The Battle of Teugen-Hausen 1809!

 Ken and Dave were over last weekend (yes I know this post is dreadfully late) for an 1809 Napoleonic clash to fight one of my favorite battles of the Napoleonic Wars - Teugen-Hausen!  The French have 9 turns to capture Hausen and a road exit.  Anything else is an Austrian victory.  Is my scenario too restrictive?  Read on!

An epic "meeting engagement" of sorts, Teugen-Hausen features Davout's III Corps smashing into Hohenzollern's ArmeeKorps during the dramatic Spring "mobile" battles in late April 1809, and were part of the leadup to the Battle of Eckmuhl.  You can read about how the forces got to the battlefield, and why the battle was fought here.

With Dave playing the role of Marshall Davout, and Ken playing Hohenzollern, I acted as GM.  Black Powder were the rules of choice for this game, and I fully recognize this choice will throw some of you into uncontrollable fits of rage.  (if you click this link, please turn the volume down if the kids are within earshot - you've been warned!)

BP suited the amounts of units on the table rather nicely.  We played with units as "Regiments" and called the commands "Divisions" instead of "Brigades" which caused some confusion with my guests but we were able to work through it.  The action starts with Saint Hilaire's Division along with Davout deploying from the line of march to assault the ridge to their front.

French Legere in Assault columns- I labeled the units because it's classy...

Dave deploys wisely by shaking out the lead regiments into line, and opts to go to the left for a wide, flanking maneuver.  Ken has Vukassovich's Advanced Guard Division, the best Austrian Division on the table, deploy along the ridge with his artillery and light units.

Vukassovich's Troops deployed astride the road to Hausen

Peterwardeiner Grenzers!

Dave gets the command rolls and position Saint Hilaire's units to hold and exchange volleys with the Austrians to his front, while sending around some considerable combat power up the ridgeline in an attempt to flank the position.

French Regiments shake out into line trading fire with the Austrians on the ridge and in the woods

Ken moves up a trickle of reinforcements to the line.   Ken is going to position an Austrian infantry regiment on the reverse slope of the ridge to catch the French before they can wreak havoc in the Austrian rear area.  They are large Austrian infantry Regiments (6 x stands in this case) and take 4 hits for Shaken instead of 3, making them a bit more stubborn and with their poor command values, a bit more slow moving.  

slow moving Austrian Regiment moves up to counter the French flanking effort

The progress of Dave's deployment of St Hilaire's Division - keeping Vukassovich's units occupied and penned up.

In the center, Ken moves his skirmishers out to screen the forces on the ridge, buying time for his reinforcements to come up.   The more fighting he can do on the ridge and keep French forces attacking there, the more combat power he can accumulate on his side of the ridgeline.  Dave's lead regiments charge the skirmishers, pushing them back.  High drama on the slopes!

note the columns top left as Dave's forces move to flank the ridge!  This was one of my favorite pics of the battle!

the generals commanding!  View from the Austrian positions

Davout's hard-marching columns racing into the woods on the ridge!

musketry duels with the Austrians and French.  Eat your heart out BP EPIC!  These Old Glory 10mm Naps look the part!  Also note the mixed in RISK pieces in the Austrian Hussars.  Somehow they were intermingled (during the confused fighting no doubt) with Old Glory 10mm Hussars on the ridgeline!

Damn your eyes why aren't the men firing, Captain?  Because you and your staff are blocking the guns, sir.

Austrian Grenzers disordered (yellow die) with 1 hit

Dave claws his way onto the ridge as unit after unit of Ken's advanced guard (Vukassovich) are gobbled up or sent streaming down the opposite side of the ridge towards Hausen.  Meanwhile, Dave's flanking columns shake out into line in the forest and start trading volleys with the Austrians at the base of the hill.  The battle is entering a new phase!

Grenzers are pushed back in heavy fighting

Dave flanks Ken's Hussars who melt away from the heavy fire

French reinforcements are continuing to arrive

Just epic!  French forces storming the ridge and you can just make out the Austrians forming a new line to confront them in the upper left!  My second favorite pic - almost looks like a painting of a Napoleonic battle with French lines everywhere!

The Iron Marshall - please disregard the Staff Ratings on his stand - we were playing with BP 2nd Edition - no more Senior Officers!  The Commanding General is more of a morale marker.

More fighting atop the ridgeline

As massive Austrian columns slowly make their way towards the fighting.  We have started rolling for the Grenadier reinforcements now (Turn 5-almost Turn 9 where we'll start rolling to end the game)  Ken had to leave and left me in command of the Army!  BIg trouble!

Vukassovich's battered units refused to carry out any order after their retreat from the ridge.  They remained blockin the road for the remainder of the game.  I could have used them to slow down the French even more!  Meanwhile, French columns start pouring down the ridge and deploying into line...

The few Austrian units who managed to deploy shake out into line to meet the French, whose blood are up!

Hard fighting here next to the road as the French try hard for a breakthrough in the center!

Up and down the line the French charge the Austrians!

More heavy fighting!  2 x massive Austrian regiments attempt to hold off the flood of French who are desperately seeking a breakthrough on Turn 6.  They have 3 more turns to capture a road exit and Hausen!  Can they make it?

More and more French columns joining the fight and reaching the now-abandoned ridgeline

and even more behind them!

The French aren't breaking through as quickly as they'd like to - the stubborn Austrians are hanging on by their fingernails!

After multiple turns of failing an order, the Austrian reinforcements finally start moving.  In march col on the road, they were getting 1 free move per turn, but it is taking a long time to move the massive columns into position.  They were able to screen the road exit closest to the French, and arrived just as Dave was making his breakthrough.... finally.

Final french dispositions before Dave rolled a 6 and a thunderstorm ended the game on turn 9.  So while the French won ever engagement, this was technically an Austrian victory...

Final Thoughts

Sound Officers Call Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed putting this scenario together with the extremely competent and lethal French units, along with their stalwart Austrian enemies, this had all the makings of a good scenario.  So what happened?  Well besides being alot of fun, I'm not sure the conditions could have been met by the French (BTW looks to me like the result was fairly historical with the French holding the field by day's end)  Dave and Ken suggested for next time, lengthening the time before you roll for the thunderstorm to end the game.  Dave suggested Turn 13.  My suspicion is it's a bit before that but the maths (average commands given on 2D6) would have to drive those considerations.

While many scoff at Black Powder, it handled the large multitude of units on the table nicely, and the rules really came back to me.  They're still my favorite for large, sweeping battles like this and allow us to get lots of toys on the table for a significantly less commitment of time.  

On the whole, we missed some stuff in the rules, but everything worked, and fairly smoothly at that.  This game was much fun and I'm looking forward to playing more.  I already have some great ideas for future games.  For those interested, we halved all measurements just like in the "Epic" rules and it played very well.  My larger 10mm units - French at 5 x 30mm stands, and the Austrians at 6 x 30mm stands - really made the game look good and I know I've got some work to do on the terrain but this game was just what the Doctor ordered for my gaming funk of late.  While I'd like to say the Napoleonics bug has been "worked out" that's probably far from the case and I'm already scheming another battle or 2 to fight before I go back to WW2 battles.

Also of note, I've been reading up on a very nice and simple Age of Sail rules called "It Is Warm Work" which seem to me to be based off the Junior General "Trafalgar" rules in a way, and I like that alot (seriously what's not to love there - free rules, free ships, free scenarios).  I'd like to get a game of them on the table soon, as well as some WWII action after that.  Looking squarely at more FoW battles, and playing Steven Thomas' improved Armor rules for Crossfire.  Fall and winter we can hopefully get more gaming in so stay tuned - more great things to come!  

On the hobby/building/painting front, I'm going to be basing my 15mm Romans AGAIN (the poor fellows) for ADLG, and am painting up my El Cid Heavy Spanish Infantry for ADLG games against Ken's Muslim troops.  Im also painting the 3D printed "dead" El Cid figure Ken very kindly gave me (more to come on that) and we're going to party like it's 1099!

Sorry, Rodrigo, we have one more job for you before you rest!