This week marked the 209th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, which took place June 18th, 2024. (Just 4 days after my birthday!) I celebrated by spending the 18th watching Bondarkchuk's Waterloo, and spent today replaying the battle using GDA2 with the Fremont wargamers.
After a lot of bathtubbing, Keith was able to design a Waterloo scenario that would fit a majority of the battle in 15mm on a 15ftx6ft board.
The French objective was simple, to capture the Charleroi road within 15 turns. There were also 2 tactical objectives that the French could've captured.
Chateau Hougoumont ...
and La Haye Sainte. (I somehow completely forgot to get a good picture of La Haye Sainte, but you can see it near the top of the above picture)
If the French captured one of these objectives than the British would receive a negative to their initiative roll. There were also a few special rules meant to recreate some of the conditions of the battlefield as it was in history, such as no artillery bounce through due to heavy rains that occurred the night before the battle making the ground muddy.
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Marshal Ney
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Ol' Boney himself
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The Duke of Wellington, and the utterly useless Congrave rocket battery
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I took the side of the Alliance, controlling a brigade of Dutch on the left. I had 3 other allies and against us were 3 French players.
Knowing that we were on the defense, and that the French had a major artillery advantage, we decided to keep everyone deployed on the opposite slope of the ridge, demarcated by the road in the above picture.
Everyone, of course, except for me, who had to deploy on the other side of the ridge, facing the wrong direction, because historically, the Dutch had screwed up their deployment.
Placing our brigades on the other side of the hill would keep us protected from the French Grand Battery. Not only did it keep us out of line of sight from the cannons, but artillery could not make long or effective range shots within 12 inches of a friendly unit, so we could pop out from behind the hill and reach the opposite edge of the ridge in 1 turn and the French artillery would not be able to fire at us because their friendlies were too close. This strategy would basically nullify the French artillery for the entire game.
Per the deployment rules, I had to garrison one battalion in the village of Papelotte, I also supported them with 2 battalions of skirmishers. This was not a tactical objective so holding it was not very important to us, but I did want to use it to tie up as many French as I could. The more French distracted here, the less there would be going for the main objective. The plan worked out quite well, the one Dutch Battalion stationed there managed to keep 4-5 French battalions out of the fight for most the game, and delayed the French right's assault on our left flank.
I don't know for certain what the French players were planning, but from what I saw, their strategy was simple, bypass the fortified farmhouses/villages with whatever they could, and just attack our center. They must've deemed the tactical objective benefits they received were not worth it. They almost completely ignored La Haye Sainte, diverted most of their forces away from Hougoumont, and beelined straight for the Charleroir road.
For the first turn or 2, it seemed that the French were poised to attack Hougoumont, but they must have changed their minds because the French left took about 2/3s their force outside Hougoumont, marched out of the forests, and headed for our center. Luckily their advance was slowed down by the terrain and a large force of our cavalry right of La Haye Sainte. When the French center made contact with our line, the French left was still several turns away. We got quite lucky in the center, we had a lone artillery battery near La Haye Sainte that managed to badly maul a brigade of cavalry that believed it to be easy pickings. By the time they rallied and tried to attack again, we were able to meet them with our own cavalry and fight them off.
The French decision to bypass the Built Up Areas and go straight for our center was a good one, instead of being tied down and taking casualties fighting for the villages, they were able to commit several battalions to a small frontage of our lines, gaining a local superiority in numbers. Because our lines were so thin, if they were successful they'd create a hole in our lines that they could exploit.
Unfortunately for us, these assaults were successful in creating 2 gaps in our line and they moved to flood the opening with cavalry and infantry. This led to a kind of cool moment straight out of the history books, where the French cavalry, upon seeing the British retreat from the ridge, raced to pursue and found themselves met on the other side of the hill by several British infantry battalions in square formation.
The cavalry that made it into the gap found themselves checked by the infantry squares, the infantry that made it into the gap were checked by the reserves that we bought onto the table.
We got really lucky at key points in these last turns. Another French cavalry charge along the Charleroi road was defeated by infantry squares, and 2 more charges were repelled further down the left flank. If any of these assaults had been successful, that would've opened more gaps in our lines at a moment when we were still attempting to plug the last 2.
At this point we had played about 5 hours and many of us had to leave, so we decided to call it here and determined that it would probably be an Allied victory. We had mostly stabilized the gaps in our line and I was able to defeat the heavy cavalry that had managed to make it behind our lines, other French assaults had been repelled, taking many casualties in the process, and a counter charge by one of our Guard cavalry units was able to wipe out a French battalion and falter it's brigade as it withdrew.
This was a very close, tense game, especially on our left and center where the main French assault occurred. It was an absolute mess with enemy cavalry and infantry running amok amongst our ranks and us doing our best to stop them while still holding the line. We were very lucky that certain key dice rolls near the end went our way, because if any of them hadn't, we would be in a dire situation.
We all had a lot of fun, and look forward to our next meeting where we will run the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. I believe it will be John Bufords delaying action between Cemetery and Seminary Ridge.
I'd also like to take a moment to commemorate our dear friend, Paul Le Febvre, who unfortunately passed away this year. Paul was the most enthusiastic and warm member of our Fremont wargaming group, and his presence at our table is sorely missed. A majority of the models used in this game were Paul's, as he graciously left his collections to us after his passing. I can say for an absolute certainty that this game would not be possible if wasn't for him and we hope to do his miniatures honor and keep his memory alive by hosting many more like it in the future. It was a great game, my friend, and I wish you, your bowler hat, and your fingerless gloves could've been there.
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| By God, That Man Does War Honor! |
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