Why play a whole big battle at all?

Podcasts, podcasts, podcasts ... this reflection was prompted by Jared Fishman interviewing me on his "20 Sided Gamified" podcast, which is up to an impressive 69 episodes already, including many extremely eminent guests from different areas of our hobby. After episode 68, Jared was running out of people to invite, so he kindly asked me along 😉, together with longtime BBB player and scenario designer Vincent Tsao, to enthuse about the "Bloody Big BATTLES!" ruleset. (This was my third time on air, following outings on Scott van Roekel's "Shot & Shield" and Sean Clark's "God's Own Scale".)

I told Jared and his listeners the reason we created BBB - namely, so that a few of us could fight entire 19th-century battles on a normal 6'x4' tabletop on a regular Monday evening club night at Oxford Wargames Society. 

I subsequently realised there is a meta-question that merits answering. It's one I hinted at during the podcast but that really deserves fuller discussion. It's also a question implied a few months ago by a podcast I haven't been on but have often enjoyed listening to: Ken Reilly's "Yarkshire Gamer's Reet Big Wargames Podcast". In one of his "Brews in the Binyard" episodes, Ken was chatting with Sean and another gamer and the topic of my GOS interview with Sean came up. (Incestuous business, podcasts ...) Ken said something like, "As soon as Chris Pringle said it was all about fighting a whole battle on 6'x4' in an evening, he lost me!"

The meta-question in question is this: why should we want to fight such battles in their entirety in this way at all? Hence I am elevating it to full "Reflections on Wargaming" status with this post.

Let's start by asking ourselves what the aim behind any game might be. In a previous Reflections essay I discussed three dimensions wargames try to satisfy in varying degrees:

- exploring military history;

- providing entertaining game mechanics;

- and generating a competitive contest.

I submit that BBB does relatively well on all three counts. Long before BBB, the biggest game I ever played in was when the whole club deployed all our Napoleonic collections for a single battle. It was literally played on a basketball court. There were probably 20 players, with CinCs sending written orders by courier, and it took all weekend. What did I get out of it? As an easily-pleased teenage wargamer, I was happy to push around my little brigade and engage in inconsequential skirmishing for hours. But:

- I had no idea what the bigger picture was, the point of the battle, what crucial decisions were taken when or by who and how they worked out. Hence, it failed as an exploration of military history (at least, I didn't learn any from it);

- the game mechanics were fine, but I might as well have played a simple brigade-sized battle and had just as much fun in a fraction of the time. I'd call that inefficient;

- I had no idea who won and I'm not sure we actually finished it, so perhaps it wasn't great as a dramatic contest either.

Of course, not every 'big game' will be like that. With clear briefings, tight management, pauses to take a step back and appreciate the wider situation, and post-battle summings-up, players can get more of a sense of the big picture and how their small part contributes to it. Still, I maintain that the BBB format of playing a whole big battle in an evening has significant advantages, including:

- You get a 'big picture' appreciation of a historical battle that is impossible to obtain by fighting it in fractions or where each player is only involved with one small corner of a huge multi-player game;

- You get to make major, substantial game decisions such as shifting whole corps from one sector to another, rather than pushing around individual battalions and doing tiny tactical stuff. It has the right granularity for the size of the battle and lets you see the wood, not just the trees. (See my Reflection on getting the right granularity in games.)

- You get to finish the game! Even with a whole day, too many monster games finish up with "in the end, we ran out of time, so we called it ..." (see my Reflection on that phenomenon here.)

- Not only does the game finish, a BBB battle most often ends with an exciting climactic turn in which two or three objectives are in play, all three results are still possible (win-draw-lose) and it comes down to the last few rolls of the dice.

- As you only need a 6'x4' table, three or four other players at most (indeed, one would do), and three or four hours, it is far easier to organise and fit in than a grand weekend event. I'd rather have a BBB game every week than six mega-games a year.

- If you do have a whole weekend for gaming, you can fight several BBB battles in the time it takes for one mega-game and get to make a lot more significant decisions in the same time. (We once fought a whole 9-battle Franco-Prussian War campaign in a three-day weekend.)

- Huge games need huge armies. BBB forces are modest enough that it relatively easy to buy, build, transport and store multiple armies for multiple wars, which is good for varying the gaming diet.

I'm going to finish by reporting some recent comments by Jim Owczarski of the Armchair Dragoons that support what I've said above. Jim regularly runs online wargames through Tabletop Simulator, using many different rulesets for many different wars. For instance, last year I believe his group did a comparison exercise, fighting Quatre Bras eight times with different rules. The publication of "Napoleon's Bloody Big Battles!" has really enthused Jim and his merry grognards. He says that after a couple of games "the consensus of the Dragoons is that they want to play ALL the BBB Napoleonic scenarios". In particular, before playing Bautzen, he said "The battle of Bautzen was a strange, sprawling affair. Curious to see how BBB makes sense of it. Not too many miniatures rules have." After the game, his verdict: "it's the best treatment of Bautzen I've played on the tabletop". That seems a good point to rest my case.

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Update 25 August 2024

Well, that was a popular post! It generated a lot of feedback on TMP, LAF and TWW. These 70+ replies caused me to reflect on my reflection. Let me add the result of that reflection here:

A big thank you to everyone who responded. I appreciate all your comments (including the critical and dismissive ones – I care about your opinions too). Judging by the quantity and quality of replies, it was evidently a worthwhile question.

As far as the charge of shameless self-promotion/advertising is concerned: guilty as charged, sorry – can I make a plea in mitigation? It genuinely wasn't my original prime intention, but I struggled a bit to structure the essay, was under time pressure, then saw Jim Owczarski's remarks, got over-excited and lapsed into stream-of-consciousness anecdotes and enthusing. There is a better essay to be written on this question that actually answers it properly, perhaps enumerating types of battle and game, listing what features each provides to players, addressing limitations and practicalities …

Nevertheless, I feel my decision to just publish and be damned is partially vindicated by the wealth of ideas in all your great comments. I hoped and expected that the resulting discussion would be better than what I'd bashed out in haste, and you didn't let me down. I hope you'll forgive me if I don't reply in great detail to the multitude of points in 50+ posts. I have just a few remarks to make now:

First: I should have made a clear distinction between big battle and big game – these are not necessarily the same thing! Small games of big battles are possible, as are big games of small battles, etc.

Second: I'll readily acknowledge BBB's limitations (e.g., the lack of fog of war, albeit the activation mechanism introduces enough uncertainty to compensate for that to some degree). Other ways of fighting big battles are possible and other rules are available. All have their merits and which is the right tool for the job depends on the job and the craftsman.

Third and finally: absolutely no disparagement of anybody else's fun was intended. Tournament games, skirmishes, monster marathons on basketball courts – it's all good and all part of our rich hobby. I ain't telling anyone else how to play toy soldiers. Have fun your way! Happy gaming!

Turning flanks at Fraustadt (GNW, 1706)

I have had my second taste of the Great Northern War (regular readers will remember the first was at Kliszów) and a very characterful and indeed illuminating game it was: Fraustadt (1706). 

The background is that Russia has joined the war on the Saxon-Polish side. The allies are trying to concentrate their forces. A Swedish force under General Rehnskiöld intercepts Schulenburg's allied force near Fraustadt (now Wschowa in western Poland) before it can unite with other allied armies. Despite being outnumbered two to one and facing a line of chevaux de frise, the Swedes attack. Historically, Rehnskiöld's superior cavalry enabled him to accomplish a double envelopment and then crush the allied line from three directions.

Our Swedish opponents, Matt and Crispin, were less ambitious. They went for a mirror image of the 'Swedish Leuthen' plan that worked so well in our Kliszów game. The eight annotated pics below tell the story, followed by some reflections.

I commanded the allied left, backed up by John's Russians in the centre. Here we see guns behind chevaux de frise, massed infantry behind the objective village of Röhrsdorf, and cavalry on our left wing.

Dave W commanded our right, anchored on the objective village of Geyersdorf. The whole of the allied centre was protected by chevaux de frise and frozen ponds and a stream ... which the Swedes, not unreasonably, chose to sidestep entirely, committing all their foot and most of their horse to a powerful right hook.

This view of the whole battlefield from behind the allied line clearly reveals the Swedes' intent. The weight of the Swedish army is on its start line top left (Swedish troops are the ones on green bases). Just three Swedish cavalry regiments loiter in the centre to delay any allied countermove.

The formidable Swedish attack force - plenty of pikes and 'Gå på!'.

Undaunted, our allied infantry wheeled efficiently into position either side of Röhrsdorf to face the foe's pell-mell advance. Unfortunately, while their drill may have been sound enough, our troops' fighting qualities were not - which more than offset our numerical advantage.

A mighty clash was quick to arrive. We repelled the first onslaught. Counting ourselves lucky and knowing we would have no better opportunity, we launched our left wing infantry into a massed countercharge. This actually hurled back one Swedish infantry unit (top centre) with heavy casualties. Of course, then the Swedes in turn renewed their assault with redoubled fury. As the waggon and barrel and aides-de-camp denote, our infantry were by now disrupted and low on ammo, so they were smashed back, as were our feeble horse, resulting in the scene below ...

The Swedes have stormed Röhrsdorf and command the road beyond it (a line of communications objective). They are poised to exploit their advantage, roll up our line, and take Geyersdorf and our second line of communications from behind. Top left of pic, the allied right wing has advanced out of Geyersdorf and across the chevaux de frise with the aim of rolling up the Swedish left and retaking Röhrsdorf, but with poor allied generals it is slow work. Who will roll up who first?

And the answer is: the Swedes nearly managed it but ran out of time before we ran out of troops. This plan view shows how the battle line has pivoted 90 degrees. The allies started in a line across the centre of pic, below the chevaux de frise and the stream/pond line. Our right has swung round as far as the Y junction top left, but is still too far away to threaten Röhrsdorf. Our left has been driven back most of the way across the battlefield and almost disintegrated, but one valiant Russian brigade (near lower right edge) prevents the Swedish horse from cutting the road behind Geyersdorf (out of pic, lower right). End result: a draw.

Reflections:

The attack is king! (See my earlier post on why defence is not king.) In this period of linear warfare, being able to choose the point of attack is a valuable advantage, as it is so difficult for the defender to respond by maneuver, and weapon ranges are short. Even though the Swedish plan was obvious from the start, it took forever for Dave's troops to get across from our right wing to help our left.

Options, options ... Halfway through the game I commented that I didn't see what else we allies could have done: we had to defend both villages to have a chance of victory; we had a central reserve and it wasn't enough. However, on reflection, we could have made the garrisons smaller and the central reserve stronger. Perhaps our right wing cavalry could have raced directly across behind our lines, rather than trying to fight its way through the enemy's pinning force. Our guns could have deployed differently too. We can always do better!

Victory conditions - more objectives needed? There were four objectives (two villages plus the LOC roads behind them). Both sides needed two for a draw or three to win. I think making the big pond in the middle a fifth objective and upping the Swedish victory target could be good. That would represent breaching the allied centre.

Linear warfare can be fun. I routinely mount my hobby horse with a freshly ground axe to condemn pre-Napoleonic warfare as limited and dull in terms of its gaming potential. I might cynically say that last pic looked just like every ancients or renaissance tournament game ever played at OWS: the battleline wheels clockwise or it wheels anti-clockwise and that's about it ... but actually it was thoroughly absorbing and there were enough interesting decisions to make. When and where to counterattack? How to reform our line after each Swedish assault? How to insure against Swedish breakthroughs? OK, I admit it - I had fun.

NBBB is published!

What better day than the anniversary of Waterloo to announce the publication of the long-awaited and eagerly anticipated "Napoleon's Bloody Big Battles!" scenario book to accompany the "Bloody Big BATTLES!" ruleset! 

"Napoleon's Bloody Big Battles!" is written by Dr Mark Smith (who also wrote the "Bloody Big Battles in INDIA!" scenario book). The 16 scenarios in NBBB cover the biggest battles where Napoleon commanded in person after becoming Emperor:

The Wars of the Third and Fourth Coalitions (1805-1807) – 4-scenario mini-campaign
          Austerlitz                                     
          Jena/Auerstedt                             
          Eylau                                           
          Friedland                                     
The War of the Fifth Coalition (1809) – 3-scenario mini-campaign
          Eckmühl                                      
          Aspern-Essling                             
          Wagram                                       
Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia (1812) – 2-scenario mini-campaign
          Borodino                                      
          Berezina                                      
The War of the Sixth Coalition (1813) – 5-scenario mini-campaign
          Lützen                                         
          Bautzen                                      
          Dresden                                      
          Leipzig                                         
          Hanau                                          
The Final Battles (1814 & 1815) – 2 stand-alone scenarios
          La Rothière                                  
          Waterloo

The hyperlinks above take you to reports of some of these games being played over the five years or so this project has taken to complete. As those reports show and as I can attest, small-scale figures on a regular 6'x4' table can still produce an epic experience and a grand Napoleonic game. In connection with that, let me quote 'Shugyosha' of the 'Wargaming Everything' blog, who has embarked on an ambitious endeavour: 'The Ultimate Napoleonic Wargame Rules Review and Comparison'. He had some very nice things to say about BBB:

"When thinking of the biggest battles of the era, [...] BBB makes it actually possible in a manageable time frame. [...] Among all true army level systems it is probably the best middle ground between playability and period flavor. This might sound like a compromise, but it is not. BBB stands on its own, and for me among the very top.!

NBBB is printed and shipments are en route to BBB's usual loyal retailers right now. I should like to take this opportunity to thank them for their support - between them all, they have bought out the whole first printrun already! I'm sure their confidence will be rewarded.

Happy Napoleonic gaming!

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Update 8 July 2024: first full review of NBBB is a nice enthusiastic one on the "Wargaming from the Balcony" blog. Manteuffel's verdict: "For BBB enthusiasts with an eye on the Napoleonic period, this is a must buy."

            

Defence is not king! Lule Burgas (1912)

A friend of mine writes school textbooks. A few years ago he did one in war and society for the UK history curriculum. I reviewed the chapter on 1750-1914 for him. I thought I was doing him a favour but in fact I caused him a problem. I found two bones of contention in it.

One was the claim that war did not change significantly between 1750 and 1850. Napoleon and Clausewitz might disagree with that.

The other debatable claim was this (I paraphrase): 'the foolish WW1 generals had not learned the lesson of the previous 50 years that, because modern weapons had become so lethal, the defence was king'. I pointed out that (a) the attacker gets to shoot too and (b) the lesson from virtually every war of the previous 50 years was that the attacker wins. The Crimea; Italy in 1859; Denmark in 1864; the ACW; the Austro-Prussian War; the Franco-Prussian War; the Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars, with the latter two being proto-WW1 warfare with WW1 weapons: the attacker wins, the attacker wins, the attacker wins. The difficulty for Paul was that the debatable claim was not his, but he was required to make it because it was actually in the curriculum ...

Which brings us to this week's wargame: Lule Burgas (1912), the fourth in our ongoing campaign from the "Bloody Big Balkan Battles!" scenario book. This was the largest European battle between 1870 and 1914. The attacker won.

The historical situation was that, just four days earlier, the Bulgarians had defeated the Ottomans at Kirkkilise. The battered Ottoman army established a new defensive line at Lule Burgas, but its right flank was open. Ottoman reserves were rushed up to fill the gap and clashed with the Bulgarian 3rd Army, while the Bulgarian 1st Army took Lule Burgas. After a three-day battle, the Ottoman defense caved in and retreated to the fortified lines at Chataldja.

The scenario revolves around four objectives: Lule Burgas itself on the Turkish left; Karagac in the centre; Bunarhisar on the right; and Congara in the rear. Both sides need to hold two of these to draw or three to win. The five annotated photos that follow reveal how the game went.

Looking north up the Turkish lines. Lots of lovely muddy brown rivers, custom-made for me by Rob Owens of Rob's Scenics. A cavalry brigade foot of pic covers the Turkish left. IV Corps is entrenched behind Lule Burgas (the town with the marsh in front of it); I Cps holds the centre; II Cps in the woods. III Cps and XVII & XVIII Provisional Cps are poised to enter top right. Red and white counters mark the four objectives. (Turkish figures are a mix of Irregular Miniatures and Heroics & Ros 6mm.)

View of the same Turkish deployment from the Bulgarian side of the table. The scenario uses a large scale - this 6'x4' table represents a 60km front; it lasts 9 turns with two night intervals, each turn being 6 hours; the armies are both over 100,000 men, so each individual base is 2,000-2,500 men and units are brigades of 6,000-10,000 men. Because of the large scale, there is a simple scenario special rule that fire cannot cross more than one river. This worked rather well.

Halfway through the battle, the Turkish left has been turned. Will, commanding Bulgarian 1st Army, chose to send the Sborna Division south of the River Ergene to outflank the Turkish trenches, while the Sofiyska Div threatened the front. Day 1 was spent moving into position and exchanging inconclusive fire with the defenders in Lule Burgas. This photo on Day 2 shows empty trenches as the Turkish units in them and the town have been routed, leaving Abdullah Pasha alone, embarrassed, and hoping John's finger can bring reserves from the centre in time. (Proxies of proxies: the 'Bulgarians' are actually my Greek army for this conflict, which uses British WW1 figures from Irregular. I'll need a different solution for the 2nd Balkan War battles between Bulgarians and Greeks! Entrenchments and railway also by Irregular.)

Meanwhile, the thin line of Nick's Bulgarian 3rd Army clashes with Dave's Turkish reinforcements in the woods. Bulgarian cavalry hold the Bunahisar objective (foreground); Turks hold Congara (top centre) and Karagac (top right). On Day 1, the wide open space in front of Karagac was a scene of carnage as the Bulgarians advanced into a deadly storm of fire, the survivors falling back at dusk and then shifting their effort further left. At that point, Nick was struggling to see how he could possibly avoid defeat.

The game produced a wonderful climax on the last turn. Both sides held two objectives, which would have meant it was a draw. However, in attempting to capture Bunahisar on their right and to hold and then retake Lule Burgas on their left, the Turks had drawn forces away from their centre, exposing Karagac. Two brigades of the Balkanska and Sofiyska divisions were close enough to assault Karagac, which was held by two Turkish brigades. Bulgarian fire had scrubbed away would-be supporting units and Bulgarian QF artillery wiped out one defending brigade. Both attacking units got the full moves they needed to reach, albeit one of them still in march column. Defensive fire held off the Sofiyska, but the Balkanska assaulted from the march - and emerged victorious! It was a splendid end to a game that at one stage had looked nigh impossible for the Bulgarians.

Reflections:

Blenheim in the Balkans. The battle had a nice shape to it: initial fencing along the front, a turning movement on the Turkish left, then essentially a big fight on each flank that made the Turks thin out their centre and make it vulnerable to the victory blow. Kudos to Will for having the vision four turns earlier to get his Balkanska brigade into march column and race it across the battlefield to where it was needed.

Other plans are possible. As is usually the way, I can see other options for both sides. The Turks could deploy differently with more attention to their left flank and to fields of fire. The Bulgarians could try what seemed an obvious approach at first glance: weight their attack heavily to the left, avoiding most of the dug-in Turks and going for the three village objectives rather than the tougher town. Certainly worth replaying to see how it goes with different plans and different players.

Limiting LOS. I noted in the Kirkkilise report how that similarly large-scale scenario might benefit from some line of sight limit. The scenario special rule here did the job.

Quality tells! All the Bulgarians were rated Aggressive. Most of the Turks were Fragile. On Day 1, while they were mowing down advancing Bulgars, the Turks had the best of it. Once the Bulgarians developed their own firing lines and set up their artillery and started dishing some out, Turkish units evaporated rapidly. And, of course, the quality difference swung it in the final assault.

Nice terrain. Rob Owens's rivers had their second serious outing (their first having been at Kirkkilise). Definitely an improvement on the usual blue felt. Now to attend to the roads, and then the woods ...

What a good game! I embarked on this one with some trepidation. Assaulting against an entrenched enemy with equal numbers of troops and modern weapons? It didn't look too promising. But the space for manoeuvre on both flanks actually enabled a mobile game, and it was a bold dash in the centre that decided it at the end. The shift in fortunes and the epic climax meant the game really told a story.

Thank you to Nick, Will, Dave and John for being engaged and enthusiastic and tackling the challenge in good spirits, and to Konstantinos for a fine scenario.

An Unabashed Success! BBB Bash Day V

On 19 May 2024, some 25+ likeminded souls gathered in Daventry UK to share the love for big nineteenth-century battles. Yes! It was the fifth "Bloody Big Battles!" convention, "Bash Day V".

The first three were held at the home of the Oxford Wargames Society, Wolvercote village hall. Last year, Bash Day headed north for the first time to Leeds. (Report here.) This time, we found an accessible Midlands location in the excellent Battlefield Hobbies wargames store.

Because it is entirely about participation, Bash Day takes quite a lot of administrative effort to ensure we have the right number of games for the number of players expected, and then to assign players to the games they want to play. Mark J did a tremendous job of organising all this, liaising with the venue, keeping gamemasters and players informed at every stage, and adapting when (inevitably) one GM and a couple of players dropped out. In the end, it worked out virtually perfectly: all the games had a suitable number of players and everyone got their two games in (one in the morning, one in the afternoon).

The games were all 19th-century actions from a variety of conflicts:

Hanau (1813), from the forthcoming "Napoleon's Bloody Big BATTLES!" scenario book;

Mudki (1845), from the "Bloody Big Battles in INDIA!" scenario book;

The Alma and Balaclava (1854) (beautiful Crimean War games by Matt Bradley of "Pushing Tin" blog fame);

Brandy Station (1863), largest cavalry battle of the ACW;

Mars-la-Tour (1870), one of the biggest battles of the "imperial phase" of the Franco-Prussian War, a scenario from the BBB rulebook;

Champigny/Villiers (1870), when >50,000 men sortied from Paris during the "republican phase" of the Franco-Prussian War, complete with forts, railway guns and a river gunboat;

Isandlwana (1879), the Zulu War game in 28mm that was so popular at the Colours show so popular at the Colours show last year.

Mustering the troops! Set-up phase, circa 9am. Clockwise from foreground: Brandy Station; Isandlwana; Balaclava; the Alma (top left); Mudki (with players); Mars-la-Tour; Champigny/Villiers (top right); Hanau (centre). Photo courtesy of Mark Jarvis.

These games nicely illustrate how BBB can cope equally well with small actions of a few thousand, like Isandlwana, and with massive battles with 100,000+ men on the field, and can still resolve them in an afternoon. The scales on display varied as well, with 6mm, 10mm and 28mm forces in action. Lots of fine craftsmanship was on show: beautiful armies, gorgeous terrain, not to mention cleverly designed scenarios to create nail-biting finishes.

A bleak, wintry scene outside Paris in 1870. Dense columns of French national guards file out between the Paris forts to attack the German siege lines around Champigny and Villiers. Battlemat and armies from Crispin's collection. The forts are mine, from Peter Pig's ACW riverine range. Nowadays these forts are surrounded by urban Paris, of course. I believe one of them is the headquarters of the Foreign Legion; another hosts a wargames club - must visit some time! Photo courtesy of Mark Jarvis.

The players were a varied and high-calibre lot as well. I have sat across the wargame table from a few numpties in my time, but there were none such here. The clientele that BBB attracts seem universally to be nice smart folks who approach the game in a spirit of historical inquiry and good fellowship. Consequently we had a great crowd. Some were veterans of previous Bash Days; others were experienced BBB players attending for the first time; and then there were the totally new recruits who'd never even played BBB before. Some I had met before in person, others I knew 'virtually' from chatting on wargames forums. We doubled our previous record for female gamers attending (nice to see you, Sarah H and Sarah J!) and the teenage generation was present as well (well played, Will!). Special honourable mention goes to our US participant, Jeff, who arranged his UK holiday so that he could join us in Daventry. It was great to meet so many good people and kindred spirits. Half of us went for a post-battle curry - a precious tradition, as it is always nice to have a social as well as the dice-rolling.

Huge thanks to everyone who made this fantastic day possible: to Battlefield Hobbies for hosting; to the gamemasters for laying on such great games; to all the players, some of whom travelled a long way, for making the trek and for participating in such excellent spirit; and especially to Mark J for all his hard work to make it happen and running it so smoothly.

Before we'd even finished our curry, the guys were already talking about planning the next Bash Day. Date, venue and format to be confirmed, but rest assured it will happen. Bash On!

Dave's Franco-Prussian birthday party

 Dave Whaley is the soul of BBB. It was he who started the whole BBB journey back in 2009 with "Chris, I'd like to do some Franco-Prussian War games".

Fifteen years on and Dave and I are both a bit older and we have indeed done some FPW games. Last weekend he hosted a birthday party with half a dozen of us. We celebrated his birthday in suitable style with two FPW games from the BBB rulebook, one for the imperial phase of the war (Froeschwiller) and one for the republican phase (Loigny/Poupry), punctuated by a non-FPW-themed curry. Herewith a few captioned photos from the games, then reflections as usual.

French in their "position magnifique" await the German onslaught. The bastion of Froeschwiller itself left edge of pic, facing Woerth at the top. An outpost in Elsasshausen (centre of pic) is backed up by Pelle's 2nd Division of MacMahon's 1st Corps. Figures are 10mm Pendraken from Dave's collection.

View looking south. From the left, Germans of Von Kirchbach's V Korps advance around Woerth. Facing them, the French line the heights in front of Froeschwiller and beyond. Bottom right, the Bavarian 7th Brigade files through Langensulzbach to work its way around the French left flank.

Virgin soldiers! Dave didn't have enough Germans, so his were reinforced by Phil's newly painted troops (the ones with the green tufty bases), being blooded in their first ever on-table outing. Lovely work!

Ably commanded by Crispin, the Bavarians had a good war. Here we see both brigades of the Bavarian 4th Division, having smashed through the zouaves of the French 2nd Bde of 1st Div, catch a brigade of 7th Corps in column of march before it can deploy. This was hurled back and eventually wiped out.

Things didn't go so well for me and Phil on the German centre and left. The German gun line plays a crucial role in this battle. I made the mistake of deploying my guns immediately, which meant they were too far back to be truly effective, so I had to limber them up again and redeploy further forward. That cost us a couple of turns when they should have been firing. That plus some duff rolls when they did fire meant we didn't blast away the French quickly enough. Nevertheless, we still stormed Froeschwiller in time to earn the bonus point for taking it early. But we'd therefore had to leave ourselves a bit weak (and been a bit unlucky) on our left, where Mark's audacious Turcos actually sortied across the River Sauer to deny us a victory point there. This is a scenario where casualties matter as well, so we were trying to kill off French units. The above pic shows a sadly diminished 2-base unit, outnumbered by Germans to its front and enfiladed by Bavarians who've just captured Froeschwiller. The French should have been dead meat. Phil's pink dice for this last roll of the game sum up his day.

Congratulations to Mark and Matt on their victory. We could have beaten them, if only we'd been smarter and luckier. Many real generals could say the same.

On to Loigny, then! Exchanging the poorly commanded but excellent troops of the empire for the better-led raw levies of the republic. This pic shows the massed French forces before we deployed them. Again, Dave's 10mm Pendraken.

View of the eastern half of the table (the French right). I took the part of the French C-in-C, d'Aurelle de Paladines, seen here with 15th Corps as it arrives from the SE corner of the battlefield halfway through the game. Poupry, with its white objective counter, is the village upper centre. From the top right, Hessians and Holsteiners race towards Poupry and the town of Artenay (right edge) - not an objective, but a good place to harass the French from.

Meanwhile, Matt on the French left, as Chanzy commanding 16th Corps, had been doing a great job. He killed off a Bavarian advance guard brigade on day 1 and maintained that advantage on day 2. Here we are looking west across the western half of the battlefield. Chanzy's troops have arrived from left edge of pic and worked their way around the Bavarian right: the troops in the wood to the left and the three groups on the far hill are all French. The beleaguered Bavarians have formed a crochet around Loigny (lower right), where their artillery is losing the firefight. Despite a bold counterattack in the centre by one of Mark's German brigades (out of pic, below bottom edge), Matt's well-handled advance was inexorable and the Bavarians were driven out of Loigny - one objective taken by the French. (Incidentally, in reality the high ground is much less pronounced than these polystyrene cliffs suggest and the gentle slopes are very gentle. See my report of my battlefield tour here.)

And on the right, I managed to get a toehold in Poupry before the Germans could get there, and they never managed to winkle me out. Here we see the Foreign Legion fending off green-jacketed German jaegers. As the French held two of the three objectives, that made it a French win. Hurrah!

Reflections:

There are your guns! As I've remarked before, in 19th-century battles putting your guns in the right place is often critical. My early miscalculation cost us at Froeschwiller.

The scenario option worked. For Froeschwiller, Dave used the scenario option that adds an objective: the Germans have to prevent the French from advancing across the Sauer. This added spice to the last couple of turns as Mark's Turcos tried (with eventual success) to dance around Crispin's left flank.

Same scenario, very different games. Loigny is one of our most-played scenarios. It's easy to set up and there's plenty of movement. Its last outing was in December - report here. That was very different, as both sides converged on the Lumeau objective in the centre, whereas this time all the action was on the flanks. It's a great example of the replay value of historical scenarios that let players explore different plans to see how battles could have gone differently.

I do like 10mm. I'm a committed 6mm adherent as I have built up so many 6mm armies over the decades that it would be a massive task to start again in 10mm. However, I'm very happy to play with Dave's and Phil's 10mm armies. At that scale, you still get the mass effect so the game looks a bit like a battle rather than "a few blokes taking a flag for a walk". But it is also easier to distinguish the uniforms and tell the units apart. Another reason I went with 6mm years ago was that I wanted armies for which figures didn't exist and it was easy to proxy 6mm with a paint job. Nowadays that's no longer such a problem as there's much more choice of figures (and you can still do a lot to 10mm with a paint job). Recommended.

Happy Birthday Dave! It was a great day and a great way to celebrate a good man's birthday. The good news is, the man himself had such a good time, he's already planning a repeat for next year!

Just for fun: an AI review of BBB

Just as a bit of fun, I asked an AI tool:

"What do players like or dislike about the "Bloody Big Battles!" wargames ruleset?"

The AI wargamer. Not to be confused with General Fred C. "AI"nsworth.

Here's what the AI had to say about BBB:

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While opinions can vary, here are some common likes and dislikes that players have expressed regarding the “Bloody Big Battles!” wargame ruleset:

Likes:

1. Historical Accuracy:

   Many players appreciate that BBB focuses on large-scale historical battles. The scenarios provided allow them to recreate famous engagements with a degree of accuracy.

2. Epic Scale:

   The ruleset captures the grandeur of massive battles. Players enjoy commanding large armies, maneuvering divisions, and witnessing sweeping movements across the tabletop.

3. Scenario Variety:

   BBB offers a range of scenarios, from the American Civil War to European conflicts. This variety keeps gameplay fresh and allows players to explore different historical periods.

4. Playability:

   Despite the large scale, BBB strives for simplicity. Players appreciate that the rules are easy to learn and don’t bog down the game with excessive complexity.

5. Generals and Command:

   The inclusion of generals and their impact on command and control adds depth. Players must make strategic decisions based on their leaders’ abilities.

Dislikes:

1. Lack of Detail:

   Some players find BBB too abstract for their taste. It sacrifices intricate details for the sake of playability, which can disappoint those seeking a more realistic simulation.

2. Command System Complexity:

   While generals enhance gameplay, the command system can be confusing. Players may struggle to grasp the nuances of command ratings and their effects.

3. Limited Tactical Depth:

   BBB prioritizes the big picture, but some players miss the tactical intricacies found in other rulesets. Detailed unit interactions and terrain effects are less pronounced.

4. Balance Challenges:

   Achieving balanced scenarios can be tricky. Historical battles often had inherent imbalances, and translating them into a fair tabletop experience can be a delicate task.

5. Unit Basing and Movement:

   The 1" base representing 1,500 men can lead to odd formations. Some players dislike the lack of flexibility in unit placement due to fixed base sizes.

Remember that preferences vary, and what one player dislikes, another may enjoy. Ultimately, it’s essential to find a ruleset that aligns with your gaming group’s interests and playstyle . 🎲👍

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On the "Likes": 1 to 4 seem spot on. Not sure about #5, players having to make strategic decisions "based on their leaders' abilities". Must be confusing BBB with some other game there.

On the "Dislikes": 1, 3 and 4 all have some truth to them. I'd question #2: the command system is pretty simple and clear, isn't it? And #5 is surely confused - BBB is more flexible about representing formations than rulesets that use a single base per unit, if that's the AI's point.

(Can't fault its summary remarks, though - for regular good gaming, you really need likeminded players.)

All in all, it makes me suspect the AI hasn't actually played the game. What do you reckon? I guess it must have read a few of the other posts on this BBBBlog ... Should I see if I can get it down to the club next Monday?

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For collected reviews of BBB of the old-fashioned kind by analog humans, see here.