I asked Dave O if he wanted a beer and a fight last Saturday night, so that we could narrow the gap between games from decades down to less than a year. Our last encounter was Gettysburg last September. After ACW, his other great enthusiasm is Napoleonics, so we rolled out Aspern/Essling from the Napoleon's Bloody Big Battles! scenario book.
Ammoed up for Aspern/Essling
Dave's ACW armies are in 6mm but his Napoleonics are 2mm from Irregular Miniatures. These give a really good mass effect for a big battle like this:
Austrian reinforcements that will march on in Turn 2. Coloured base edges are red for Veteran, blue for Trained, green for Raw. Flags on the corners identify which army they're from. Coloured dice identify which corps is which. You could use the dice to track strength points but we didn't do that - too fiddly and too prone to get spilled. Instead, we used the number labels as unit ID to track strength on a roster.
Most of the French army is queuing up to cross the pontoon bridges over the Danube.
Discreet little mdf rectangles indicate a unit has the Skirmisher attribute.
The large circular bases are the C-inCs. Here is Napoleon;
and Archduke Charles.
Irregular's 2mm terrain paints up nicely. Lovely job by Dave on this village.
I gave a synopsis of the historical battle last time I played it, back in 2020, so shan't repeat myself. Here is the battlefield:
Red stars are Objectives. Austrians need to take 3 to draw or 4+ to win. Essling is treated as a Fort (3 cover); Aspern as a Town (2 cover). The berm between them provides 1 cover. The French have only 3 divisions on the table initially. Each turn, they have 50% chance of getting another division across. It is a 9-turn game. After Turn 3 there is a Night Interval, in which they will get another 4-6 divisions across. All the Austrians are either on table initially or arrive on Turn 2. There's a lot of them! But they are almost all rated Passive, which means it may take a while to get them all into action and can be hard to coordinate assaults.
Austrian Passivity means Hiller on the extreme right makes virtually no move towards the Gemeinde Au. However, Charles manages to put four divisions into an assault on Aspern on Turn 2. The yellow Disruption puffs are because the preceding turn's firefight killed off both sides' Skirmishers - losses the numerous Austrians can absorb better than the French.
Disaster for the French! Boxcars mean the Austrian offensive fire wipes out the defenders of Aspern. Bellegarde's corps will swarm through and hit the French reserves who have moved up behind the town.
Some revenge for Dave on the Austrian left, where Hohenlohe has recklessly advanced through Gross Entzersdorf in column (indicated by the blank square template behind the Austrian infantry unit) and gets charged by the French heavy cavalry division (rectangular template = In Depth).
Hohenlohe's infantry take casualties and are hurled back to seek refuge behind their cavalry (top left).
But it is the Austrian turn to attack again. Bellegarde debouches from Aspern for another go at the disrupted French. His cavalry charge over the berm, sacrificing themselves to distract the French artillery.
The Austrian cavalry has died but done its job. The infantry assault succeeds, driving back the French infantry and cavalry (top left), then rolling up and driving off the French gun line.
Blessed relief for the desperate French as night falls. Both armies regroup. Napoleon crosses the Danube. He now has 8 divisions crammed into a pocket around his bridge, with a fresh gun line.
But his heavy cavalry, his only support for his division garrisoning Essling, is somewhat isolated next to Gross-Entzersdorf.
Archduke Charles waits for the French hammer to fall on Aspern. Hiller (right of pic) finally has a toe in the Gemeinde Au woods but there are French tirailleurs in there.
The hammer duly falls. It will take a couple of turns of hard pounding but the French will retake Aspern.
But the Austrians are preparing their own assault on Essling (top right). Apart from the Essling garrison, the artillery and the cavalry next to the Danube are the only French in the picture. They face eight Austrian divisions, including Lindenau's grenadiers (the two units with black dice and green puffs for Aggressive).
The Austrian assault on Essling (top of pic) is being prepared by this substantial gun line. Although it looks formidable, so are Essling's defences, so all it produced was clouds of dust.
Five Austrian divisions storm Essling. The supporting French cavalry and artillery are wiped out by other Austrian units.
Turn 6: Austrians hang on in Aspern; French hang on in the Gemeinde Au. In terms of victory conditions, the game is currently a draw.
The Austrians get their noses in front by taking Essling.
Austrians again repulsed from the Gemeinde Au on their right. Archduke Charles is displeased.
From displeased to dismayed: a 6:1 die roll means the French retake Aspern. The scores are level again!
Triumphant French now occupy Aspern. Blue puff shows their defeated opponents are Spent.
However, the French right is about to collapse. The Austrians pour onward from Essling in overwhelming force to rout the division they had expelled from there.
They then exploit the breach to overrun the French guns covering the Lobau bridgehead. Napoleon himself is next to the bridge and about to make expeditious use of it. There was a turn or two left, but Dave conceded at this point.
These five French divisions - including the Imperial Guard - never made it across the bridge. Never mind, they can provide the core of Napoleon's new army for his next campaign.
French casualties: three divisions and two artillery units wiped out.
(The Austrians lost one destroyed and one Spent.)
Reflections
Small figures, big battles. As a devotee of big battles, I am a fan of the small scales that make them feasible. My own collection is nearly all 6mm from various manufacturers (apart from a couple of 2mm armies); I also like the 10mm armies some of our group use. As this game shows, 2mm is also very good - perhaps the best of the three - for making battles look like battles rather than skirmishes.
Exponential effects of early luck. I was fortunate early on with a couple of lucky dice rolls that resulted in one precious French unit being destroyed and Aspern falling on Day 1. Although the luck evened out (eg Dave's 6:1 roll to retake Aspern), the French were always on the back foot after suffering that early blow, as its ramifications made themselves felt in terms of gaps in the line, etc. Napoleon said, "Give me generals who are lucky". We might amend that to "Give me generals who are lucky on Turn 1".
Never surrender? When Dave conceded, it was still technically a draw: he held 3 Objectives (Aspern, the Gemeinde Au, and the bridge), so I needed to take one of those to get the 4 I needed for a win. True, I had several units close to the bridge, where Dave had nothing left. But if he had got one Imperial Guard division across next turn, they might well have held the earthworks against my disorganised troops. I might or might not have retaken Aspern and was making no progress in the Gemeinde Au. So although victory was undoubtedly beyond Napoleon's grasp, a draw was still very possible.
Still, Dave drubbed me at Gettysburg, so I'll take the win!
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