Valmy - 20 September 1792 - refight 3 May 2024

 Most wargamers have heard of the battle of Valmy - it's famous for the French artillery stopping the Prussian army advancing to Paris.

It makes for an interesting game - 32,000 French defending against an Austro-Prussian army of 34,000.  My regular opponent Mike took the Allies.  The scenario (on the BBB io.group) has the Allies as passive, whilst the French are a mixed bag of raw, trained, veterans, some passive and some aggressive (i'm not sure if some were passive-aggressive!).  

This is another Matt Bradley scenario.

The Map:

The French occupy a ridge to their right and have reserves that are moving up.  The Prussians need to clear the ridge and take two villages to gain a victory.

French deploy first, Allies move first.

The refight

Mike bravely moved East - or that was the plan, but his passivity meant that his troops were slow or stopped.  My French moved to block him and took casualties, going spent, but they hung in there!

Photos from French turn 3:

French on the ridge.  The mid ground French unit is passive, aggressive, spent, disrupted and low on ammo.  It's also in the way, thus annoying the Allies by just existing!

French hold the ridge

The highly decorated French infantry watch the cavalry melee....

Brave defenders of the ridge.  To the left can be seen my "French infantry in Tarletons" see here for how they look in close up

Close up

French left wing - a very small unit holds out whilst collecting counters...

Photos from turn 4

French right - continuing to hold the Prussians at bay

In the centre, French reinforcements cling on to the ridge with artillery support.

On the French left fresh troops march up to hold the line, which is stretched very thin...

The Austrians turn up to bolster the Prussians.

Photos from turn 7

On the left, the French late arrivals counter attacked and drove the Prussians from Orbeval - the objective village the Prussians had taken.

Next along, the French denied the left hill objective to the Austrians. 

On the right hand objective hill, the French stormed the Prussians who had managed to climb it, thus keeping it in French hands.  

On the next part of the ridge, the battered French collect counters and hang on...

On the French right, the French cavalry slows the Prussian advance.

It was at this point, after several hard fights along the line but with no objectives held and no more turns left, Mike conceded the battle.

Conclusion

It was a really enjoyable battle for me, my troops performed enough for a win, I got to use my white coat command bases and some newly painted FRW infantry.

Mike had tried hard and fought well, but his troops reluctance to fight (apparently not only were they deep in France, they were also suffering from both lack of supplies and dysentry, so not happy with the idea of combat) meant that his attacks were hard to co-ordinate as units moved slowly or not at all.

The scenario is in the io.group files - give it a go!