Replay notes of the Aspern 1809 game

This is part 3 of the Boardgame to figures tabletop conversion for fighting around Aspern 1809. Part 1 discussed the boardgame. Part 2 discussed the conversion process from boardgame to tabletop (links below) and today we get the figures part of the game to the table.

In the end, I decided to go for a game at the level of representing the regiments present.

Here is the General situation in the boardgame and the area marked out that will be taken to the table.

From the last post, here is a schematic of what will become our playing area.

And this is what it looks like when translated to the figures table.

As a quick reminder, we are playing 6 turns and then rolling to see if a 7th turn is played. To win, the Austrians must end the game in possession of the woods at the centre of the table AND not have suffered more lost units than the French.

For rules I decided to use my home brew set. I intended to make the French 26th Léger ‘notable’, so that they get one re-roll in the game, but I forgot and that may have mattered!

There are also some off-board units that may influence our battle.

Turn 1 - Wow, what a start. An unlikely Random Event of ‘Confused Orders’ was generated and played onto French 26th Léger, who were defending in front of the centre wood. This caused them to move rearwards 9” towards the back end of the woods …. what a gift to the Austrians, who would now suffer less fire as they approached the wood.

Stuart on the Austrian left came under fire from the French guns ahead, causing them some consternation.

Turn 2 - Stuart put the French guns under musket fire. It was not particularly heavy fire, but never-the-less, the artillery limbered up and retreated …… a small relief for Stuart.

On the Austrian right Shaeffer crossed the stream with his two regiments and attacked the French 16th Ligne, but they were rebuffed and fell back to the stream, carrying 3 disorder markers.

Turn 3 - Molitor (French commander in the centre) was hit and fatally wounded. He was quickly replaced by Viviez, but the momentary confusion added two disorder markers to each of his French units. This could not have come at a worse moment for the French left (16th Ligne), who were under increasing pressure with 4 hit markers and 4 disorder markers gracing their unit - not good!

Koller (Austrian centre) attacked 28th Léger at the centre wood, but recoiled back to the stream with light casualties. It is not all going the Austrian way.

Turn 4 - The French left (16th Ligne) reeled backwards, opening a gap that exposed the side of the centre wood, together with the flank of 26th Léger. IR42 prepared their ranks for the assault.

Turn 5 - There was still no sign of Henneberg’s Brigade which had been expected to arrive from off table by now, from the Austrian right. In the centre, Austrian IR42 made their charge at 26th Léger’s flank, and devastating it was too (4 hits), causing the unit to flee into the woods ….. and then to continue out the other side!

There was at least some good news for the French. Piré had sent 8th Hussars (from off table) to attack the Austrian left.

Turn 6 - Henneberg, entering the table above Aspern, had at last arrived with his leading regiment, but he would be too late to play any part in this battle. On the Austrian left, Stuart was forced to retreat with some enthusiasm in the face of the Hussars, supported by the French artillery!

But of course, where it actually mattered was in the centre. In the last moments of play, 26th Léger, which had been lingering behind the centre wood, broke and left the table, while IR42 took the wood and consolidated the position. It looked very much like an Austrian win, but first there needed to be a check to see whether a 7th turn would be played ……. the dice gods said no, so that was that.

The Austrians had captured the wood and the French had lost a unit, while the Austrians had not, so it is a clear Austrian win. Of interest, there were two Austrian units ‘wavering’ and who knows what would have happened to them if a turn 7 had been played - perhaps they might have fled! 

Conclusion.

Overall a good game as a solo exercise as the French were in a state of tension from the start right through to the final moments, with the ever slim hope that they would make it by keeping the wood. From the outset it looks an uphill struggle for the French, but this was also case in the boardgame situation. However the figure game remained rather tight right up to the end, as it came down to the wire whether the woods would fall into Austrian hands.

Swing moments may have been if the Hussars had arrived earlier and if I had remembered that the 26th Léger were ‘notable’ and could have re-rolled their dice in the last moments of play - perhaps allowing them to stay in the woods. There was also the possibility … indeed likelihood of Henneberg arriving earlier on the Austrian right, putting even greater pressure on the French left (16th Ligne) and possibly seeing them off.

The French side was indeed unlucky to see Molitor getting shot. Disorder impacts on a unit’s fire, its close combat ability and in the passing of all the testing that goes on - so the generation of two disorder markers to each of Molitor’s units just added to French difficulties. 

Hopefully the reader has enjoyed this three part post that offers a relationship between the boardgame and figure game. I will revisit this same subject at some point with a different set of rules.

Resources.

Part 1 (the boardgame) Link

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/11/playing-aspern-essling-1809-day.html

Part 2 (the conversion) Link 

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/11/taking-boardgame-action-to-figures.html

I run a separate bit of webspace called COMMANDERS, which is a bit more snippet based than here. Link if you are interested.

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

Taking a boardgame action to the figures table (1809)

In the previous post Aspern-Essling went onto the table, a boardgame in the Jours de Gloire series. Part way through, there was a situation involving a grouping of four hexes that looked like it had the potential to be played out as a figures game. This post describes that conversion.

We are approaching 5.30 PM on the first day of a battle that lasted for two days. In the boardgame, the French have just been ejected from Aspern Village by Austrians from Bellegarde’s column.

The photograph below shows the situation and we are going to concentrate on those four hexes marked on the map, taking the units and terrain from within that location as the basis of a new scenario.

In addition there are two stacks that have been marked with white circles. These although situated off-table, may provide some influence on our battlefield. The lower circle shows a French stack containing cavalry (Piré) and artillery (Lasalle). The Upper circle contains an Austrian infantry brigade (Henneberg).

In the boardgame, the French at this location are on the ropes and the next Austrian attack is expected to be very successful, but it doesn’t do as well as hoped. The photo below shows the post attack positions.

The French, located behind a stream and amongst woods have held. The two upper circles show that Bellegarde’s two brigades have become disordered and the counters flipped to their weaker sides. In the lower circle, Koller’s Brigade has destroyed the French guns that were in front of him and he has moved his brigade forward, further isolating the French position.

Note the first number at the bottom of the counter is the attack value. Black numbers show the unit is a brigade and white numbers a regiment. French 26th Léger have a charmed life, will they be so lucky in our figures game?

The first thing we need is a map. Below is a good schematic of what we need, it has essentially straightened out any contortions caused by the hex grid.

The buildings represent just the part of the lower end  of Aspern village that rub shoulders with our location. We have straightened the river out and represented the soft ground and woods that sit behind it.

Now we need to dig deeper into the order of battle and do a bit of research to discover how the brigades and regiments are constructed in terms of total numbers, training / morale and component battalions. A variety of sources are needed to get the full picture and to do some cross referencing.

Next we need to populate the map with units in a way that reflects the situation in the boardgame.

If we take the French first;

F1? is the off-board cavalry (Piré) and artillery.

F2 is a 6 pdr artillery battery belonging to Legrand’s Div (part of F3)

F3 is Leguay’s Brigade (2nd Line and 16th Line regiments = 6 batt).

F4 is 26th Léger (it has 1367 men spread across 3 battalions of light).

Now the Austrians;

A1? is off-board Henneberg (IR17 and IR36 = 6 battalions in all).

A2 is Shaeffer’s Brigade (IR42 and IR35 = 6 battalions in all).

A3 is Koller’s Brigade (IR25 with 3 batts and IR54 with 2 batts).

A4 is Stuart (IR18 with 3 battalions)

The Terrain features. The waterway is a stream, crossable along its entire length. In the boardgame, attacking across it does give the defender an uplift benefit so we should reflect that. As many systems might keep stream crossings a thing of just movement that is separate from actual combat results, it may be more helpful here to rule that units entering the waterway must immediately end their movement for that turn and take one level of disorder. They can move normally next turn. This will likely translate into the French getting an extra opportunity to fire before any physical contact, thus getting some sort of an advantage just as we see in the boardgame. 

The buildings offer protection to an occupant to both fire and melee attacks - using whatever value the rules of choice give, though I doubt fighting in Aspern is about to break out any time soon in this scenario. :-)

In the boardgame, a hex containing woods gives a defender an uplift against both fire and melee. For us, units in a wood can gain the normal defensive benefit of being in woods that the rules used allow. Note the 26th is a light unit so will be able to operate freely in the woods in skirmish order. Each wood can only hold 1 unit at any one time.

The boggy area should count as ‘Difficult Ground’. In my own home brew rules this slows a unit down and attracts disorder markers.

Troop Quality - in the boardgame this is of some importance and the centre number on each counter represents quality when taking the various and frequent tests. Most figure rules offer at least 3 levels of troop quality, whatever they call them i.e. Poor, veteran and Seasoned or Inferior, Capable or Superior etc. We will need three such relative states to describe our forces.

Using the counter information for reference, we can treat all the French units as Capable, except their cavalry, which are Superior. The Austrians by comparison will have all units treated at the lower level i.e. Inferior, except for Koller’s Brigade, which seem to match the French, so they will be treated as Capable. 

We now need some special rules to reflect some aspects of the boardgame situation.

French off-table units - these are not fully free to act as they may have faced their own enemy influence during the boardgame turn, so we shall allow Piré to release just 8th Hussars (449 men) to enter our battlefield. He will retain 16th Chasseurs á Cheval, plus his artillery will stay off table, but be free on every turn, until the Hussars arrive, to bombard onto our table. Add 10” onto their range from the table edge to represent their distance from the battlefield. Starting from Turn 2, roll a D6 at the start of each turn. If scoring less than the current turn number, the Hussars will arrive on the table and be allowed a full move (and can even charge) that turn from the table edge at point F1.

Leguay’s Brigade can deploy anywhere on their side of the stream at the start of play (26th will start positioned in association with directly defending the woods in the centre). Elements of Leguay’s Brigade can lend support to 26th.

Austrian off table units - Henneberg. At the start of every turn the Austrians roll a D6. On a score of 1 - 3 a single Regiment of three battalions can enter the table at point A1. The first regiment to enter will be IR17 under the command of Reuss-Plauen. The second regiment will be  IR36 under the command of Kollowrat. There are only two regiments.

The boardgame uses chit draw to activate formations, this means that Shaeffer / Henneberg could never activate at the same time as Koller / Stuart, so those two groups could not co-ordinate their attacks at the same moment. To bring this limitation to our figures table, during the Austrian turn, do not allow units under Shaeffer or Henneberg to shoot at or melee with the same units that Koller / Stuart shoot at or melee with and vice-versa. Neither can they ‘support’ each other if the chosen rules allow for supports.

Game Length - The boardgame is representing a slice of action that fits in to 1½ hours of ‘real time’ with a maximum of 2 activations for each formation. We will limit our scenario to just 6 turns, so that the Austrians are under similar time pressures. At the end of turn 6, roll a D6, on a 1-3 a 7th turn is played.

Victory - In the boardgame, the winner had to have an advantage of more than 7 Victory Points than the enemy, otherwise the game is a draw. This is quite demanding on a winning player, so we will also be demanding here and say that to win, at the end of 6 (or 7) turns, the Austrians must have captured the wood in the centre from the French AND not have lost any more units than the French side has lost, If at the end of play the French still hold the central wood - they win regardless of losses, anything else is a draw.

Rules - ‘go to’ rules that can manage divisional sized games are preferable. I have some options here. Soldiers of Napoleon, which I have just started to use, offer an advantage that they encompass off-board activity and they activate forces one brigade at a time. 

Black Powder also activates brigade by brigade and the order / failed order system would likely bring some dynamism into this closed situation and add to Austrian time pressures when units fail to activate. 

My home brew rules are second nature to me, so will play quickly and as units lose cohesion, they will at first lose offensive capability, but still hold okay up in defence - this aspect might help the rather overwhelmed French here.

Shadow of the Eagles have an advantage that the units pretty much get one attempt to do something, such as to run an attack and then often they need to be rotated out to recover cohesion if they are to remain viable, this will put a natural brake on the Austrians.

Now it just needs the game to go to the table and see how all this goes, hopefully getting a connection with what the boardgame was offering.

In terms of game scale, there are three ways of presenting this. Austrian units are significantly larger than their French counterparts, but that aside, if we represent the forces at the battalion level, we would need 9 French battalions and 20 Austrian battalions. This is probably the ‘most right’ way to do this, but neither my current figure collection, figure scale (28mm) or table size could cope with this, so I will be bath-tubbing for a more representational presence.

Choice two is to have each regiment reduced from 3 battalions to 2. This one third reduction would keep the relationships between the forces correct. I have enough French to do this, but not Austrians. It would be a tight fit on the table, but do-able otherwise. I could of course use proxy figures or ghost (blank) bases to pad out the Austrian force.

Finally, I could take a sort of Neil Thomas approach as per his ‘One Hour Wargames’ book, with just the regiments themselves represented to give a low unit density game. This would need 7 Austrian infantry regiments which would be classed as large, with the French getting 3 Infantry regiments and one gun battery, plus one off board gun battery and the arrival at some point of a hussar regiment.

This would be close enough, certainly initially, to the 2:1 type of ratio that the scenario needs in terms of Austrian advantage, but we are not quite there yet. These Austrian formations have artillery in their researched orders of battle, however, in the boardgame, the artillery, which is represented, was not in forward positions and so not captured by our scenario frame - but we could and perhaps should allow Koller’s force to have some off table artillery support from his guns, perhaps declaring all of that fire as being at long range and not allowing it if an Austrian infantry unit is within 10” of the target.

Anyway, we shall see. At the moment I am inclined towards option 2, but practicalities may see the third option being used.

I quite enjoy converting boardgame situations to the table-top, but there is a bit of work to it, to get the connection with events that have already been experienced in the boardgame, which this post is intended to show. I find that having played the situation in a boardgame and then spending some hours researching the units and ‘that moment’, lends itself a certain realism to these sort of scenarios, as though they nearer to real events as opposed to a thrown down game.

I have another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS which is a bit more snippet based than here, though may send you to sleep just as quickly as this place does :-)

Here is the link if interested;

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html 

LINK to part 1 of what will become a 3 part series.

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/11/playing-aspern-essling-1809-day.html

LINK to part III - the. Figures replay

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2025/11/replay-notes-of-aspern-1809-game.html

Playing Aspern - Essling 1809 Day 1

This post looks at an outing with the 2nd Edition Aspern-Essling boardgame from the Jours de Gloire series, published by Vae Victis.

There were two days of fighting, but we are choosing the scenario that covers the first day (21st), which is only 5 turns long. It starts at 1 PM with each turn representing 90 minutes, playing through until 7 PM, when darkness descends.

(Above) the game map. The Danube and the two villages are on the left. A low berm, treated like a crest, links them.

Napoleon is trying to get his army across the fast flowing Danube via two wooden bridges. The Austrians are throwing tree trunks into the water and floating burning boats in an effort to damage the bridges down river, while the French are trying to keep the bridges repaired and are desperate to get their entire force over onto the far side of the Danube. Those who have already crossed have secured the nearby Aspern and Essling villages, but Austrian columns are already bearing down on them.

(Above) the At Start positions. The French occupy the villages and three Austrian columns approach. 

Victory Points are based around casualties, but also given for the possession of the two villages, so these are going to be strongly contested.

 

Can Napoleon get the rest of his army across the river and expand his bridgehead - or will his army be beaten piecemeal?

1 PM - Massena has taken command of the French left wing, covering the Aspern village deployment and Lannes commands the right wing, which includes Essling. Between the two villages, Bessieres retains independent command over the French cavalry and he has moved forward, across a low defensive berm that links the two villages, ready to engage the first threat. Advancing towards the French positions are three Austrian columns …. and then two more appear from the north west (top of the map)!

(Above) as the Austrian threat now also comes in from the top of the map, Bessieres (red stripe on the blue counters) moves out to meet the Austrians).

Bessieres draws his 2nd activation chit. Having moved forward, what should he do now! The nearest enemy formation is Hohenzollen (purple band on their counters), on the road in march column with exposed flanks. Bessieres thinks the risk of entanglement is worth decisive action and his horsemen charge.

Maruloz engages with the Austrian cavalry (O’Reilly) and puts them to rout, pursuing them and then returning back to French lines disordered. Piré and Bruyére charge Mayer, who manages to get into square and the French cavalry recoil.

In this sytem the last activation chit in the cup is not drawn and that unlucky formation simply doesn’t activate. Luckily for the French, this turns out to be Hohenzollen, so on returning from the charge, Bessieres’ cavalry are spared Hohenzollen’s close range guns and the combination of the cavalry charge and the ignored last chit have at least brought the French a little breathing space.

2 PM - The ‘long’ bridge over the Danube breaks. The urgently needed Cara Saint Cyr (2nd Division IV Corps) had just been about to cross - Massena and Lannes are denied their much needed reinforcement.

Rosenberg arrives on the battlefield, so there are now six Austrian columns approaching!

The first Austrian assaults go in at Aspern. Wacquant and Schoeffer (under Bellegarde) overwhelm Viviez, who retreats disordered down the road and out of the village. The Austrians have a foothold (1 out of the 3 village hexes).

Lead elements of Hohenzollen (purple) join in the assault, aiming their attack at lower part of Aspern, but they are repulsed.

4 PM - With the bridge broken, the French artillery start to experience some ammunition shortages for their artillery (-1 DRM). Bellegarde pushes further into Aspern (2 out of 3 hexes now under Austrian control).

Bessieres is getting pushed back in the centre between the two villages, increasing the risk of Aspern becoming isolated.

Bellegarde (Austrian red stripe) expels the last of the French from Aspern. Messina’s wing is being pushed into the wooded boggy ground beyond.

Bessieres’ guns manage to stabilise the French centre, giving Hohenzollen a bloody nose.

5.30 PM - The long bridge remains broken.

[Look out for the situation in the centre of the map being relicated in the next figures game that I play. A slice of action from here will be taken to the table …. will 26th Léger (lime green stripe) have as much vigour there!].

Massena is becoming pinned around Aspern and needs to fight his way out, back towards the bridgehead, before his men are surrounded. Despite the Austrians looking like they have the upper hand here, their attacks on 26th Léger are spectacular failures. In the general action, Hohenzollen loses Koller’s brigade and both of Bellegarde’s powerful brigades attacking out of Aspern take losses (flipped) and retreat, which temporarily vacates most of Aspern!

Bessieres’ cavalry have been pushed back and some of his regiments are routing back towards the bridgehead, but in a demonstration of good fortune, their two activation chits are consecutively drawn and they make a good recovery, stabilising the front.

(Above - Essling comes under attack).

At Essling however, there is much better news for the Austrians. Rosenberg has managed to get behind the village and on his own initiative (die roll against his command value) commits his division to assaulting Lannes’ positions. The French initially put up a robust defence, but Boudet’s division is quickly overwhelmed and destroyed, with Lannes only just escaping with his life. The village fully falls into the hands of Rosenberg.

7 PM - (Darkness descends and the fighting starts to die down) The long bridge is at last repaired and Cara Saint Cyr’s division starts to cross to support the beleaguered French.

After an afternoon of fighting there is just too much disorder amongst the Austrian forces at Aspern to take advantage of their gains.

In the last moments, a gun battery from Hiller (light blue band on counter, above left of Aspern) opens up (adjacent fire) against the 26th Léger in Aspern, they have withstood everything that has been thrown at them for hours, but they are at breaking point and the French light infantry rout from the town.

(Above - end of game positions. The black line shows the French line and the units in the white shape show Cara Saint Cyr taking up position on the French right).

Cara Saint Cyr moves forward and takes position on the French right. Though the French remain under a lot of pressure, once again they manage to stabilise the line and have a cohesive front …. their bridgehead is safe.

A nice little quirk to end the game was that the last activation chit in the cup belonged to Bellegarde. Being the last chit it is discarded and so Bellegarde’s units in Aspern could not be used to take control of the hex of Aspern that 26th Léger have just abandoned - so for victory points purposes, that hex remains French controlled. The Austrian player can but sigh!  

Conclusions - 

Victory is established by control of each village hex of Aspern and Essling (6 hexes in total), plus there are victory points gained for enemy units destroyed. The victor is the side that gets 7 or more VP’s more than the other side. Anything else is a draw. Counting up our scores, the French get 8 VP’s, but the Austrians get 16, so they have won the day.

In the full battle scenario, the fighting goes into a second day and there are still French reinforcements to arrive ….. the question of ‘when’ is dependent of the bridge being in good repair! 

How would day 2 look? I’m not really sure. In this game, a units Cohesion level (training, morale etc) matters and the Austrians generally have lower values. When a unit becomes disordered (flipped) that value drops further and it is harder for the Austrians to recover back to good order, which you need for offensive action. The effect of this over several hours fighting is that the Austrian columns can become ‘burned out’ more-so than the French.

Plus, Charles the Austrian commander, can only give orders to two columns (out of the six) at any one time, while the French command can typically get most of their force under orders.

The last couple of times that I have played this, I have never really been quite sure what to do with Bessieres. He has generally been used to shore up defences, getting drawn in piecemeal and chewed up, so it was a nice change to have him pro-actively get into the Austrians at the first chance ….. and then get chewed up piecemeal :-). The cavalry action was a bit indecisive, but probably held Hohenzollen up from making a concentrated attack by a full turn.

At the southern end of the battlefield (Essling) the Austrian columns are too far away from Charles for him to put them under orders (unless Charles wants to go there), so the Rosenberg and Dedovitch columns are in the main, reliant upon self activation. Luckily for the Austrians and most unlucky for Lannes, Rosenberg managed to self activate at the right moment, taking Essling and destroying Boudett.

The French have to work hard in this scenario and things are stacked against them. It is probably not the ideal scenario for competitive players or the player who gets disheartened once the chance of victory slips from their hands, outside of that, go for it. It has left me wanting to play the entire two day battle.

As mentioned above, I will lift a small action from this game to play as a figures game and I imagine the next post here will cover that.

I also post in another bit of webspace called COMMANDERS, which is a bit more snippet based than here and updated more frequently. Here is the link for anyone interested;

https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html