AAA - absolutely awesome Albuera

Our final playtest of Mark's scenario for Albuera was an absolute cracker.

This famous Peninsular War battle will be one of those in the forthcoming BBB scenario book. I reported on a previous playtest last year, so I won't repeat the background here. Let's launch straight into the photo-AAR. It's a lavish one this time - 13 photos, all lovingly marked up with unit names, troop movements, etc.

Overview of the battlefield before the French deploy, looking east. The allied position is centred on the village of Albuera. Hamilton and Stewart on the allied left may not move until Turn 4 (so long as French are within 6" of the northern bridge) to reflect the French pinning attack. That leaves only the Spanish on the right, plus reinforcements arriving from the left rear, to react initially to the French flank attack.

The dark strips are not tarmac roads but represent the slopes of long ridges between the streams ('Level 1 contour' in BBB terms). The polystyrene hills are Level 2. This '2.5D' approach is a useful method to represent complex hilly terrain.

Stars mark the five objective locations: Albuera village; the southern bridge in front of it; the eastern and western hilltops on the allied right flank; and the road that is the allied line of communications and retreat. Each of these is worth 1 Victory Point. The French also earn 1 VP if any British infantry unit is spent or destroyed (i.e., if the allied players repeat Beresford's embarrassment). French need 3 VP to draw or 4+ to win. It's an 8-turn game.

All figures are Baccus 6mm from Mark's collection. Terrain is Mark's as well. Troop scale in this game is 600 men or 12 guns per base.

I commanded the British and Portuguese, facing Crispin on the French right. Dave W was my Spanish ally vs Dave T on the French left.

The French right advances to pin the allies on Turn 1.

The French flank marching columns approach. The fragile Spanish cavalry tried to charge that column on the hill, bottom right, but evaporated at the first rattle of musketry.

On Turn 2, Godinot seizes the bridge objective and dares the Spanish to attack him ...

... while the flank marchers deploy to attack. Zayas (the only allied general represented in this scenario) rushes his two brigades to defend the hilltop objectives and protect the allied right flank. My heart was in my mouth as Zayas's advance seemed to leave his mean dangerously isolated and exposed.

They were duly subjected to massed French assaults on Turn 3.

Miraculously they not only both survived but, thanks to some outrageous dice, held onto the west hill and inflicted serious losses on Girard's division. 

Then it was our turn to attack. Dave committed Ballesteros's brigade to try to retake the east hill, while I attacked Godinot at the bridge. Cole's Portuguese (mislabelled here as Hamilton's), backed up by the dangerous British cavalry (green cube = Aggressive), kicked Godinot back behind the Rio de la Albuera. However, to retake the bridge objective we would need to hold the other end of it as well; and to do that, we would need help from Hamilton and Stewart on the allied left wing, still pinned until Turn 4.

Another bout of heroic dice saw Ballesteros wipe out a regiment of French shock cavalry, then hurtle on to smash Werle's infantry of the east hill as well. Glorious!

Dave T was not to be gainsaid. He rallied his men and flung them back into twin attacks on the two hills. Both his attacks succeeded this time.

Cole's small British brigade has arrived to stiffen the Spanish. The orange counter denotes 'Devastating Volleys'. Thus reinforced, Dave W may have a chance of retaking the west hill. However, we can't afford to get Cole's unit wiped out and give the French a VP.

Our left has been slow to wake up. Ideally, it should roll up the French right flank and retake the bridge objective, but this is Turn 5 already (maybe even T6? not sure) and not one brigade has crossed the river. Also, French pressure on our right means we need to send some troops in that direction too. But Godinot has lost half his division and can only pray that the allies run out of time before he runs out of men.

In the next couple of turns there was major action on the allied right that I didn't get any pics of, so my caption to the next photo will have to explain.

Change of angle for the final position: this is the view from behind the French left, where there has been hot fighting around the west hill. First, D'España and Cole combined to counterattack and retake it. Then a third French assault booted them off. Cole failed to recover from his disorder but the British cavalry moved up to support him. Just as well, as on the next turn Cole was attacked again, this time also by French cavalry that had worked around his right flank. He survived, but only because we sacrificed our cavalry to save him. The French then rode down a couple of our batteries as well.

Stewart turned up in time to restore the situation. Cole sheltered behind him. Zayas actually stormed the hill again! But was pincered from both flanks and wiped out, so the hill changed hands for a fifth and last time. Girard was left in possession.

On this flank, then, The French earned 2 VP for the hills but we had protected the LOC.

Over on the French right, I had four units that could potentially hit Godinot's beleaguered and diminished remaining brigade. Unfortunately, only the smallest two of them obliged me by moving to attack. Although we still had a significant numerical advantage, having to cross the river and the bridge made it an even fight, which we lost.

Godinot was left in possession of the third VP, making the end result a draw.

This was a really gripping game, tense throughout and in the balance right to the end. Had we taken the bridge, it would have been an allied win; had Cole's brigade been destroyed (as so nearly happened), victory would have gone to the French. All four of us players felt we had a tough challenge, which is as it should be. An excellent evening and a great game.

Reflections

Annotation - too much work! I hope the annotated photos help to explain the situation and tell the story in a clear and colourful way. It's taken me hours to do, though, so I doubt I'll do it again. Its main virtue is of course that it has enabled me to spend a whole evening avoiding doing more important things.

Dislocated and overwhelmed. The first few turns were very stressful for us allies. As most of my troops were pinned, all I could do was watch as the French flank attack dislocated our line and put pressure on Dave's few Spanish. Mark's scenario captures the shape of the battle really nicely, while still giving both sides enough options that we were not straitjacketed into following a script.

Ebb and flow. This game was nothing if not dramatic. The repeated assaults and counterassaults on our right flank saw some epic moments. When one objective changes hands five times and another one falls three times, you know you've been in a fight.

Awesome is good enough. The purpose of these playtests is to refine and polish scenarios to the point where we are happy to publish them for other players' enjoyment. That refining and polishing could go on for ever, there's always another tweak we could try - should we adjust the pinning conditions? Should we add another objective location? Change the French deployment a bit? - but it has produced some excellent games and there comes a point where you have to say "By God, sir, that will do".

Still hoping to get the BBB Peninsular War scenario book published by mid-year. Follow this blog or watch the SkirmishCampaigns website to be alerted when it arrives!

Peninsular battle at Warfare 2025: Sagunto

Had a fantastic day at the Warfare 2025 show, deserves a fuller write-up but this brief report will have to do. Met lots of good people, had great conversations, ran our participation game twice and entertained all the players who joined in. Big thank you to them, to W.A.R. for running the show, to my OWS comrades for running the game, and to everyone we spoke to.

The game was Sagunto (1811) (aka Saguntum), a Peninsular War battle in which a Spanish army under Blake is trying to relieve the besieged Sagunto castle north of Valencia. The French Marshal Suchet moves to meet him and an encounter battle results.

Looking west from the coast. Spanish (red labels) are advancing left to right = north. French arrive to meet them from the right. Most of both armies are on the coastal plain. However, the French have sent a force through the Sancti Espiritu pass (upper right) which will meet Spanish coming from top left, as well as more that arrive Turn 4 or 5 from top right corner. White counters are Objective locations. (This was a playtest; we since adjusted these, removing the ones behind the Spanish lines in Cartuja and El Puig and adding one to the French-held Convento del Val de Jesus.) Basically, if the Spanish hold their line, it is a draw; if either side makes a significant inroad into the enemy line, they win.

Close-up of the French emerging from the pass. All figures are Baccus 6mm from Mark's collection.

And a view of the initial French front line on the coastal plain. Note the purple label = the Poles of the Vistula Legion. On Turns 1 and 2 these will be joined by more French reinforcements, including aggressive high-quality Italian infantry and seriously good shock cavalry.

The bulk of the Spanish army: a very good veteran unit left foreground about to occupy Puzol, some decent line troops right of pic, otherwise a lot of raw stuff filling the ranks.

Arriving from the southwest is the Spanish Army of Murcia, which isn't very keen on attacking. (Rated Passive.)

Things went badly for the French in the pass. Disrupted by Spanish cannon fire, the lead brigade failed to rally. It was then charged and destroyed by overwhelming Spanish numbers. The Spanish then surged up the mountainside against the second French brigade, which repelled them with heavy losses. Still, the French threat on this wing was effectively over by Turn 3.

Boldly the French cross the Baranco del Arenal stream. They will proceed to launch a series of aggressive but poorly coordinated and desperately unlucky assaults. (Phil's dice played a significant part. As did passing player Bob, whose first roll when he joined in was 12.)

Turn 4, about halfway through the game. Assorted cubes show the effects. Yellow = Disrupted. Black = Low on ammo (the Spanish have met the French with some murderous volleys). The Vistula Legion is no longer with us. The French dragoons have been wiped out in a bloody charge (they took some Spaniards with them) and the shock cavalry, the cuirassiers, are in shock.

View from the Spanish side. There were a few more turns of hard pounding here but the French could not make any headway. A clear Spanish victory.

We reset and played it again. It was a quite different game second time round. The dice were less dramatic and the French more patient, setting up their attacks properly, preparing with fire, etc. They managed to take both the objectives in the above picture (the hillock of El Hostalet on the left and the village of Puzol on the right) and it was a more even fight around the pass as well. A French victory this time, I think.

No Reflections for you tonight, beyond saying that it's a good scenario. Both sides have to maneuver; both have to attack if they want to win; it revolves around two somewhat separate and different axes of attack and the players have choices to make about how much to commit on each axis and how. Also it offers French (and Polish and Italian) quality vs Spanish quantity, which is always a good asymmetry in a game.

Recommended!

Peninsular War: Valencia (1811)

Off to Iberia this week! (As a game setting, not an actual trip. Though I was there a few months ago when I visited the Vitoria battlefield.) In parallel with the mammoth task of writing and playtesting scenarios for all the major battles of the American Civil War, I've also been helping Mark, who's focusing on his set of Napoleonic scenarios for the Peninsular War. Yesterday's foray was the battle of Valencia (1811), which resulted in the siege of Valencia.

What a fine 18th-century army Spain has! Too bad we're into the 19th.

(Baccus 6mm figures from Mark's collection.)

Here's the history: having been defeated in the battle of Sagunto, the Spanish General Blake was now trying to hold the line of the River Turia, on which the city of Valencia lies. His army comprised 30,000+ troops of rather variable quality: some experienced regulars, but an awful lot of raw militia of various types. Marshal Suchet's French Army of Aragon was somewhat smaller but all veterans. On 25 December, Suchet sent Habert to feint against the coastal end of the Spanish lines, and Palombini to pin the Spanish centre, while Suchet himself led a big right hook to get behind the Spanish army and trap it in Valencia. Blake had anticipated this but had not anticipated just how quickly the French would move, nor how quickly his own army would crumble - his right collapsed and turned Habert's feint into a breakthrough. About 10,000 Spanish troops escaped but Blake and most of his men were trapped. Two weeks later, Valencia fell and he and 16,000 men surrendered.

I played this some months ago as the Spanish. It was amusingly (and not entirely unhistorically) disastrous but a little too much of a French walkover then. Mark had therefore amended the scenario somewhat. Here's how it went.

Let's get you oriented. This is a view from the French side, looking south across the Turia. The city of Valencia is lower left; the northeast corner is coastline (out of shot lower left). White Objective counters mark the city, assorted forts and villages along the Spanish fortified line, and the village of Torente in the Spanish rear (top centre). Note also the two wagons behind Valencia: these need to escape up the road to the south. The Spanish also earn points if a couple of their decent infantry units can escape off the table there or through Torente. They need some combo of these to add up to 4 for a draw or 5 for a win.

All the troops south of the river are Spanish. To reflect the fact that Blake had to at least put up a show of making a fight of it, they can't just all leg it on Turn 1, but must stay within 6" of the river for the first three turns.

Help is at hand for the Spanish in the form of the Royal Navy, which directed harassing fire against the French left flank for much of the game. Unflocked Warbases may work OK for dusty Spanish plains, not so good for the Mediterranean ...

Ben and I were the French. I took the right, he took our left and centre. Our plan was to avoid Valencia itself initially, shift our force from the centre to back up our left, and try to break through the raw fragile Spanish militia there (marked with pink cubes). To help with that, we agreed Ben should rumble his guns right up into cannister range. Here you see our left wing starting to move up to prepare to assault across the river against the Spanish right (commanded by Luke).

The best Spanish troops were in the centre (commanded by Crispin), supported by two artillery units. By moving our centre to the left, we avoided these and added punch where we wanted it.

Meanwhile, Dave T commanded the Spanish left. The next pic shows how much it was 'hanging in the air', hence this was my target for outflanking and enveloping. Note the handcrafted buildings by our talented friend Colin the Wargamer.

Consequently, Turn 1 saw me push up to the river by the western edge of the table. The infantry and cavalry can wade it but the artillery will need that pontoon bridge sitting by General Harispe. Musnier's division marches over the hills to cover the flank of my main push. Look top left and you will see one bold Spanish brigade has crossed the Turia, aiming to delay and disrupt our advance. A second will follow it. This will not go well for them circa Turn 4, after Severoli's Italians arrive to reinforce the French (one of the reckless Spanish units will be routed, the other forced to fall back behind the Turia again).

Over on the left: immediate breakthrough! Ben's men stormed across, routed one militia brigade and exploited to get behind another. With the impetuosity of youth, he also attempted an exploitation attack into the enemy fortification against poor odds, but was repulsed with loss back to the village at left edge. (These youngsters and their need for instant gratification, eh?) Developments around Valencia too, where our centre division's leftward shift has drawn Spanish troops in to defend the city against them - even though we had no real intention of attacking it directly yet.

Now we are looking downriver, east, as my right hook develops. Spanish cavalry (right edge) canter forward to try to pin my infantry but wisely don't dare to charge. My brigade by the bridge will scare them off again when it advances.

Two or three turns later, Ben is making progress. He has routed some more militia and got more troops across the river. However, a Spanish counterattack from around Valencia destroys a French brigade and boots another back across the Turia. See-saw action here for a while. Top left, the wagons make their getaway.

A more decisive breakthrough on our right. Backed up by two further divisions of reinforcements (pushing across the river left and lower left), we have smashed the Spanish off the hilltop at Manises (centre foreground) and gone on to storm the fort at San Onofre (centre of pic). The Poles (top right) have fended off the Spanish cavalry and are about to be backed up by my dragoons (out of pic) to threaten the Spanish escape route, while the bulk of my force will brush aside the couple of Spanish units left in front of it (top centre).

At that point, as some players needed to leave early (and not all the Spanish players were keen to play through the extermination phase), we stopped it with a couple of turns still to play. The Spanish still held four Objective locations, but were likely to lose one or two of these; on the other hand, one of their units had escaped and they were likely to get another one or two away. All three results were still possible but the probable one was a draw. Regardless - a fun game, two very different armies facing each other in an interesting scenario situation, and plenty of movement and action along the way. Bags of flavour!

Reflections

Grand tactical maneuver. This game definitely had the feel of maneuver on a grand scale. I could have told the story of the battle with some very large and clear arrows on a map. Our left and right hook combo, the centre's left shift, and the Spanish reaction to those; the decisive commitment of French reinforcements on Turns 2 & 3; the Spanish counterattack around Valencia, the spoiling attack by their left, and the Spanish withdrawal in the face of my right hook; all of these felt very bold-brush and emphatic. It was also nice that both sides had major maneuvers to execute. Somewhat unexpected for a game that was nominally about breaching and clearing a fortified defensive line!

How much fun is it to be crushed? This is a one-sided battle in that the French quality advantage is such that, given time, the Spanish army will almost inevitably be destroyed. It therefore becomes a question of how quickly and thoroughly the French can destroy it. Of course, the scenario design enables the Spanish to 'win' in game terms if they get crushed significantly less than they were historically. Some players enjoy being on the rough end of that equation more than others, e.g., Dave W revels in it; others less so. Maybe it merits another 'Reflections' essay to go with my one on Wargaming One-Sided Wars.

Try it yourself at Warfare 2025. OK, not the same battle, but the prequel to it: Mark and I will be running the Battle of Sagunto at the Warfare 2025 show in Farnborough on Sunday. Come along!

BBB Peninsular War book - not long now. We are now about four playtests away from finishing the whole set, say two or three months. Obviously there will then be some editing and polishing to do, but that will be a matter of a few more weeks rather than months. We should have a nice BBB Peninsular War book ready for you soon!

Victory snatched away at Albuera (1811)

While I am focusing on ACW, Mark is forging ahead with his collection of Napoleonic scenarios for the Peninsular War. The latest to take to his table is Albuera. This is a relatively well-known battle that seems popular to refight, judging from a quick web surf. May as well add one more blog post to the crowd!

Background in brief: while Wellington was confronting Masséna along the centre of the Portuguese border, further south his subordinate Beresford was besieging Badajoz. Soult marched to relieve the fortress. Beresford moved to occupy a blocking position on the ridge behind Albuera. Rather than simple frontal assault, Soult chose to leave part of his force to pin Beresford by demonstrating against the Allied front, while most of the French army moved around the Allied right flank. When the Allies changed front in response, Colborne's brigade was famously left exposed just as a sudden storm limited visibility and damped their muskets, allowing French cavalry to charge and shatter the brigade. Despite this setback, the Allies eventually firmed up their line, then advanced to counterattack and drive the French back. Thwarted, Soult gave up and withdrew.

Here's how it went for us. (9-photo AAR, then some Reflections.)

Initial Allied set-up, looking east from behind the Allied line. Mark used a 2.5D system for the hilly ground: dark lines are contours defining the slopes of the ridges between the streams ("Level 1"); polystyrene hills are the highest points ("Level 2"). Albuera village is top centre, with the Albuera river in front of it. White labels indicate that some Allied formations are fixed in place until Turn 2 or Turn 4, so long as the French maintain a pinning force in front of them. Doesn't that Allied right flank look open?

And here's the French force threatening it. The scenario gives the French a choice of deployment areas: either along this road on the Allies' right front, or in the SW corner of the table (beyond bottom right of pic) - thus further from the Allies, but behind their flank and across the stream obstacles. White counters indicate victory locations: two hills and a bridge in this pic. In addition, Albuera itself was an objective, as were the two roads leading NW or W towards Badajoz. (And British infantry - see the Reflections.)

Latour-Maubourg's formidable cavalry leading the French advance. Mark rated most of these as Shock (the purple counters, worth +2 in Assault) and the rest as Aggressive (+1) on the basis of their performance in the battle. These columns are advancing through Spanish woods that are really just pastures with shade - widely spaced olive trees etc, with cattle grazing among them.

As the French commander, I chose to disrupt that tidy column and shift most of our infantry to the outflanking move: Girard's division, Werlé's brigade, and the grenadier reserve, seen here. That left Godinot to do the pinning and Gazan to attack the angle of the Allied position. (Figures are Baccus 6mm from Mark's collection.)

My columns moved swiftly forward and deployed for battle. Zayas's Spanish turned to face us.

So much for outflanking and catching the Allies on the hop. By Turn 3 they had formed a pretty solid-looking line.

I tried working round further left to find some advantage. Meanwhile, Mark had launched a converging attack on the angle of the Spanish line. This made a dent but exposed him to Allied counterattack. On his right, large Allied units had become unpinned and were threatening to overwhelm our pinning force.

Time for me to act, then! I launched coordinated assaults. On my extreme left, I did manage to break a Spanish unit and establish myself on one of the Badajoz roads. We were less fortunate elsewhere, though. On my right, I committed my grenadiers in support of a charge by Mark's cavalry. My own cavalry failed to join in, while Crispin rolled 11 and 12 for his firing and blew Mark's precious dragoons and lancers away. That left my grenadiers embarassed and outnumbered 3:1, so they were destroyed in their own assault. The photo shows the aftermath, on the final turn: our line has become very thin, we are just trying to hold on our left, while launching two desperate counterattacks on our right to fend off the Allies from one of the hilltop objectives.

Close-up of those counterattacks. My infantry managed to keep the Spanish infantry at bay, but Mark's last cavalry brigade was vaporised by Portuguese musketry (of course). I had a couple of batteries out of pic lower right to cover the hill, but these were unable to stop any of Crispin's allied units upper right, all three of which made full movement rolls on the last turn and captured the hill.

Until that point, we had held 3 objectives - enough for victory (in fact, our high point was 4 until we lost the bridge again) - but when the Allies retook this hill, they denied us and we had to settle for a bloody (in both senses) draw.

Reflections

Nice to fight a classic battle! In a 2018 post, I mused on the merits of different ways of studying classic battles. One of those, obviously, is the 'learning by doing' of a wargame. Mark's scenario certainly explains Albuera well.

Choices, choices. It was nice to have a choice of deployment areas, hence several possible plans of attack. This not only makes the one game interesting, it opens up replay value for future games.

Precious units. The scenario had one unusual objective: we French could earn an Objective by making any British infantry unit Spent or destroyed (representing the near-scandal caused by the destruction of Colborne's brigade). This made our Allied opponents, Crispin and Phil, rather cautious about committing their most potent troops. We felt this worked well.

Rubbish units. The Spanish cavalry continued their suitably dreadful form. When I first approached them, they Evaded. Being Fragile, they spent the next several turns failing to rally from the resulting Disruption, before finally rolling so low that they quit the field without having struck a blow or even caught a whiff of powder. Hilarious.

British too ponderous? There was some post-game debate about whether the British on the left should have a General on-table to help them move faster (Phil having been frustrated by their inaction at times). I felt it was OK, my view being that the British army doesn't really transcend linear warfare and become a truly modern manoeuvrable force until Salamanca in 1812. But better-informed readers may leap in and put me right here.

Java (1811) - another Christmas Cracker!

At OWS in recent years we have established a fine tradition of Christmas special games. These are multi-player BBB scenarios created by Dr Mark Smith, but with the added dimension that each player has personal objectives unknown to his team-mates, and often conflicting with theirs. Mark likes to find obscure corners of history for us to visit. Previous years have seen us fight at Magdala, Khoosh-Ab, and Amoaful.

This year, in honour of Colin's recent return from Indonesia, Mark transported us to the British invasion of Java in 1811. The climactic battle of the Java Expedition was the storming of Fort Cornelis, and this was the action we fought.

Fort Cornelis from the south. British columns are attacking from the west (out of camera);

the north (where they have breached the defences); and the northeast. 

The measuring stick is pointing at Redoubt #3 as my troops storm it from front and rear.

Note the Christmas cracker, top of shot, to aid combat resolution.

Photo courtesy of Bruce.

It was my lot to take the part of Colonel Rollo Gillespie and lead one of four British columns converging on the Fort from various directions. My objectives were simple, focusing on storming a couple of the fort's key redoubts. The execution was less straightforward than the mission. Random events were resolved by Christmas cracker. I lost the first pull so Gillespie was personally struck down for the first two turns by poisoned coffee, slowing down my night approach from the east. Worse than that, the cracker contained a large D6 which Crispin adopted and used to deadly effect, killing off two of my precious skirmisher bases in the first couple of rounds of firing. I confiscated the evil cube, only returning it for the final assault of the game, when we found it actually could roll a 1.

My compatriots were faring little better. Adjacent to me, the aggressive McLeod tried but failed to storm a redoubt, with diffident support from Wetherall who was more intent on preserving his force intact. In the southwest, Major Yule's column was stalled and ultimately beaten by French guarding the enemy's line of communications. Meanwhile the task facing me got no easier as more French, Dutch and Javanese recovered from their surprise and manned the fortifications.

But at last McLeod cracked the crust and stormed the corner redoubt. A gallant defender detonated the magazine, causing us great loss, but we were not to be gainsaid. The breach once made, McLeod's men poured through it, while I was able to exploit and widen it to assail a second redoubt, my main objective. This I took on the last turn, and just as well, for my attempts against a third redoubt had been fitful and futile. A French counterattack was thwarted by redcoat volleys.

So ended the game. McLeod had failed to take as many redoubts as he hoped, and Wetherall's reticence had perhaps cost him a part in a British victory, so I was left as the most successful (or least unsuccessful) British player. I must say I didn't feel like a winner, but benefited from a charitable scoring scheme. As for the Franco-Dutch, despite the defection mid-game of an entire Dutch contingent who marched off unimpeded, and despite the fall of the fort and their military defeat, in game terms they had a clear win.

Once again, Mark had entertained us and educated us at the same time. Roaring good fun, and a wonderful way to end another wonderful year of good gaming with good friends. Here's to more of the same in 2018!