In the latest Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy magazine (issue 135), Roy Harper has penned an article called ‘General Victor’s determined stand’, that covers the three Austrian attempts at taking Marengo, in which Roy outlines how Victor’s outstanding defence around Marengo played a significant part in giving Napoleon the time he needed to prepare his later counter-attack …… the one that famously saved the day!
This is a lovely collection of three scenarios, nicely set out and each being an escalation of the previous one in terms of the size of force and each fought over the same terrain.
The first attack has just 5 - 6 units per side and is playable in a small space and this is the game that we are playing today.
The Fontanone stream is fordable to infantry, but a unit will halt for one turn in the stream and once on the other side will be marked disordered.
To win, the Austrians by the end of play must have at least one unit on the other side of the stream or at any point in the game, have captured the village of Marengo. The Austrian part of the table is covered with vineyard, which I have represented with trees.
The author says he tends to use General de Brigade rules for this scale of game, but the stats provided are for Black Powder. I used my own home grown rules.
On the face of it, this looks a fairly impossible task for the Austrian force as they do not seem strong enough to overpower the defence, however the French left flank of two battalions are fixed in place for the whole game and the Austrian axis of advance is towards the other flank - so who knows, though there is likely good reason why two more scenarios follow!
The Austrians are allowed two rounds of pre-game artillery fire and this causes the battalion at the bridge to temporarily fall back. The Austrian line advances … and then one of those quirky moments, a Random Event generates ‘Confused Orders’ and the French guns pull out of the line …. Oh No! This is the moment that with open fields of fire, they should be hurting the Austrian advance.
The first Austrian assault on the bridge is repulsed.
The Austrians enter the stream in front of Marengo, but likewise, they are thrown back by good musketry.
The 1st Battalion of IR53 are in front of the French guns, the gunners must have panicked, because despite the close range, their fire was ineffective and the return fire from the Austrian line was devastating (3 hits) and the guns pulled out …. again!
A second assault over the bridge was repelled, but this time Austrian combined losses have been so great that the battalion wavers and falls back, unfit to return to the fray. There will be no further attacks here, the Austrians must now rely on forcing the stream around Marengo.
Generally the attacks fail and the Austrians seem to be picking up a lot of disorder markers, but are having real trouble in rolling them off, resulting in them becoming increasingly disordered.
I should say at this point that after a couple of turns of too and fro, this came down to two single, connected events. One Austrian battalion having crossed the stream assaulted the village, they were narrowly repulsed and that was followed up by a French counter-attack by an infantry reserve battalion that had moved across from the bridge. It was enough to throw the Austrian battalion back across the stream and with the rest of their force retreating, they had lost the capability to press the attack further.
So a French win, but the Austrians did get their moment … it just needed some kinder dice.
Looking at scenario 2, this is played in the same space, but reinforcements arrive for both sides, which will allow for a renewed assault and new vigour.
That all worked very well. I like with the smaller scenarios how the impact of single events cary so much weight and bring a sense of increased importance as to what happens at any one location.
Here there were two moments when fire inflicted 3 hits on the enemy and that is a big deal, not fatal, but very unhinging. Also, the French artillery on a couple of occasions drew curses from the French commander.
There was an instance when the defenders at Marengo scored just one hit on an approaching Austrian battalion, but the battalion failed their capability test (like a morale test) and retreated back across the stream, effectively setting them back for two turns. Each of these things added some welcome narrative to what on the face of it looked like a fairly certain outcome.
I very much enjoyed the game, which was small enough to give one of those elusive opportunities for a mid-week outing … thank you Mr. Harper.
