Conwy Wargames Club Nov game - Plancenoit 1815

Mel and Dave arranged the club's nod to this year being the anniversary of Waterloo.  Using their 15mm collections and the General De Brigade rules the game was taken from one in the scenario book 2.

The Mission
French hold the village without the Guard being committed.
Tactical Victory - French hold 2 of the 3 areas of Plancenoit and the Old Guard is not committed.
Glorious Victory - French hold all 3 sections of Plancenoit and only 1 Young Guard Brigade committed.

Prussian
Tactical Victory - hold 2 sections of Plancenoit and the Old Guard have not been committed.
Victory - hold all of Plancenoit
Glorious Victory - old all of the village and all the Guard is committed.

Orders of Battle
French
CiC Baron Simmer no ADCs

19th Division Baron Simmer
Bellair Brigade  4 battalions
Jamin Brigade 1 battalion, skirmishers
Div Artillery 1 x 8pdr foot battery
12th Chasers cavalry

Young Guard Duhesme
Chartrand Brigade 4 battalions and 1 x 6pdr battery
Michel Brigade 4 battalions and 1 x 6pdr battery

Old Guard Morand
1/2 Grenadiers
1/2 Chasseurs

Add caption

Prussians
CiC Blucher plus 1 ADC

Bulow's IV Corps
Hiller's Brigade 6 Battalions, 1 x 6pdr battery, skirmishers
Ryssel's Brigade 9 Battalions, 1 x 6pdr battery, skirmishers
Reserve Artillery 1 x 12pdr battery
Reserve Cavalry 3rd Landwehr Cavalry

Pirch's II Corps 9 battalions, skirmishers, 1 x battery of 6pdrs, 11th Hussars

Commanders
Blucher personally directed the attacks on Placenoit, any light wound and he'll become a poor commander and can no longer inspire the troops
The French start being commanded by Baron Simmer, once the Young Guard come on Duhesme will take over. Simmer will become an ADC at this point with one other.

Deployment
The Prussian 16th Brigade start on the high ground east of Plancenoit and the French 19th Division starts in and around Plancenoit.

If Bellair's brigade is broken or the Prussians occupy all the 3 urban sections of Plancenoit the Young Guard arrives on the road. The Old Guard appears if the Prussians have all of Plancenoit and the Young Guard has already been committed.

Terrain 
We agreed that each urban section could hold a unit and a gun. The church section provides a +3 melee modifier.

Special rules
Game length 24 - we only managed 9

The Game

Blucher behind Hiller's brigade.

All of Hillers brigade facing Plancenoit. I commanded this brigade and Pete commanded my artillery and all other artillery that arrived and Tony Ryssel's brigade

My best troops

The French right wing commanded by Dickie

French centre commanded by Dickie. All the troops in front of the buildings are actually inside defending.

French left wing commanded by Gaz

First move

The Prussian artillery of the central ridge ineffectively open fire and roll a double 1 thus discovering they've misplaced the ammo wagon. Drat!

French troops move up. 

Prussians keep advancing

Prussian 14th Brigade arrived ready to start next turn

Blucher cheers on Ryssel's men

The reserve artillery and cavalry arrive. The Prussians focus their attacks on the weaker sections of Plancenoit

Both sides exchange artillery and musket fire

Ryssel's brigade advances followed by the Prussian reserve artillery

The Prussian reserve Landwehr cavalry march to help the left attack

The Prussian left attack reaches charge range

Hillers brigade charges as the French shore up their centre and Ryssel's brigade closes in 

Bad dice. The 1st Silesian regiment recalls in disarray from attacking the centre

More bad dice and a battalion of the 15th regiment is hurled back on the left. Dickie's French however are having marvellous dice. They are down 50% and still in the fight.

Tony's aka Ryssel only manages to get 1 battalion of Landwehr to charge home and pushed the French back from the church only to be undone by horrendous dice and Ryssel's brigade breaks. This picture shows the Landwehr retreating

We then remembered the 11th infantry was part of the same brigade and retreated them as well. Blucher was on the left of the battle and would take 2 moves to reach Ryssel, and as long as they rallied (and they would) it would take them 4 turns to get back in the fight. We were on turn 9 at the end of the day having played for 3 hours, out of the scheduled 24 turns. We'd been slow setting up as the majority of us playing were unfamiliar with the rules and some not familiar with the period. So we called it a day realising that even with another hours play the French will still have won even if my Prussians did occupy 1 section of Plancenoit.

A resounding French victory and Marshal batons all round. Ignoring the fact the game needed another 15 turns to get a true result we'd stopped play at a point the French could claim the Young Guard and the part of the old Guard committed would be available for the attack by the Guards on Wellington.

I liked the rules, I still prefer Black Powder with which I think we'd have had a quicker game. Black Powder has less paperwork and movement is much quicker. I did like the fact that the larger batteries in General De Brigade took up space that restricted movement as they did historically. Regardless of which rules we'd used we definitely needed a full day to play this scenario. Ryssels brigade would have rallied and attacked again with the Prussian II corps which arrived on turn 9 which we didn't play. By roughly turn 14 Plancenoit should have fallen and the Young Guard would need to arrive, and their presence would be felt by around turn 18. I definitely would like to lay this scenario again.