Both sides of the hill: Beaune-la-Rolande (1870)

A seriously big battle is not necessarily the same thing as a seriously big game. After all, the whole point of BBB is to fit the biggest battles - Gettysburg, Solferino, Königgrätz and the like - onto a normal-sized table and into a single afternoon or evening session.

However, smaller battles still tend to produce smaller games. One particular advantage of these arises when they are small enough to swap sides and play the whole thing twice in a session from opposite viewpoints.

Such was the case last Monday, when Crispin rolled out his battlemat for Beaune-la-Rolande. This little skirmish involving fewer than 100,000 men was one of the first battles of the so-called 'republican phase' - the second half of the Franco-Prussian War, after Napoleon III was captured at Sedan. I remembered this being one of the first BBB scenarios Crispin wrote, but I was still taken aback when he said he created it ten years ago, in 2015. With four players (plus Dave W refereeing), we started setting up at 6:30, fought the battle twice, and were packed away by 9:30.

Here's a full photo-AAR of Game 1 in a dozen photos, then just a short verbal account of Game 2, then some Reflections.

This is what the battle was about: the town of Beaune-la-Rolande in the centre of the German defensive line, which the Germans had fortified heavily. (Figures are Pendraken 10mm from Dave's collection. Buildings handmade by Crispin. All terrain provided by Crispin.)

The French have two corps of their newly-formed Army of the Loire. Here we see General Crouzat with the six brigades of his 20th Corps. The unit with the flag is one of only two decently trained formations on the French side (composed mainly of zouaves). The rest are either régiments de marche (hastily organized from depot battalions; figures in red kepis and pantalons) or garde mobile (poorly armed and barely trained levies - régiments de poubelle? figures all in blue).

The troops of the Prussian X Korps are twice as good but there are half as many, so it's a fair fight. Here we see Stülpnagel with the two brigades of his 5th Division, in greatcoats against the November weather, backed up by Hartmann's 1st Cavalry Division. Note that each unit includes a base of green-jacketed Jäger, indicating that it has the Skirmisher attribute.

View of the whole bleak autumnal battlefield from the French side. Germans have deployed a brigade in Beaune-la-Rolande itself and two others on its left (upper right of pic), relying on 5th Div to arrive on the other wing. Green patches are villages, grey ones are towns. White counters indicate objectives. Beaune itself is worth two. The French need to take four to draw or five to win. Note that the Germans have adopted a forward position to contest Les Cotelles and Juranville (right centre of pic).

Close-up of the German centre and left, dug in with artillery support. Mark commanded this German wing.

I took Crouzat's 20th Corps on the French left. Crispin marched on with 18th Corps on the right. We agreed to attempt a double envelopment and win by isolating Beaune rather than storming it. Here's my left hook arriving on Turn 2. Red and yellow counters show my attempt at setting up a grand battery is already suffering from German counter-battery fire.

Better fortune on the right, where black 'Low Ammo' counters and vacated trenches show how effectively Bremond's 18th Corps has shaken out and blasted the German first line. Mark made a swift command decision to extract the survivors, concede the two forward villages, and fall back to hold Longcourt.

Back to me on the left wing. Next turn sees patient progress as my columns continue to march around the German right. Next stop; the objective village of Batilly, with La Pierre Percée just visible beyond it. No sign of German 5th Div yet.

Wide open spaces on our right wing as Crispin extends to envelop the German left, while the Germans reorganise their line. Our advance is slow because in this scenario (as in many FPW battles) the inexpert French army labours under the 'Passive' movement penalty.

On Turns 5 and 6, the action hots up on our left. The German cavalry has arrived and hastened across to reinforce Mark on the German left (out of shot right of pic). The two brigades of 5th Div have dashed forward to the town of Borville (grey patch) to try to retake La Pierre Percée from my zouaves (green village upper right). They've driven back one of my régiments de marche (yellow and blue indicates Disrupted and Spent) but are about to suffer an awful lot of incoming fire. Meanwhile, at top left, their newly-deployed gun line on the base line is taking flanking fire from some gardes mobiles.

Over on our right, the Germans have fallen back from Longcourt to rally around the central high ground above the Beaune bastion, relying on artillery to keep Crispin's French at bay. However, once Phil's counterattack at La Pierre Percée failed, Mark realised they needed to hold Longcourt or lose, so he pushed a brigade forward into it again. Crispin massed all he could and launched assaults from two directions on the last turn. Could victory be ours? Mark rolled his firing dice - and repelled both assaults. Foiled, we had to settle for a draw.

Situation at game end. Just three German infantry units remain: in the town of Borville (top left), in Beaune (centre) and clinging on against huge odds in Longcourt (upper right).

How the second game went

We swapped sides. Crispin and I also swapped wings. I took the German left, facing Mark, while Crispin commanded the German reinforcements on the right to fend off Phil.

We decided not to repeat the forward defence. Instead, we posted two brigades in and next to Longcourt, behind the reverse slope of the hills. However, we did mass 72 guns (3 artillery units) on the high ground on our extreme left, where they could pummel Mark's advance.

The French similarly decided to try a different plan, partly because of ours, but partly just for the sake of seeing how it worked out. They responded by sending only a couple of brigades (plus their small cavalry division) up their right-hand touchline, and a couple up the opposite side to face our reinforcements, while all the rest of their force converged to form a big arc focusing on Beaune-la-Rolande.

The French plan worked only in that their concentrated fire inflicted grievous casualties on the Beaune garrison. However, the French were unable to mount an assault to actually take the place. The German plan had worked better: our reverse slope force didn't need to fire a shot all battle; our Grossbatterie stalled the French right flank infiltration and then hurt their mass in the centre; then when 5th Division arrived it rolled up the lefthand end of the French arc around Beaune. The French only held one village at the end - an emphatic German win. 

Reflections

Two games in an evening = more than double the fun. There are those who like to savour a game over several sessions totalling 10, 15, 20 hours or more. I have happily acknowledged elsewhere that there is a particular pleasure to be had from the looong game. Nevertheless, the particular wargaming pleasure I mainly seek is that of making plans and high-level decisions and seeing how they work out. There are only so many such decisions to make in any given battle. If I can spend my 15 hours playing five games rather than one, that's a lot more big decisions, hence a lot more of that particular mental pleasure. This time we managed to fit two games into three hours and work through two alternative pairs of plans for the same battle. Not only did we have the direct pleasure from each game, there was also the pleasure of comparing the two - the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.

The other side of the hill. When I commanded the French left, I was very conscious of how brittle my army of Raw Fragile régiments de marche and garde mobile was: a single casualty would render a brigade Spent and largely combat-ineffective; those Krupp guns were very capable of inflicting such casualties; we had to cross a lot of open ground under their fire. The French task seemed very daunting (especially after failing at a similar task in a game of Coulmiers the week before). However, when I swapped my kepi for a pickelhaube, it didn't look any easier! Being outranged by twice our numbers of rifles wasn't a happy prospect, even with some entrenchments to hide in. Where to deploy was quite a tricky puzzle and we were fortunate it worked out so well. In short: it's a challenge for both sides, in very different ways - a tribute to Crispin's scenario design.

Fortifications in BBB. It seems too easy for an attacker to shoot defenders out of trenches. I'm not sure why it's taken me 10 years to reach this conclusion ... anyway, my thought is that a good house rule would be that units in fortifications can only be fired on a) by artillery, b) by units within 3", c) in Offensive Fire Phase if the target unit fired during the preceding Defensive Fire Phase, or d) in Defensive Fire Phase if the target unit declares it wants to fire in its Offensive Fire Phase. What do you think? (Maybe something for 2nd edition!) 😉.

The scenario is available from the BBB io group files here (you need to join the group to gain access).