Davout was ordered to take his III Corps and assault the heights beyond Markgrafneusidl during the second day of the Battle of Wagram in 1809. Doing so would unhinge the Austrian position and put the Austrians at a severe disadvantage. I wanted to game this fight since it would conveniently fit on a 6 x 4 table, so using the map from the "Austria Stands Alone" Volley and Bayonet supplement, I planned out this battle with the use of the "Snappy Nappy" rules and my 10mm figures.
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| French divided up into units. I think I had MORE units than were present in III Corps, including a sizable Cavalry contingent. Closest to the camera is the village of Glinzendorf, with Grosshofen center-left, and Markgrafneusiedl upper-center, guarding the approaches over the Russbach. The heights are clearly visible in the upper left. |
This game featured the attack against the IV ArmeeKorps' position by Davout's III French Corps de Armee.
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| Cavalry Corps! |
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| The Austrian IV ArmeeKorps! |
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| View from the Austrian side towards the French starting positions |
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| Austrian reserves - elements of the Avant Garde. |
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| Grenzers! |
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| An Austrian Infantry Regiment |
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| French Troops clog the roads |
Dave weights the extreme left of the French Corps boundary with a huge infantry column and moves his cavalry and attached corps artillery up with them. A second infantry column moves straight up the road.
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| The Emperor orders you to attack! |
My Cavalry "division" is on attack orders and crosses the Russbach to assault the French while they are still in column. It's not going to work out the way I want it, but it has the desired effects of slowing down the French horde!
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| Austrian Cavalry moving up to cross the stream. They'll be swarmed by French shortly! |
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| Austrians await the French assault! Note the lead of the French column is visible in the upper left! |
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| Austrian Cavalry crossing the stream! |
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| As much as I want to charge that lone battery, I cant - don't have the movement for it |
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| Hungarian Regiment in Markgrafneusiedl! |
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| Covering the bridge - Dave is moving his cavalry up towards the crossing sites! The battle is about to be joined soon! |
It's worth noting that the French command distance is 18" vrs the Austrian 12" command distance. This enabled the French much more flexibility in using their commanders. My feet were glued to Markgrafneusiedl! I next did what any reasonable Cavalry commander would do against such long odds...I charge!!!!
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| Charging into the lead French units. Dave fails to form hasty square but it doesn't matter! He does well in the melee and I do badly in the morale rolls! |
My charge against the lead French units on the French left has the desired effect of forcing Dave's units to deploy sooner, however it cost my the whole Division as they become scattered and exhausted by the back and forth combats. Dave moves his heavy Cavalry across to deal with them, but still has lots of Cavalry to spare!
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| Austrian Hussars! |
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| Dave's French are fanning out in the farm fields while my Cavalry attempt to shake out as well. |
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| The French battering rams draw ever closer! |
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| Markgrafneuseidl from the Austrian side. Dave edges his cavalry and artillery closer. |
I guessed Dave's strategy wrong. I thought he was going to use his Cavalry as a big battering ram, but instead brings up his guns and pounds the Austrian line, forcing big holes into my defense. Units start to break under the pressure and the French Cavalry is there to exploit! I should note Dave's troops are all "Veteran" and my Austrians are all "seasoned". A small but important difference!
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| I maneuver more cavalry on Dave's flank and he puts more infantry into square as a result. It's having the effect i want for now by keeping more French infantry out of the fight. Unfortunately my troops are glued-down by the "Defend" orders and I can't move them to exploit the success! |
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| Austrian cavalry threatening the French right! Note the units in squares to their front! |
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| Meanwhile back at the Russbach, the French are massing to storm the creek and the Austrian positions! French artillery is getting into position under heavy fire to fire shot into the Austrian positions! |
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| The heavies fight it out! Cuirassier against Chevaulegers! The French win the upper hand and my Austrian heavies retreat in disgrace! I have to use a light Hussar unit to shield them while they attempt to rally next turn! |
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| Lots of firepower covering the approaches but Dave plays smartly and blasts the crap out of my units before he sends any units over |
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| The blue Austrian hussar unit on the left is covering the Chevaulegers off camera. They would slice right into the flanks of 2 x French Hussar units, damaging one and sending the other packing! |
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| Austrian Avant Garde just sitting there. I didn't make my reserve roll the entire game. Doh! |
A couple highlights of the game? Dave moves up his infantry in front of the Austrian guns, with tightly packed French lines behind them. Well the infantry fail a morale check forcing a morale check of EVERY unit they retreat into! Dave's lucky rolling staves off disaster - he lost that unit that failed but it was the only French loss of the battle. Also the back and forth nature of the Cavalry battles on the left were great fun. Dave was finally also able to force much of my infantry behind the Russbach into square and when he forced one or two units to retreat i called it around turn 12. This would have been 9pm at night as well and the battle was coming to a close by then.
Dave never did take the heights, however the Austrian's likely would have thrown in the towel at this point and withdrew under the cover of night. A great day of Napoleonic gaming with Snappy Nappy!
Dave and I really enjoyed this game and the rules worked out well. I like the swings with the D10 which seems to produce enough "random events" for you without needing a mechanism to determine random events. I like how a unit could go through multiple melees without a scratch, losing big time in one but only going down 1 morale level.
We will definitely play Snappy Nappy again. I am also keen on trying this same battle with Blucher to see how it goes as well. Probably worth mentioning that I wanted to try to play Waterloo today with either Commands and Colors or the Neil Thomas Napoleonic Wargaming rules but ended up playing Snappy Nappy with my 1809 kit. Too many choices and too little time!
Your 10s look terrific especially deployed in depth. Lovely close up photos. Never played Snappy Nappy but Peter at Blunders on Danube uses it for Campaign in a Day events. His campaigns look quite appealing as does your battle.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff!
THank you Jonathan. I love the look of the 10mm troops for Napoleonics and this post really validates my thoughts on using them from now on. The nagging question for me is - what to do with all of my 15mm guys???
DeleteSnappy Nappy is a very fun game and we will use it again. I've never participated in a Campaign in a Day but I've read much about them.
Lovely visuals, an epic fight on a 6x4, playing to every strength of 10mm.
ReplyDeleteThank you Norm. It was great fun and you're right the 10s look good on the table. It's a very believable Napoleonic setting.
DeleteNice report, great looking units!
ReplyDeleteTHank you Phil!
DeleteSUPERB Steve!
ReplyDeleteExcellent pics and commentary.
Snappy Nappy is really quite flexible for French orders - perhaps too flexible at times.
The guys over at Litte Wars produced (with permission) a simplified QRS for it, which reduces a lot of the modifiers and order restrictions. See here.
http://www.littlewarstv.com/members-only/category/e110-marengo
And great to see that old V&B scenario book getting used.
CHeers, Darren! We had a blast. You know i totally forgot about the Little Wars TV QRS they made and should have printed and used it. We both kept the same orders the whole game and never changed them but it was a "small" action with only 3 Corps per side (lol laughed as I typed that).
DeleteUsing the "Austria Stands ALone" book you could slice up the Wagram battlefield into 3 to 4 pieces and game each one separately! Perfect for my humble table!
In addition to the Whole of Wagram on a huge table, for my own scenario book, that's exactly what I did - break it up into 3 sectors, with the French Having some reserves they can commit to one or more battles, but once they are committed in one game, they can't be used elsewhere. Massena will usually be in need of some of those reinforcements, as was the case historically. I do this action last, with a better than historical chance of John showing up to encourage the French to husband their reserves!
DeleteOf course I should mention that Gonsalvo has authored the super 'Blunders on the Danube' for Field of Battle (BEST rules ever ;) ).
DeleteThe scenarios in this are fantastic. If only I had enough painted troops.
I own Peter's excellent scenario book but alas! I don't have the table space to game them! I wonder if I break them down would that break the scenarios?
DeleteYou guys know, coming to think of it, that would be an excellent Snappy Nappy campaign-in-a-day fighting Wagram on 3 tables with a command structure of players in place. Not necessarily a campaign, but everyone has an important role to play.
DeleteNow if we each organised a table, and reported in (time zones notwithstanding), it could be an interesting game across 3 blogs ...
DeleteOoooh now you're talking, Darren! Heck, if LindyBeige can do it with Crossfire around the world, we can set up a 3 x table battle of Wagram. Could find a mutually agreeable time to start, or just link the results over a weekend. I like it!
DeleteYou could most certainly do a 3 table game (maybe 2 additional small tables, one for French Reserves, one for Archduke John's approach).
DeleteI see you've shared this great post with the Snappy Nappy group - I think this discussion of a multi site Wagram would port well over to there also.
After our Campaign-in-a Day event, Dan B was mumbling something about having enough 15 mm troops to do Wagram before long...
I will test the waters over there and see :) Really liking the idea of a linked larger battle game using SN.
DeleteAlthough I do strictly 25/28 mm troops, I have to say that your 10mm troops look excellent, and the table is gorgeous! I have dope this action with Field of Battle (on 6 x 12 foot table, mind you), and it was a blast. This is a pretty difficult action for the Austrians to win... Unless Johann shows up, which he did only far to late in the day to make any difference at all.
ReplyDeleteAs Jon notes, we have played a lot of Snappy Nappy with our Campaign in a Day event, and a few pitched battles. A one point difference in the average quality of forces is significant, considering every time there is fire combat, the better units will likely score more hits, and save the once they receive better. Not that I haven't manage to fail 5 rolls in a row with Elite troops, mind you!
Are you using 4 bases per unit? It looks like it in the (fantastic) pictures.
Thank you, Peter! This was a grinding infantry fight to be sure and when I looked at the troops on the table I was not sure how the Austrians would have pulled out a win unless they could get the Avant Gard to be released. We started rolling at turn 5 for them and I never made the roll!
DeleteI've never seen a pitched battle played with Snappy Nappy - only campaigns in a day. We probably won't have the bandwidth to play a campaign in a day (let alone plan one!) for a long time, however the rules really were fast-playing with so many units on the table we got through the whole affair in 3 hours.
This game the Austrians, to signify their newly-gained combat experience from the attack earlier that morning on July 6th, gave them "seasoned" and the French "veteran." This created a nice advantage without being too generous, although I'm thinking Davout's Corps could have been rated better than veteran, or the Austrians worse than seasoned?
We used 4 "physical" bases for the units, however we counted 2 stands as 1 base. So each brigade still had 2 bases technically. They just looked so much better with 4 x stands.
Thank you for commenting!
I think Veteran for Davout's troops vs. Seasoned for the Austrians opposing him is quite reasonable, especially for the 3 core Divisions of Morand, Friant, and Gudin; maybe even Elite for his Leger. The Austrians certainly had no lack of combat experience by this time, and had just turned back the French at Aspern-Essling a month prior. Other French Corps might be more Seasoned, with perhaps Veteran for the Legere; some might still even be conscript rating.
DeleteThat's what I figured you were doing with the bases, and it looks like it worked out great.
We definitely didn't go into that level of detail for the first game, but I think in future games we can play with the troop quality levels a little more (conscripts, etc). I want to identify the commanders and regiments next time around as well. I think that always adds a little flavor to the tabletop!
DeleteIt worked out very well all around.
Looks great. Sorry I missed it.
ReplyDeleteNo worries, Ken. Plenty more carnage to go around! I left it set up. i also want to try this with Blucher as well.
DeleteAwesome looking game! I am considering the plunge into 10mm. In fact, your bases look to be a strip of Old Glory 10mm, on a 30mm front base? Since you look to have the figures, check out the 1800 campaign I recently placed on the Snappy Nappy forum (https://groups.io/g/SnappyNappy). It would need only five tables to run.
ReplyDeleteAwesome Mike! I will go check it out. Love Snappy Nappy!
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