Aspern and Essling still under French occupation, but Essling only by a thread...
DeleteHaving plenty of time, I'm taking this at a very leisurely pace...
Cheers,
Ion
Great stuff, I will look forward to the write ups. Funnily enough I'm running Aspern Essling for the gang this week (using my One Hour Napoleonic variant).
ReplyDeleteMartin -
DeleteI'd like to see that! My one will take a bit of a while to complete, methinks, to losses have been very heavy - especially on the Austrian side, so far, but the French have taken a fair few hits themselves.
cheers,
Ion
Aspern Essling seems to be popular lately, I've done it with Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte, you're doing it with the Portable Napoleonic Wargame and Martin will be doing it with OHW. Looking forward to all of it!
ReplyDeleteAll different perspectives, Mark. But I now think I ought to have drawn up the ORBATs differently. The Austrians in particular are very complicated - to the point of being very hard to track the losses. A lot of 1SP units (mostly from the 'light' brigades) have been destroyed, which early on looked spectacularly one-sided. But a few French 3SP units have bitten the dust, or are close to it. Still on Day One (21 May) and Massena's Corps and d'Espagne's cuirassiers are looking very tired... Half of Essling has been lost...
DeleteCheers,
Ion
Some nice “eye candy” there Ion. Cute little ships and colourful Napoleonics. Nicely done. I look forward to discovering how the battles turn out ⚔️⚔️
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Geoff
Geoff -
DeletePlenty to report on later, that's for sure!
Cheers,
Ion
Great looking games as usual. Looking forward to the full write-ups. For a quick knock up that pontoon bridge looks fantastic.
ReplyDeleteWEK3 -
DeleteNot sure Aspern-Essling will get a 'full' write-up.Pretty much lost track of who was who for Day One. Pretty exciting action, though. For Day Two I've laid out markers detailing who's who. It's nice to see the Imperial Guard making an appearance. The Austrian Reserve Corps is making a splendid show, and all.
Cheers,
Ion
Really great & interesting games sir!
ReplyDeleteMichal -
DeleteThank you! Proper write-ups will, I hope fairly soon, be making their appearance in this blog.
Cheers,
Ion
Looking forward to the full write ups!
ReplyDeleteNeil
Cheers, Neil. Aspern-Essling will be a challenge!
Delete