Thursday 9 April 2015

Wargaming Waterloo 1815 : 2015 (3) Battle of Quatre Bras at the Napoleonic Wargaming Society

A change of scene and scale last night saw me at the Napoleonic Wargaming Society playing another version of Quatre Bras—one cannot have too many Quatres Bras, especially in the year of the bicentennial—with some of our good friends (and members of the ANF 'family'!).

Mark 'Sun of York' (aka 'Marc') had designed the scenario based on the one presented in the Napoleon's Battles v2 book. He also hand painted the terrain which looked absolutely marvellous.

I joined Mark B in taking the French while Stephen had command of the Anglo-Allied defenders.

I'll only be giving you a taste of the game here as Mark has posted a fine, full report on his blog, One Sided Miniature Wargaming Discourse (in addition to one of an earlier version that he completed solo).

At first it seemed that the Nassauers, Dutch and Belgian were going to emulate the determined stand that they put on in our version (and historically). Note the '8' beside the 2nd Nassau compared with the '3' beside the French and the little blue 'disordered' marker!


Surely though, the overwhelming numbers could be made to tell?

Yes they can, thanks to a mighty attack lead by the Prince of Moscow himself!

In fact, all the way to the other end of the table, where an(other) almighty mêlée occurred

That left only the on-coming divisions of Picton and Brunswick to oppose the French onslaught, with precious little table to play on (note position of the green underlay cloth in the last two photos).

Not wishing to steal thunder, please see Mark's report for the details of what occurred.

Next time


We are scheduled to play out the second half of our Quatre Bras 200 game on Saturday, so I expect to post pt 2 a little while afterwards.

4 comments:

  1. Excellent looking game - figs and troops are lovely. BTW, thanks for the link to Mark's blog too.

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    1. Thanks Dean.
      Always pleased to introduce someone to another's blog. I find new, interesting ones nearly every time I visit someone's blog!!

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  2. Great post James - I'm totally chuffed!

    The second to last photo (not sure about the last one - it won't open for me) is a great shot. Love the Nassau flag flying proud as they are monstered by all those French troops lead by Ney and Jerome as the allied commanders glummy look on (I suppose that is what you get when you ring in Prussian commanders to fill in for Wellington and the Prince of Orange). Never fear, I have just now ordered the Wellington/Picton and Prince of Orange staff sets from AB. The pressure is on to get them done in time. Mark W (see his blog here: http://stretch76.blogspot.com.au/ ) will be painting Picton for his part in Waterloo 15 at the NWS 13 June.

    If your Mark W can make it we should be able to get in the record books for the most Marks playing a game of Waterloo in 15mm in the bicentenary year.

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    1. Thanks for finding that Mark. It seems to be fixed now (at my end at least).

      Can't re-fight too many Waterloos, can't have too many Marks...!

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