martes, 7 de septiembre de 2021

Epílogo

 



Aprovechando este período estival nos gustaría comunicaros que tenemos una nueva morada para "Pas de Manoeuvre! y su hermano mayor "El Rincón de Byron". Debutamos en Wordpress, continuando con nuestro blog como siempre y nos gustaría que le siguierais otorgando vuestra confianza de ahora en adelante, si es que es vuestra elección. 

Hemos decidido este cambio un poco forzados, pero sobretodo para tener más flexibilidad y control de nuestros propios contenidos sin censores "invisibles" omnipotentes de por medio. Nada más, desearos un buen dia o buenas vacaciones y !Hasta luego!

Estamos en plena migración de contenidos (cerca de unas 400 entradas) y acabando de pulir el aspecto del nuevo blog, por lo que aún conservaremos esta versión de Blogger, como mínimo durante este mes y probablemente el siguiente, a medida que vayamos regularizando los contenidos en nuestra nueva dirección, a la que os animamos a subscribiros sin coste alguno.


La nueva versión de "El Rincón de Byron" en WordPress.


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Taking advantage of this summer period we would like to inform you that we have a new home for our "Pas de Manoeuvre!" and his big brother "El Rincón de Byron" blog. We made our debut in Wordpress, continuing with our blog as always and we would like you continue giving your trust from now on, if that is your choice. 

We have decided this change a bit forced, but above all to have more flexibility and control of our own content without omnipotent "invisible" censors involved. Nothing else, wish you a good day or good Holidays and see you soon! 

We are in full migration of content (about 400 entries) and finishing polishing the appearance of the new blog, so we will still keep this version of Blogger, at least this month and probably the next, as we regularize the content in our new address, to which we encourage you to subscribe totally free.


The new versión -actually- of "El Rincón de Byron" WordPress.


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Profitant de cette période estivale, nous tenons à vous informer que nous avons une nouvelle maison pour "Pas de Manoeuvre! et son grand frère "El Rincón de Byron". Nous avons fait nos débuts dans Wordpress en continuant notre blog comme toujours et nous aimerions que vous continuiez à nous faire confiance à partir de maintenant, si tel est votre choix. 

Nous avons décidé ce changement un peu forcé, mais surtout pour avoir plus de flexibilité et de contrôle de notre propre contenu sans que des censeurs "invisibles" omnipotents ne soient impliqués. Rien d'autre, je vous souhaite une bonne journée ou de bonnes vacances et à plus! 

Nous sommes en pleine migration de contenu (environ 400 entrées) et finissons de peaufiner l'apparence du nouveau blog, nous conserverons donc toujours cette version de Blogger, au moins ce mois-ci et probablement le suivant, au fur et à mesure que nous régularisons le contenu à notre nouvelle adresse, auquel nous vous encourageons à vous abonner sans aucun frais.


sábado, 24 de octubre de 2020

Bavaria Campaign 1809 Solitaire mode (II) Turns 7-10

We continue with the campaign of Bavaria 1809, which will be resolved in the last turns. A positive experience (more positive than expected) and hoping to repeat it in the future in another Napoleonic campaign.

The dice rolls were not digital, trying to preserve the old wargaming spirit a bit. Now I need a decent dice tower, and stop collecting dices on the ground...

 

TURN 7

04/21/1809 - Clear weather

Event Card: Initiative: The initiative for the turn passes this time to the Austrians.

No reinforcements.

Davout with 5PO awaits the arrival of reinforcements to attack the forces surrounding Regensburg, Masséna (3 PO) regroups his army corps before heading north. Lefevbre (5 PO) with his body of Bavarians is also heading north. Vandamme (3 PO) will continue north towards Eichstedt. Napoleon (7 PO) goes with Oudinot's body towards Neudstadt. Lefevbre (5PO) is concentrated in Neudstadt. 
 
Three decoys ("d","b" and "e") head north and attack Lefevbre's body, which turns out to be Rosenberg's IV ArmeeKorps, a rumour without effect and an aggressive action decoy, so the Austrian general attitude now will be to directly attack the French units. In Abensberg the fight will take place between Rosenberg's IV Corps, Hiller's VI and Lefebvre's VII. The French player chooses a Skirmish option and the Austrian player does battle. 
 
The result is the defeat of the French player and losing 5 FP.
 





As stated in the home-made rules, if one of the sides rolls a "1" it becomes an own loss to be discounted.

Five casualties (freely distributed) and two fatigue points for losing the battle are discounted, this was a last minute addition based on the Napoléon 1806 rulebook by Shakos.
 

TURN 8

04/22/1809 - Clear weather
 
Event card: “Estafette” so another event card is chosen, which turns out to be “Conseil Aulique” which only allows the Austrian player to move only 2 bodies or decoys on the turn.



 
Masséna (7 PO) makes a forced march to try to join Lefevbre's body. Napoleon (8 PO) with Oudinot's corps also heads towards Abensberg with another forced march. Vandamme (6PO) in turn makes a forced march to join the Emperor. Davout (8PO) heads towards Regensburg, to attract the units that surround the city. The outposts of the Friant Division (II Corps) contact 3 decoys which happen to be the Austrian III Korps in Hemau, the V Korps, 10 km behind and a decoy with “Aggressive Action” that is retired. 
 
In the South, Napoleon with part of Oudinot's corps, part of Lefebre's corps, Nansouty heavy cavalry and Wollwarth's cavalry, face the Austrian IV and VI Corps at the Battle of Abensberg. The battle of Abensberg ends with a minimal Austrian victory that causes the French to withdraw provisionally and the Bavarian divisions of Deroi and the Royal Prince with the heavy cavalry of D'Espagne reject the II Austrian reserve Korps in Sigenburg.





TURN 9

04/23/1809 - Clear weather

Event card: “Au son du canon” so that a unit with a valid connection to the combat zone can join the action, as long as it is not fighting itself.

 


Davout (6PO) accumulates his troops near Hemau to attract the units that surround the city. Napoleon (7 PO) concentrates his troops in Neudstadt, hoping to finish concentrating the corps of Oudinot and Vandamme with their artillery reserves. Vandamme (5PO) brings his units closer to Neudstadt to accumulate them with Napoleon's. Lefebvre (6PO) does the same with his Bavarian corps and Masséna (3PO) arrives from the south as well. With the event card we add to the Rouyer Division that has a direct connection and is not fighting in any combat. 
 
The 2nd battle of Abensberg ends with a clear Austrian victory that makes the French withdraw to the other side of the Danube and in the battle of Hemau Davout they defeat the Austrian III and V corps.
 

 

 





 
 

TURN 10

04/24/1809 - Clear weather

Event card: "Munich" has been occupied by an enemy corps, which provides the Austrian team with victory points. 
 
The "G" decoy which was the closest one is moved to Munich.



Napoleon (7PO) decides to knock down the bridge after the troops have passed and head towards Kösching, near Ingoldstadt, followed by Vandamme (3PO) and Lefevbre (4PO). Masséna (4PO) must retrace his steps over Munich and try to regain the city. Davout (3PO) concentrates his forces in Hemau to try to conquer Regensburg, hoping that Napoleon will support him. 
 
The decoy in Munich turns out to be "Aggressive Action" so the French take over Munich again. 
 
Hiller's VI Korps (5PO) heads north, followed by Rosenberg's IV Korps (3PO). The rest waiting, being able to continue along the southern bank of the Danube towards Ingoldstadt or accompany Hiller and Rosenberg north.

END

 

CONCLUSIONS:

- The solo campaign has been a more positive experience than I expected. Several mechanisms have worked quite well, though with some small mistakes. To repeat in the future...

- Better implement the function of supply units, and to limit the distances between units and their respective supply wagon.

- The action of the decoys with some adjustments, quite positive, a great idea based on an idea of  the blog of General Nuisance.
 
- Improve the passage of decoys to regular units.
 
- The player has to be careful with the direction of the units to be able to concentrate them if it is necessary. Moving a unit very far from the rest (Masséna's corps in Munich), conditions its evolution and how it happened to me, makes it impossible to use it in time.
 
- A best option, the campaign could have been played on for a few more turns, hoping to conquer Regensburg on the French side or finish off Napoleon's army on the Austrian side.
 
- The resolution of the battles was quite positive, system based on "Les Marechaux", by Vae Victis, with some small adjustments, as in heavy cavalry.

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Bavaria Campaign 1809 Solitaire mode (I) Turns 1-6

For all those of you who have ever looked at this blog, it will seem that we have a fixation on this Napoleonic campaign from 1809. Fixation is not the concrete word, perhaps the desire to carry out a few-turns campaign but with a system that would be easy to implement, based on some wargame rules that have attracted us most attention in the past, as we wrote in the last article.

In the end, we have been able to successfully develop this campaign, which has also served us to test this compendium of home-made rules for the campaign and correct some errors that have been made. The support we have chosen has been digital, with the Cyberboard application, already a bit old but it allows you to easily implement a simple board game like ours. The units are represented by flags, which was a mistake, because they didn't allow us to see behind them and therefore we had to have limited ourselves to the classic square counter pieces. The rest of the already known ingredients, event cards, markers for the weather, turns and victory points.

The map deserves a separate comment, since we have taken advantage of the Hexdraw software, to draw hexagon maps, but renouncing the typical hexagons to make it a point-to-point map, although of course with the hexagonal support. It is not an exact geographical map, logically, but the result seems more satisfactory than with other grid methods (square, offset squares, etc.) that we have previously tried in the past. 
 
So this has been the solo Bavarian campaign 1809...


 

TURN 1

04/15/1809 - Clear weather

There are no event cards this first turn.

 

 

 

 

 

 




France: Lefebvre, commander of the Bavarian VII Corps, gets only 1PO  [Lefebvre has 6 of value, he can roll 6 1d6, and the numbers >=3 are Orders Points or PO] with which he moves the Deroi division from Rottenburg to 10 km from Landshut to support the Wrede division. Probably the rest of the corps will follow the next day, abandoning the possibility of defending Regensburg, to avoid the possibility of being surrounded. 

Austrian decoys have been deployed south of Landshut and north of Regensdburg, in a randomizing way (6 entry points to enter the map according a roll dice). 

Red decoys and blue Bavarian troops.

The Austrian entry points in a zoomed area



TURN 2

04/16/1809 - Clear weather

Event card: "Mort au combat": As no combat occurs, it cannot be applied.
 
Reinforcements: None of the 3 reinforcements available, Davout, Napoleon or Vandamme roll the required score of 1 or 2 to advance the initial arrival turn.

 

Lefebvre gets 3PO this time, with which he moves the artillery reserve and impedimenta towards Freising to contact the rest of the corps. The Prince Royal remains in Moosburg and Deroi's division crosses the Isar and leaves Wrede's division to hold out at Landshut to contain the Austrian advance and allow the Bavarian retreat to the west.  
 
For their part, the Austrian decoys are already approaching the town of Vilsbiberg 20 kilometres from Landshut.

TURN 3

04/17/1809 - Clear weather
 
Event card: “Pont détruit”: Enables the player to destroy one of the bridges.

Reinforcements: Davout and Vandamme arrive with their army corps, as well as Oudinot who advances their arrival by 1 turn. Napoleon will arrive the next day having failed to obtain the required score.
 

Lefebvre gets 2PO this time, and withdraws the Deroi division crossing the Isar into Freising and takes advantage of the decoy's lack of Austrian presence to remove Wrede from Landshut. Davout gets 6 PO of his worth of 8 points and will attempt a defensive line between Regensburg and Donauwörth. Vandamme having obtained 3 POs, with the allies of Wurtemberg, will try to support him by moving from Donauwörth. Just as Oudinot that tries to support Lefebvre's Bavarian units

The decoy "J" has turned out to be a false rumor, so it has been removed from the board. The Austrians have managed to reach Regensburg, despite being somewhat late.






The global situation in the map in turn 3.

TURN 4

04/18/1809 - Clear weather
 
Event card: "Estafette" so another event card is chosen, which turns out to be "Reconnaisance" which allows one to discover one of the closest enemy decoys. 
 
Reinforcements: Napoleon finally reaches Donauwörth, Masséna's VIII corps arrives at Augsburg and Nansouty cavalry at Pottmes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Napoleon heads to Augsburg to join Oudinot's II Corps. Masséna obtains 5 POs with which he goes to Munich, to secure the capital and achieve his strategic objective [it was an error for next turns, to send all the units to Munich]. Oudinot (5 PO) continues on its way to Ingolsdtadt. Vandamme heads towards Ingoldstadt from the north bank of the Danube, but he doesn't get any POs, so he remains in the same place. Davout (3 PO) remains en route to Hemau. Wrede's division of VII Corps crosses the Danube and arrives in Freising to join the rest of Lefebvre's units. 
 
The decoys continue their evolution but at a slower rate than required. Thanks to the event card we discovered the closest decoy, the "M", which also turns out to be a rumour without effect.
 

TURN 5

04/19/1809 - Clear weather

Event card: "Berthier faute!" as Napoleon is already on the board, the order to head towards Ingolstadt is ignored. 
 
Reinforcements: No reinforcements, since Rouyer has not been able to arrive a turn earlier.





  
Davout with 4PO progressively approaches Regensburg. Vandamme with 6PO can head further towards Ingoldstadt with all of his units. Masséna (4 PO) tries to reach Munich before the Austrians. Napoleon uses his 7 POs to reach Oudinot's body and head towards Neudstadt, preceded by Nansouty. Lefevre places his units on the route from Freising to Neudstadt, in case their movement has to be north or south, depending on the moment. The decoys continue their advance from Regensburg to confront Davout and from the South to try to conquer Ingoldstadt.


TURN 6

04/20/1809 - Rainy weather

Event Card: “Blesure” An enemy general loses his tactical bonus in a battle.

Reinforcements: Rouyer finally arrives in Augsburg. The entire French army is on the board.







Davout with 7PO retreats his advance towards Neumarkt, trying to concentrate all his army corps. Oudinot with 4 POs tries to reach Ingoldstadt, together with Napoleon. Masséna with 5 PO tries to secure Munich. Lefevbre moves its reserves north towards Neudstadt. Vandamme (3 PO) will continue north towards Eichstedt. 
 
The Austrians for their part are grouped around Regensburg and the rest of the army continues its slow march north.


To be continued in Part 2...


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