La Rothiére 1st February 1814 - refight Friday 7 March 2025

 The next battle in the BBB scenario book is La Rothiére, 1st February 1814.  Napoleon is now defending France and on French soil.  The Allies, Austrians, Bavarians, Prussians and Russians are seeking to break through the French defences and head for Paris.

Here's the map.  

I took the French army and Mike was the Allies.  The scenario is 7 hour long turns.  There are special rules to cover the terrain (awful - mud everywhere!) and it's hampering effect on movement.  

Set up

Our initial deployments looked like this.  All photos taken from the south (French) side of the map.  Red markers are objectives (victory points).  I expected a tidal wave of Allies & planned a dogged retreat to the bottom right hand corner.

Turn 2 

By the end of turn 2, things were still OK for the French.  On the left I held onto the town of Morvilliers (bottom left) as the terrain and stream broke up Mike's Austro/Bavarian V Korps assault.  In the middle of the ridge was a battery backed up by cavalry.

Top left IV Korps moves towards the undefended ridge, seeking to cross it and take the objective village of La Giberie

On the other side of the battlefield, I hold La Rothiére (on the middle road) and the river crossing town of Dienville.  Mike has struggled to move his infantry forward, his artillery need a whole move to deploy, so he's not yet got his guns into action.  At the bottom of the picture the column s my mobile reserves, the block at bottom right can't move till turn 3.

Turn 4

On the left the brave defenders of Morvilliers repel numerous assaults as the difficult terrain and disrupted results hamper Mike's attempts to bring his numbers to bear.  In the top left corner Mike has only just reached the wooded ridge.

In the middle the Allies are moving slowly forward.  The brave defenders of la Rothiére hang on despite being outnumbered.  On the right I still stoutly defend Dienville and control the river crossing.  

Turn 6

The fighting around Morviliers continues, with the town defenders confident enough to form a line holding the ridge supported by artillery.  The Allies have put cavalry in the village, but my French cavalry have faced off against this threat.  Mike's troops swarm La Giberie, amazingly the defenders hang on, despite being massively outnumbered.

Here's the close up of the fight around Morvilliers.....

On the middle and right side of the battle,  the fight went well for the French.  The defenders of La Rothiére were slowly pushed out, but there was no decisive breakthrough.  The French lost Dienville but managed to retake it.  The French denied the river crossing to the Allies.   

Turn 7

On the left the French lost La Giberie as numbers finally worked for Mike.  

At Morvilliers the French defenders broke up repeated Allied assaults and inflicted enough casualties to cause one Allied to go spent, so no more charging across streams and up hills for them!

 

On the right the French held a position just outside La Rothiére and firmly in control of Dienville.  Both sides took casualties (that's spent Frenchmen behind the frontline), however the French didn't break and the Allies started to run out of troops capable of continuing the fight.  

Conclusion

At the close of play I still had 4 objectives - Mike had taken La Giberie and La Rothiére, but this had been a slow process.  Mike had taken Dienville, but the assault unit had then received no support, so was ejected, in turn, from the town. 

I had some really good die rolls and Mike had not had the same die success.  He needed to attack, but this proved a slow business and the artillery need a full move to deploy.  

I had expected to lose Morvilliers, however against my expectations (and Mike's hopes) the defenders managed to repel all boarders.

It's a great scenario, we played it through in a day and I thoroughly recommend it!