Over the weekend of 17th, 18th and 19th of June at New Buckenham Historical Wargamers we re-fought the Battle of Waterloo in 28mm using the Shako II rules, with some house and scenario tweaks.
When I arrived on the Friday evening I was surprised to find that instead of having one of the two Prussian commands, as I had expected, I in fact was given General Altens 3rd Allied Division defending La Haye Sainte and the right centre of Wellington's line.
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| The layout |
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| My command. |
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| La Haye Sainte |
To my front I had a mass of British and KGL artillery with British, KGL, Hanoverian and Nassau infantry behind them. I also had command of some Hanoverian and Dutch cavalry.
So all I had to do was defend the ridge and the farmhouse.
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| Allied centre |
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| Sunken road |
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| Picton at centre left |
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| Far right, Hougoumont |
For a full AAR I will link to the club's Facebook albums for the game at the end.
Overall it was a game of frustrating dice rolls.
My artillery couldn't seem to hit a barn let alone a barn door, but did fight OK in melee before all being destroyed over the course of the battle.
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| A few artillery hits ! |
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| My artillery missing splendidly in the centre. |
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Yes the point blank canister missed!
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| Prussians advance |
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| French await in Plancenoit |
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| Picton under pressure |
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| Allied right swing down the slope. |
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| Join between centre and right, where'd all the cannons go? |
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| La Haye Sainte still in allied hands. |
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| More pressure on allied left. |
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| Looking westward down the table. |
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| Squares it is then. |
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| Reserve dutch gun into action. |
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| Still held, just. |
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| Prussians heading for the allied left. |
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| Highlanders and Dutch fight on. |
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| And here come the French heavies. |
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| French advance after capturing La Haye Sainte |
La Haye Sainte held on for quite a while before falling to the French Middle Guard and with my first attempt to retake being beaten off I contented myself with just preventing the French from advancing out of the farm.
It seemed all weekend that however well I rolled, sometimes really well, especially with some of my poorer units, my opponent always managed to roll one higher to defeat me. Even initiative rolls went his way when he really needed them too.
And of course the "anything but a six" call for a morale check came back to do me in again :)
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| Squares await the next onslaught. Look the Cumberland Hussars are still here! |
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| Allied cavalry jostling for room...look a cannon! |
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| Household and Dutch Belgium cavalry. |
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| Last cannon and my Nassaus gone, that's a big hole. |
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| Cavalry try to turn back the French tide. |
By the end of the game my division had been broken, but had held on just long enough for the Brunswick troops to form a defensive position around the crossroads on the Brussels road to give the Allies a very narrow victory, much to the French players chagrin.
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| The Plancenoit sector. |
Unfortunately for one reason or another we were short of players this year so the Prussian sector and Plancenoit were effectively abandoned after the Saturday.
Fuller AARs and many more photos can be found at the club's Facebook albums below.
Waterloo 1pm - 3pm
Waterloo 3pm - 5:50pm
Waterloo 5:30pm - 8:30pm
Waterloo Misc photos
Another great, sometimes frustrating, weekends gaming.
Tony
That looks like a lot of fun. I'm jealous ;-))
ReplyDeleteThanks it was great fun, most of the time :)
DeleteThat looks terrific Tony. The Hougoumont looks great and I particualrly like the way the gardens have been done. Nice to pull out a narrow victory particularly as luck did not seem to be running your way.
ReplyDeleteCheers Lawrence. The only allied commanders that seemed to have things go their way were those on the extreme right and left flanks, but even they had moments.
DeleteThat look like a HUGE game and lots of fun. Bad rolls or not; pretty cool to be part of the epicness. 😀
ReplyDeleteIt was a lot of fun, most of the time, :)
DeleteThat was a Napoleonic eye candy treat an enjoyable half hour drooling over a fantastic looking game with wonderful figures.
ReplyDeleteWillz.
Many thanks, we are very lucky at our club.
Delete