From: Markus Stumptner Subject: [Consim-l] Ligny replay (Napoleon's Last Battles) Played the Napoleon's Last Battles Ligny scenario last Wednesday with Chris Harding using my variant rules. This was Chris' second session with the rules after a game on Quatre Bras a few weeks ago (where he managed to charge the French cavalry all the way into QB but the Brunswickers retook the place for a narrow Allied victory). We rolled for sides, he again ended up with the French. 14:00. Vandamme's III Corps attacks arond Wagnelee and the 6th Westphalian Landwehr retreats after a short fight. In the French rear, Milhaud's cavalry begins moving towards Balatre on the extreme Prussian left. In the centre nothing happens except the Prussian I Corps horse artillery getting the drop on the IV Corps artillery unit, disrupting it. 15:00 Gerard receives orders to attack... eastwards, towards Balatre and Boignee. III Corps turns towards St Amand de la Haye. The Guard is sifting north through Fleurus. 16:00 III Corps launches a major assault on St Amand de la Haye, each side takes serious losses (3 hits each), but the 4th Westphalian Landwehr retains its hold on the town. Napoleon tells Drouot to assault St Amand with the Guard. In the east, Milhaud's men have reached Balatre and attack it, but are repulsed easily; the Probe orders permit them to fall back. IV Corps attacks Boignee and pushes its the 8th Line regiment out behind the Ligny brook. Losses: P 5, F 4. 17:00 Gerard's troops pursue the 8th across the brook and rout its remnants, but lose a step when assaulting the 1st Kurland Landwehr and the 38th Line in in Boignee. Simultaneously, III Corps launches two massive assaults on the vicinity of of St Amand and St Amand de La Haye, routing most of the Prussian defenders of the latter while taking some losses. In the end, the French do not quite take the town and pull back to regroup. Likewise, the assault on St Amand is repulse,d but leaves the Prussians in some disorder that perfectly prepares them for the Guard, now approaching to the woods in the south. The Guard does not push the attack to the limit, but still eliminates the remainder of the 7th Line, for now most of the load of the defense is taken up by the I Corps horse artillery. (Interestingly enough, all of St Amand and St Amand de la Haye is still "legally" under Prussian control, since the French have not occpied it and it is still in a Prussian ZOC.) P 13, F 4. 18:00 III Corps, though damaged, is still not breaking off its attack. The Prussians have hurriedly reinforced St Amand (although with retrospect they could have been much faster, since it's clear that IV Corps, off near Balatre but so far assaulting it without much effect, won't bother Ligny for a long time. The Guard renews its attack on St Amand, almost encircling the town and finally taking it with the rout of another two Prussian regiments. On the eastern flank, the cavalry protects the flank of the Guards advance. The Prussian I Corps is demoralised, Prussian losses are now up to 34. With the loss of St Amand, the Prussian demoralisation limit has dropped to 46. 19:00 IV Corps finally takes Balatre; Prussian III Corps falls back to the area of Tongrinne. In the west, Napoleon takes personal command of the Guard as it prepares to cross the Ligny brook in the the face of the Prussian guns. He need not have worried, the Prussians are disorganised, their batteries not yet correctly sited and swept away without much resistance. (Prussians rolled a 4). Also, the Prussians have not moved their units out of the western part of St Amand de la Haye, which now block the rout of their own troops and cause an additional step loss. As a result, a regiment and the I Corps artillery unit (rated 9) disappear. Prussian losses reach their current demoralisation limit of 46, and the scenario ends. In retrospect, Prussian response after Napoleon sent IV Corps east was probably too feeble - the orders for II Corps would have enabled significantly more troops to shore up the St Amand defense. At the least it would have enabled the Prussians to dilute the French attacks and cause more losses on the initial Guard attacks and might have reduced Prussian losses sufficiently to help them hold out till nightfall. Finally, the severe tactical error that cost the Prussians a the big I Corps artillery on the 1900 turn could have been avoided, and that would have implied at least another turn of fighting. Total playing time, 70 minutes. Rematch planned for Wednesday. Markus Last 3 games played: The Chaco War, Red Parachutes, Ligny (NLC) --------------- http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/user/mst/games/ --------------- "Quel massacre, et sans resultat" - Ney riding over the battlefield of Eylau _______________________________________________ Consim-l mailing list Consim-l@mailman.halisp.net http://mailman.halisp.net/mailman/listinfo/consim-l