The Battle at Guessembourg 1870

First I have to apologise, a combination of holiday, Claymore, and no camera (forgetfulness and lend away due to art project) kept me from posting anything. (A Border Reivers game http://www.edinburghwargames.com/slaughter-on-the-redesdale-road-1592/ where slaughtered some cattle thieves and the second intro of my tiny Classic Greeks Army to ToTheStrongest http://www.edinburghwargames.com/battle-of-thespiae-86-bc/ can be found here at Angus' blog).

I still have a lot to do, apart from work, the collection and assembly of said Greek army (I hate that part!) and I‘m working apparently on TWO different wargame rules projects atm, "Seven Years" and "The Tattered Tricolore" - Which we decided to re-vamp and test last Thursday. The problem was, I just had "adapted" to the "Bonny Blue Flag" rule system some Frano-Prussian War era tweaks, then play tested them just ONCE a couple of months ago ... and now as you can imagine, nobody really remembered the intricate, but sweet rule system ... including me, the umpire and writer/adapter. But to Hell, as if that would ever deter us from doing it anyway! We just guessed the most part and still had fun ;)

So we decided to bring all our 10mm toys (Angus, Me and Jack and Gerry) and we splattered them (in Angus case literally) over the table top and off we went. Gerry Jack and Peter played the French Imperialists, actually my half ready Guard Corps with upholstering from other collections, while Bart, Angus and David played the German Would-be-Imperialists with effectively my 3rd Corps v. Alvensleben and the famous 5th Cavalry Division v. Rheinbaben, yes, the Death ride boys.)

First, it was collectively decided that the Prussians HAD to attack and thus, the Would-Be-Imperialists skipped the "Softening-the-Frenchies-with-Krupp-guns"-part and advanced directly!
A bloody mess in a post Napoleonic war, if you ask me, softened only by our disentanglement of the delicacies of these rules. The French had less troops but advanced positions in the villages in the table centre, so all they had to do was stay put and fire what the barrels hold.

Bart also did nothing to change his reputation for brutal cavalry charges and attacked a healthy French line upfront! But due to his luck he cracked it (halfway) and was not annihilated!

In the end, I had to declare the French winner on this, as they still weren't pushed out of their positions and the casualties were surprisingly low - we were running out of time, again. But we all had a lot of fun. The rules definitively need a re-edit and then are most likely playable/enjoyable. But I can see the "Game-engine" of "Seven Years" would work for this era as well perfectly ... but Angus is a little nostalgic about the Bonny Blue Flag adaptation ... so that needs to be decided ... soon ... more to come ...

The set-up at the beginning

The v.Bülow Curassiers a traversing the river under Barts command ...

Gerry‘s Chasseurs are just waiting for them

some turns later...

The Cavalry hiding from artillery

The French clinging to their village

Jack's advancing French Flank

The Prussian centre and an defiant Angus

THE French centre (Peter) forms up

The Prussian Flank marches on to attack

First gun fights the French are immediately in the Prussian long range thanks to Krupp.

More gun fights and the lines are closing up

Jack prepares the French onslaught 

Bart does the unthinkable and attacks Gerry‘s Chasseurs frontal!

but the French shoot back!

Still true to his unbelievable luck he forces the French into retreat without getting annihilated!

But soon the French will fire back