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