Wargaming in the real world again ! BBB 1/300 Marengo

On Monday night Chris, Crispin, Colin & Dave returned to the OWS to refight Marengo - in the real world.  Colin provided the troops & houses, Chris provided the rivers, roads and marshes.  Colin & Chris decided to be Austrians, Crispin & Dave elected to be the French.  We used Vincent Tsao's excellent Marengo scenario from the BBB group files.  

After nearly 18 months of no/virtual gaming, it was a little strange to be back - but our demographic means we are all double jabbed, the doors & windows were open to let in fresh Oxford air, what's not to like!  We also kept to our little game bubbles - which is actually what happens a lot of the time anyway.

Vincent's scenario victory conditions are:

1 point for Marengo

1 point for the crossroads in the East

1 point for making Bonaparte a casualty (Austrian's only)

1 point if you have lost (killed/driven off the field) less than half of your opponent's forces.  

The Austrian plan was simple.  Chris would attempt to crush the French along the Fontanone Creek, whilst Colin would execute a left hook, race for the crossroads and/or fall on the rear of the French front line.  A great plan, but as all who play BBB know, the little lead minions may not co-operate...!

The map (from the scenario) with Austrian moves in light red.  

 The battlefield - pre troop deployment.  North is towards the door, Austrians to left and French reinforcements will come on from the right.

Austrian opening moves - Chris steamrollers to Marengo, Colin sprints up the left-most road.  The white smoke shows disruption as Chris charges across the stream and into the French.

Chris continues to batter Crispin's French along the Fontanone Creek and Colin pushes towards the Vineyards, as Dave deploys the French reserves and the Consular Guard to stop him.  The Austrian cavalry seek to get onto the plain and do something glorious, possibly useful as well!

The next four shots show Chris's slow grind through the French defenders of Marengo.  In the first shot, the French still hold the village.  Chris has crossed the Creek and has run out of ammo.  To the left, Austrian cavalry move dextrously towards the French rear...  

A little later, the French are losing troops and ground.  The French still have Marengo, but only just.  Austrian cavalry arrives to the rear of the French...

The French rush cavalry and infantry to hold the line.  The swirl of disruption marker in the centre is the French line cavalry, with the Consular Guard cavalry attached, being charged front & right flank.  The yellow counter means the Austrians have Marengo!

A little later...  the Austrian cavalry have suffered, but so have the French.  French cavalry threaten my guns lower left, which have been sniping to the rear of the French with some success.  Is it too late for the gunners??

The last turn (9 of 9).  The Austrians have Marengo.  The French have lost more than twice as many troops as the Austrians.  The Austrians are reloading, whilst in the middle is a battered French unit, disrupted, spent AND out of Ammo.  Those pesky French cavalry were seen off by Austrian grapeshot!

The final view across the battlefield - as the Austrians win!  Austrians hold Marengo + have less than 50% casualties compared to the French.

All that remains is the post game discussion and refreshments....

A few highlights...

Napoleon at the crossroads of his career...

Another shot from Crispin & Chris's fight for Marengo. 

French Hussars, Hussars de la Mort and Carabiniers (line, but standing in for the Consular Guard).  They were last seen being charged by 7 units of Austrian cavalry...

Finally.  

Many thanks to Chris, Crispin & Dave for a good evening's entertainment and much banter.  This was the first chance my republican French have had to actually game, it was nice to see them in action.  The game took about 1/2 hour to set up and was concluded in about 2 1/2 hours.  

As with BBB, most players were playing most of the time and the game was in the balance right to the end.  

Once again, if you want to fight a historical battle in an evening, with a large amount of troops but at reasonable cost (says the accountant), on a dining room table with a few friends, then BBB may be the rules for you!

Figures are Baccus 6mm, buildings scratch built.  You can see more of my French Revolutionary Army here.  I'll add a page for the Austrians soon!

Buildings Update 2 - German Barn

I wanted some buildings for my Napoleonic games and so decided to construct a barn.  A trawl of the internet found a blog on German buildings (Yes!) with lots of pictures of buildings both preserved, in use as barns and converted to something else.  You can check out the blog here German Barns by Maggie Blanck I can only recommend it as inspirational.

I built the barn from card (using white glue) which I then covered in brick plastic card (super glued to the card).  For walls and roof I used N gauge brick wall and tiled roof sheets from Slaters Plastikard. The roof was shaped from card and covered with tiles plasticard.  I added framing from plastic rod and added doors.  The barn was based on mdf from Warbases and painted with GW Citadel paints. 

This barn is not based on one particular example, it is an amalgam of buildings to give the effect I wanted.  

I'll also mention Jim Bibbly blog and Dan Hodgson Reveille Painting who regularly post pictures of their really attractive and detailed model buildings.  Their work inspired me to give it a go!

So, here is the finished barn, next to some BBB based Austrians (on 1" x 1" bases).  

The barn probably needs some magnetic strip underneath, both to give it a bit of weight and to raise it so the ground level matches the troop bases.  It also needs a bit of grass!

Battlefield Accoutrements - Bridges 1 - Workbench update

 Rivers and Bridges are often a key part of the battles that we fight as Wargamers, I have wanted to have some suitable bridges for my war-games that look good both with and without troops.

My main Napoleonic interest is the battles of 1809 in the Danube valley and in Italy.  In particular, I want bridges for Ebelsberg (3 May 1809), Linz-Urfahr (17 May 1809), Sacile (16 April 1809) and Piave (8 May 1809).  The first two require wooden bridges and the Piave requires a burnt bridge.  I also fancied making a "makeshift" bridge for the Berezina river crossing of 1812.  I reckoned that some interchangeable bridges, spanning a 2" wide river (for major rivers in BBB) would have many uses.

I searched the internet high and low to come up with these bridge pictures...

Ebelsberg

There are some issues with this picture.  The Austrians are wearing Kasket hats that were replaced in 1798 by Raupenhelm (and were being replaced again in 1809 by Shakos).  The French are wearing Bicorne - correct for the Tiralliers du Po, but their uniforms would be all blue...  

Having said that, it is Austrians trying to destroy a wooden trestle bridge, whilst being charged by the French (or Italians!).... so the story telling bit is correct.

Linz

Landshut

Vienna (Tabor bridge, destroyed in 1809 as the Austrians left)

So what I need is a bridge mounted on wooden trestles, with a planked deck and side rails, with approach ramps either side.  I base my troops on 1" wide bases, so the bridge deck needs to be 1.25" so the troops can be on the bridge.  The base needs to be 1.5" wide by 2".  I used Slaters 0.5mm plastic card for the deck and chopped up sections from the 2A04 N gauge white line side fencing kit to provide rails and trestles.

Here are the models to date:

2 completed bridges with side rails and abutments.  The bridges are not stuck to the trestles, I need to paint the river under the bridge first...

3 views showing completed bridges with a 3 base unit marching across them.

A view showing the trestles.  I added extra vertical bits of plastic for supports at the outer edges of the base, where the observer would see them.  I also modelled two sets of abutments.

Here are the temporary/replacement bridge (for Berezina crossing) - suitably makeshift!

Finally, the destroyed bridge...  it will be painted as fire damaged.

Battlefield Accoutrements - Ship Mill in 6mm

 Ship Mills were an ingenious idea to harness water power by making a catamaran, with the central well containing a water wheel.  These could be moored to catch the strongest flow of the river and avoided having to build dams, weirs etc. associated with land based mills.  These mills were first recorded in 6th century Italy and were common from the middle ages to the 19th and early 20th century in Europe.

Their military use was two-fold.  They could be used as the basis of a pontoon bridge by lashing them alongside each other.  They could also be used as battering rams to break up bridges down stream - as used by the Austrians who sent a series of ship mills into Napoleon's pontoon bridges over the Danube during the battle of Aspern-Essling.

They are usually represented as an off table factor and you don't often see them modelled.  Chris Pringle had mused awhile ago BBB Blog - Ship Mills that they would be a fun thing to have.  He donated a number of wargaming things to me earlier in the year, so I thought I'd make one as a way of saying thank you.

Research:

Here are two of the plans I found on the internet:

Here is the picture from the Wikipedia article - this mill is at Minden, Germany.

As you can see, it is not the most seaworthy of craft.  Colours appear to have been black for the boat parts and light grey for the superstructure.  My guess is that the hulls were painted with tar or pitch to make them waterproof, the superstructure would be weathered wood.  The paddles seem to have been black.

Construction 

I based the model on 2mm mdf, with a cut out in the middle for the wheel if needed.  The hulls were coffee stirrers, shaped to the hull profile and with scribed planking.  The sides and superstructure were card.  The paddle blades were too short and thick on the first paddle, so I started again with a card/plastic tube metal washer combination.  Various ribs and struts were added to give a bit of interest.  It was undercoated with GW primer and painted with GW Acryllics.  I painted on the water and little waves to give some idea of the mill pushing against the river flow.    

photos:

Note the cut out in the roof to accommodate the wheel.

The finished article:

I have not really done water before, I'm quite pleased with the result.  If you have a go, consider making the sides of the pontoons in 0.5mm plastic (I used 1mm card) and if you had a wheel from a Mississippi stern-wheeler, that might work well.  I reckoned that as these were widespread during the Napoleonic and 1848/49 Hungarian wars, Chris will get to use it quite often, so a little chunkiness and resilience in the wheel would not go amiss.

All in all a fun little model to build, it did not take long and was well received by Chris when handed over!

As ever, I hope this encourages yo to have a go at making your own terrain.

Building Wagons - 2 - Austrian Supply Wagons 2

 Here's some work-in-progress pictures of my three Austrian wagons, now they are painted & assembled.

Painting photos.  I glued them on a stick so I could paint them without touching them...

Here are the wagons and the wheels ready for assembly...

Here are the wagons assembled, they now need some horses, a pole at the front to attach the horses to, horse handler and basing.  Stay tuned...

Note that the spare wheel is angled down at 45 degrees.  The stowage is plasti-card offcuts to make boxes, with strip as little handles.  The ammo wagons were painted yellow, the mobile forge was either painted brown or was left natural wood (maybe clear varnished?).  

Here's a couple of stowage pictures.  A further option would be to drape a tarpaulin over the stowage (as you would not want your stuff getting wet!)...