1815: definitely out of favour.
1853: rehabilitated and commemorated.
President Francisco Solano Lopez of Paraguay could possibly have done with the services of someone of Ney's calibre in 1866. His intervention in Uruguay's political turmoil in 1864 had resulted in Paraguay being at war against Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina: the "War of the Triple Alliance", or "Great Paraguayan War" if you prefer. This murderous conflict lasted over 5 years and cost 100s of 1000s of dead.
For us wargamers, this war is notable for generating the largest battle ever fought in South America: Tuyuti. At around 60,000 combatants all told, this is not a big battle by BBB standards. Still it is big and bloody enough to deserve our attention. Konstantinos Travlos had drafted a BBB scenario for it, so this week we decided to give it a go.
As so often in the late nineteenth century, the battle is an interesting one to fight, not just for its historical significance or its exotic Latin American setting, but because it confronts asymmetric armies. The Allies are mostly average line troops, averagely trained and motivated, with modern rifled weapons. The Paraguayans are almost entirely equipped with older smoothbore muskets and cannon, but are ferociously determined fighters. Thus the Allies are better in a firefight, but the Paraguayans have the edge if they can get to grips.
The notorious Paraguayan "pantanos de fieltro verde bilioso".
The situation is that Lopez was trying to launch a surprise dawn attack. Unfortunately for him, hacking and squelching through scrub and swamps in the dark slowed his separate columns down and made it impossible to coordinate them. Thus by the time they emerged from the difficult terrain, the Allies were mostly alerted and ready for them. Historically the Paraguayans did manage to close with the Allies in a number of places, and even got in among their camps, but suffered so many losses in doing so that they were eventually driven back and suffered a bloody defeat.
That's pretty much how our game went. The Paraguayan left column got stuck in first - or its cavalry did, as the only thing its infantry got stuck into was a swamp which they never emerged from all game. The cavalry drove my Argentinians back almost to our camp, but were then shot down in droves and receded. Then the right column came out of the scrub to fight the Brazilians. Here too they closed, caused some alarms and gained some ground, but died in heaps and were forced back into the woods. Only in the centre, where the small Uruguayan vanguard was left relatively unsupported while the flank attacks were being repelled, did the Paraguayans taste real success when they stormed the artillery redoubt. But by this time Lopez was running out of troops, while the Allies were relatively lightly scathed, so the Paraguayan players conceded the game.
This was a good entertaining game - albeit a bit stressful for our Paraguayan players, who spent most of the game taking the punishment and not much dishing it out. We had some post-battle thoughts about how to tweak it a bit and we'll be sending feedback to Konstantinos shortly. Hopefully a polished final version will be publicly available soon, and we can play it again next year to mark the 150th anniversary of the battle.
Fuller photo-report is in Flickr here.
Subject to Konstantinos's permission, probably the full scenario will be posted in the BBB Yahoo group files in due course.
With the glorious triumph of Argentine arms at Tuyuti, my running total for the year is now:
Games played to conclusion - 32.
Won - 15.
Drawn - 7.
Lost - 10.
===
An update on my Kralorela campaign which began in October. We have had the first two turns (two game years). The dozen colonial powers are coming close to the end of the opening phase of "Scramble for Kralorela". By one means or other they have carved up Kralorela and taken control of over 80% of the available provinces, just 9 remaining independent, most of which will no doubt be snapped up next turn. Alliances are forming but being undermined by religious differences. Cunning schemes of all kinds are taking shape. Heroes are emerging. So far we have had only one outright clash, a brief and one-sided contretemps whose protagonists have (to outward appearance) resolved their differences, but things will hot up very soon as people run out of 'empty' provinces to occupy and bump into powerful neighbours.
I am especially happy with the way the campaign mechanisms are working: the factions' different special advantages are coming into play, the random events and other minor wild cards are adding just enough variability, the combats have worked out OK, and the admin for me as the ref has been relatively easy. And the campaign newspaper is a joy to write, as ever, with its character being somewhere between Private Eye and Viz.
For us wargamers, this war is notable for generating the largest battle ever fought in South America: Tuyuti. At around 60,000 combatants all told, this is not a big battle by BBB standards. Still it is big and bloody enough to deserve our attention. Konstantinos Travlos had drafted a BBB scenario for it, so this week we decided to give it a go.
As so often in the late nineteenth century, the battle is an interesting one to fight, not just for its historical significance or its exotic Latin American setting, but because it confronts asymmetric armies. The Allies are mostly average line troops, averagely trained and motivated, with modern rifled weapons. The Paraguayans are almost entirely equipped with older smoothbore muskets and cannon, but are ferociously determined fighters. Thus the Allies are better in a firefight, but the Paraguayans have the edge if they can get to grips.
The notorious Paraguayan "pantanos de fieltro verde bilioso".
The situation is that Lopez was trying to launch a surprise dawn attack. Unfortunately for him, hacking and squelching through scrub and swamps in the dark slowed his separate columns down and made it impossible to coordinate them. Thus by the time they emerged from the difficult terrain, the Allies were mostly alerted and ready for them. Historically the Paraguayans did manage to close with the Allies in a number of places, and even got in among their camps, but suffered so many losses in doing so that they were eventually driven back and suffered a bloody defeat.
That's pretty much how our game went. The Paraguayan left column got stuck in first - or its cavalry did, as the only thing its infantry got stuck into was a swamp which they never emerged from all game. The cavalry drove my Argentinians back almost to our camp, but were then shot down in droves and receded. Then the right column came out of the scrub to fight the Brazilians. Here too they closed, caused some alarms and gained some ground, but died in heaps and were forced back into the woods. Only in the centre, where the small Uruguayan vanguard was left relatively unsupported while the flank attacks were being repelled, did the Paraguayans taste real success when they stormed the artillery redoubt. But by this time Lopez was running out of troops, while the Allies were relatively lightly scathed, so the Paraguayan players conceded the game.
This was a good entertaining game - albeit a bit stressful for our Paraguayan players, who spent most of the game taking the punishment and not much dishing it out. We had some post-battle thoughts about how to tweak it a bit and we'll be sending feedback to Konstantinos shortly. Hopefully a polished final version will be publicly available soon, and we can play it again next year to mark the 150th anniversary of the battle.
Fuller photo-report is in Flickr here.
Subject to Konstantinos's permission, probably the full scenario will be posted in the BBB Yahoo group files in due course.
With the glorious triumph of Argentine arms at Tuyuti, my running total for the year is now:
Games played to conclusion - 32.
Won - 15.
Drawn - 7.
Lost - 10.
===
An update on my Kralorela campaign which began in October. We have had the first two turns (two game years). The dozen colonial powers are coming close to the end of the opening phase of "Scramble for Kralorela". By one means or other they have carved up Kralorela and taken control of over 80% of the available provinces, just 9 remaining independent, most of which will no doubt be snapped up next turn. Alliances are forming but being undermined by religious differences. Cunning schemes of all kinds are taking shape. Heroes are emerging. So far we have had only one outright clash, a brief and one-sided contretemps whose protagonists have (to outward appearance) resolved their differences, but things will hot up very soon as people run out of 'empty' provinces to occupy and bump into powerful neighbours.
I am especially happy with the way the campaign mechanisms are working: the factions' different special advantages are coming into play, the random events and other minor wild cards are adding just enough variability, the combats have worked out OK, and the admin for me as the ref has been relatively easy. And the campaign newspaper is a joy to write, as ever, with its character being somewhere between Private Eye and Viz.
Thanks for running it Chris!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for writing it!
DeleteOur group fought Tuyuti twice using BBB but my take on the OOB, not Konstantinos. Not that I have anything against his effort, I don't, but I had to make do with what troops I had.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow both our games went much like yours, the Paraguayans couldn't coordinate their columns and were slaughtered in droves inflicting very very few casualties on the Allies. Historical but quite a depressing slog for Paraguayan players.
Indeed. I think there is scope for giving the Paraguayans a bit of a chance without distorting the history. And even with a doomed assault you can calibrate the victory conditions so that either side can win in game terms. But the Paraguayan players are still usually going to get a minor case of PTSD.
Delete