Another week, another wargame, another finely crafted, lovingly edited blog post ... our battlefield this time is Ocaña (1809), which I believe features the largest Spanish army of the entire Peninsular War.
After his victory at Talavera, Wellington withdrew into Portugal. Nevertheless, even without his support, the Spanish junta decided to launch three Spanish armies to converge on Madrid. The largest of these was that approaching from the south under Juan Carlos de Aréizaga. Unfortunately, he dithered and gave the French time to concentrate against him. Aréizaga decided to defend the line of the gorge in front of Ocaña, but left his right hanging in the air. The French were outnumbered 3:2 but had a much better quality army. King Joseph and his chief of staff, Marshal Soult, attacked by pinning the Spanish frontally while launching a strong left hook against the open Spanish right. The Spanish line was rolled up and Aréizaga's army disintegrated.
Our game didn't quite follow the script. See how it went in the dozen pictures below (almost all taken from the Spanish point of view, as I was commanding the Spanish right). Some reflections follow at the end.
Dave W commanded the Spanish left, tasked with holding Ocaña (the town with two white Objective counters on it). The buildings at San Francisco (top left) and San Isidore (centre right) are also Objectives. So are the two road exits off the bottom edge of the pic - the Spanish lines of retreat.
The dark grey strips in front of Ocaña mark the very steep slopes of the gorge; the brown strips are where it gets shallower and gentler. Hard to tell, but the light stripe running along the centre of the gorge is a stream; the other light strips are roads. The 'wood' lower right is actually very open, no obstacle to movement or fire, just blocks LOS.
Units with one flag are Trained; those with none are Raw militia. (Only the French get 2-flag Veteran units.) Pink cubes denote Fragile; red show that artillery units are of Reduced strength. The best troops on our side are in Zayas's division, the two leftmost brigades in this pic, unfortunately fixed in place until Turn 3.
And here we see my right wing, hanging in the air as described above. A lot of troops but a lot of rubbish. My Fragile cavalry covering the flank are hugely inferior to the French cavalry (top right) who are rated Shock or Aggressive. At least we have a hill Objective, 'El Navajo', to fall back on and defend.
Crispin, commanding the French right, immediately stole a march and had a brigade leap into Ocaña, undeterred by feeble Spanish fire. (The yellow cube shows the French suffered some Disruption, but not enough to stop them.) He also deployed a grand battery on the hill facing Ocaña (top of pic) to hinder any counterattack by Dave.
Mark, acting as Marshal Soult, points his deadly baton at my isolated 1st Division under General Lacy, which my cavalry (now bottom right) promptly deserted as soon as the French horse approached. Four French brigades march on, top left. Actually, one of these comprised Polish troops and another Germans. For some reason, these two units failed to cooperate all game ...
Dave's first attempt at responding to the French incursion into Ocaña is rebuffed with heavy casualties - the formerly large Spanish unit just to the right of the town is now much smaller, Disrupted and Spent (blue counter). The grand battery briefly ran short of ammo.
Matters develop briskly on the Spanish right, with huge swings of fortune. The French cavalry works its way around the flank to get behind the Spanish line (top right). However, the first French infantry assault against Lacy's troops suffers an unexpected and bloody repulse (a 6:1 die roll), which dislocates the French attack and leaves the French cavalry fighting a separate battle for the rest of the game.
Another swing of fortune, this time on our left. Having taken heavy punishment last turn, Dave dishes some out: a Spent French brigade is driven back from Ocaña (top right). Can the now isolated French unit in the town hang on?
Looking inward from the extreme right end of the Spanish line, where Lacy is poised to fall on an exposed French flank, now that the French cavalry is focusing on our defensive position on the El Navajo hill (next pic).
And here's a French cavalryman's-eye view. The French are in some disarray, having finally caught up with the Spanish cavalry and driven them back but (embarrassingly) failed to destroy them. (Green cube = Aggressive; purple counter = Shock.) El Navajo is strongly garrisoned but about to be assailed from two directions: cavalry from its right, infantry against its front.
Patient stuff around Ocaña. Dave is trying to organise his forces for a massed assault; Crispin is frantically trying to persuade King Joseph's royal guard to reinforce his foothold in the town. The 1-base cavalry unit made it briefly and can be seen in the middle of Ocaña, about to be mown down by musketry from its flank.
The French combined assault on El Navajo has been thwarted: the Frenchcavalry were repelled with loss; the French infantry actually made it to the top and effectively destroyed a Spanish infantry unit, but a Spanish counterattack drove them off again.
Meanwhile, bottom right, I'd cautiously pulled back a brigade to guard the road exits, but now felt emboldened to push it forward again.
This emboldened Mark in turn to launch all his cavalry against said brigade. One cavalry unit duly charged - but the other rolled snake-eyes and stalled! (We joked that they were bidding for promotion to Joseph's similarly disinclined royal guard.) Result: the heavily outnumbered cavalry unit was wiped out. However, when the infantry tried to rally from the resulting Disruption, being Fragile they failed so badly they lost a base, became Spent, and fell back 12" to guard the escape route again. (At which Mark cheered up somewhat and declared that his charge was vindicated.)
Game end on the right: Soult (top right) surveys the sorry remnants of his force (one inf unit top right, one cav unit foreground) and the seemingly impregnable bastion of El Navajo.
Game end on the left: a Spanish charge expels the Josefino royal guard, but cannot dislodge the stubborn French who have held Ocaña since Turn 1. This left the French holding the three Objectives they needed to earn a draw. Hurrah!
Reflections
Quality vs Quantity. No harm in saying this once again: asymmetric contests like this, between two very different forces, always produce a good game.
Swings of Fortune. In a BBB game, we roll a lot of dice, and using 2D6 makes the results tend towards the average. But in this game, both sides seemed to get more than the usual proportion of extreme dice - either very high or very low. This produced some unexpected results and radical changes of fortune, forcing us commanders to adapt our plans agilely and on the hoof - not to mention generating whoops of delight or moans of dismay as applicable. The dice definitely added to the fun.
Combined Arms and Concentration of Force. Post-game, Mark rued the fact that his cavalry had ended up separated from his infantry and fighting their own battle. This wasn't primarily his fault - 9 times out of 10, he could have expected to smash Lacy's division and keep coordinated - but it's true that the resulting division of effort hurt his attack and helped me to defeat French units in detail.
The Difference between 0 and 2. The town of Ocaña was worth 2 Objectives. The difference between holding and losing it, in a game where the French needed 3 Objectives to draw or 4 to win, was therefore huge - enough to turn victory into defeat. I suggested Mark split the town into two halves next time.
Forgetting Scenario Special Rules. To prevent the Spanish from forming ahistorical grand batteries, Mark had a scenario special rule obliging Spanish artillery units to stay buddied up with their own infantry units at all times. I duly forgot it and broke the rule repeatedly during the game; the rule author did not notice or remind me. With scenario special rules, there is a delicate balance to be struck: one or two adds flavour; more than that and they either start adding complication and getting in the way or (as here) just get forgotten. Maybe this one was a rule too many - I never had two artillery units together anyway.
Looking Forward to the Book. This was another of Mark's set of scenarios intended for an eventual Peninsular War scenario book. They've all been very good games. Roll on publication - hopefully early 2026, maybe even by the end of this year?
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