Mark, of Chasseur renown, has a way of putting on big games. I missed the Leipzig blockbuster a couple of weeks back, but the Wavre project on Saturday (20 April) was massive enough. Mark was generous to invite me along, but all the figures and materiel were supplied by others. I merely supplied the light of my countenance.
I took the defence of Wavre itself, whilst Paul (Painting Little Soldiers) defended the river line west of there as far as, and including, Bierge. Meanwhile, far off at Limal, stood a very lonely looking battalion, gazing at the far bank of the River Dyle; empty of foes now, but later to be as filled with more French soldiery than they would have wished for.
This of course, would have been the massed flanking blow handled by Andy. Meanwhile, Chris (Vandamme) and Andrew (Gerard?) undertook the frontal assaults at Wavre and Bierge. The three bridges being the only river crossings, this was going to be a tough ordeal for the attackers. At one time or another they did succeed in carrying the barricades, but each time a counterattack recovered them for the Prussians. The bridge into Wavre itself was the last to be stormed, late in the afternoon, whereat the attackers seized an undefended part of the town. The Prussians reoccupied the barricade, cutting off the French in the town, but how long they could have maintained that hold would have been problematical had the action continued much longer.
Meanwhile, the massive flanking blow gradually developed in the teeth of Prussian efforts to hold them back. A series of costly counterattacks kept the French some distance southwest of Bierge, whilst a more solid line was being formed. However, how long we could have remained in and around Wavre and Bierge had the action continued much longer would have been anyone's guess.
The action ended rather inconclusively, I think. From my point of view, I thought it a respectable rearguard/ delaying action by our Prussians, but it was pretty clear that sooner or later the Prussians (Thieleman's III Corps) would have been overwhelmed.
This game was scheduled to continue through to the Sunday, if the state of the action seemed sufficiently 'in the balance'. I think it was agreed that the outcome, such as it was in this refight, indicated that the action would not have continued into the second day.
For Mark's movie, check out the Chasseur link above. I've also linked to Paul's blog spot for additional pictures.
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| Bierge |
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| Bierge - Wavre in the distance |
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| Wavre |
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| The Prussians brace for the French flanking attack |
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Late in the day, the French have taken part of Wavre,
but the Prussians have reoccupied the bridge barricade. |
Lovely, Wavre is an under appreciated action, often overshadowed by the other 3 battle (Waterloo, Ligny, Quatre Bras).
ReplyDeleteI agree. It was the first of my 'Army Level' battles using the Portable Napoleonic rule set, and a most interesting action it was.
DeleteThis massive refight, with well over 2000 figures and 40 guns on the table, yet, with a simple and straightforward rule set of Mark's devising, got through table set-up, and ten pairs of IGoUgo turns in less than 6 hours. Packing away was carried out at a more leisurely pace after a break for a much welcome beer.
Perhaps my one concern was the lack of depth in the Prussian position. I suppose one could argue that anyone west of the Prussian table edge was on his way to Waterloo, but I really felt the lack of elbow room (not sure what Paul thought about it).
Cheers,\
Ion
Very nice indeed, and on a rather grander scale than my recent Wavre games.. The OHW scenario really captures the essence of the battle.
ReplyDeleteMartin -
DeleteI've never really quite determined whether Thielmann was supposed to carry out a rearguard, delaying or holding action. I gather the intent was a small rearguard action, unless the French attacked in force (which they did), in which case Thielmann was to use his whole corps to hold the line of the Dyle. In my own Portable version, I treated it as a holding/ delaying action, figuring that with the addition of the three other Prussian corps, the Anglo-Dutch army ought to have enough in hand to deal with Napoleon.
From what Mark had to say of the real events leading up to and including 18th June, the campaign degenerated into a bumbling tragi-comedy of errors (my 'take'), with the Prussians making, perhaps, fewer misjudgements than the others. At that, some of Thielmann's command, apparently, took off westward without orders. One lot began marching to the Waterloo guns, then retraced their steps once Grouchy's guns heralded his attack. Them guns, I gather, were closer...
Cheers,
Ion
I must 'do' Wavre again some time...
Cheers,
Ion
A battle with difficult choices for both sides, with a little 'what if ' thrown in to the mix.
ReplyDeletepancerni -
DeleteI reckon! I rather think that after Ligny, a thickish fog of war descended over the campaign for the next couple of days.
Cheers,
Ion
That's a game in the GRAND manner - chapeau to Mark
ReplyDeleteMaudlin Jack -
DeleteMark has the collection for it! although on this occasion I think at least three other collections (none of them mine) contributed to the numbers. The Leipzig battle a couple of weeks previous loaded more than 4000 figures onto the table!
Cheers,
Ion
A fine game to say the least and a much under-gamed battle for sure.
ReplyDeleteSteve -
DeleteAs a battle, it sure has its points of interest, not least because it is so susceptible to such a wide range of interpretations. That it is relatively neglected compared with the other battles is probably due (a) to the almost certainty of a Prussian defeat (for a given value of 'defeat') and (b) to its irrelevance before the action came to a close. A French victory at Wavre, however decisive, was never going to overturn the final arbitration of Waterloo.
Cheers,
Ion
That was a lot, lot, lot of figures. Still, the actual battle involved 50,000+ soldiers so would “deserve” the mass spectacle. ⚔️⚔️ I must admit though, that such large battles are a lot to comprehend as there’s simply so much going on.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Geoff
Geoff -
DeleteThe quantity of figures goes to spectacle, but I agree that there is often a lot to take in. Still and all, Mark put in a LOT of work preparing the event and was busy during the game - as author and expert in his quickplay rule set - as D.O.P. as chess players would say: 'director of play'.
This one, though, was fairly simple: storm the bridge defiles (3 of them), combined with building up a flank attack. The Prussians had a fairly confined space in which to articulate a defence against the flank, but otherwise didn't really have all that much to do.
Mind you, had my 'Colonel von Luck' been a bit more inspiring in rallying knocked about units, we might never have left the village momentarily undefended at the moment the French, after maybe 5 unsuccessful attempts, finally crashed through the barricade.
I never did ask Mark what the respective losses were, but I suspect it was about even.
Cheers,
Ion