State of Play: Napoléon 1806 (5/6)

 

 

Gentle reader, an apology. After a drought of wargaming over the last several weeks, due to a perfect storm of preventative factors, I hope to now return to some regular reporting and reviewing. After a three-week hiatus (four if you count the week we played Fire and Stone: Siege of Vienna 1683 (Capstone Games, 2022 – game report here), involving two overseas trips and Hallowe’en celebrations for my adversary, and a mixture of technological failings and familial duties on my part, on Monday night T and I finally got together for game five of Napoléon 1806 (Shakos, 2019). This time out, we incorporated the last two components from the Rules for the Grognard that we hadn’t already adopted: the inclusion of cavalry units and free set-up. I’ll get back to these in a minute.

This was the penultimate game of my 6x6 excursion into the Prussian campaign, and if nothing else, the previous four games have highlighted for me just how little I know about Napoleon’s early campaigns into central Europe. The names of the battles sound familiar; Halle, Schleiz, Jena-Auerstedt. But I’m just not as familiar with this part of the Napoleonic era as I am with the Peninsula War. If anyone can recommend a good general history covering the rise of Napoleon through to about 1812, please leave me a note in the comments.

A neutral view of the antagonists facing-off.

Napoléon 1806 covers the period from the 8^th to the 21^st of October of that year, during Bonaparte's campaign against the Fourth Coalition. The game is only seven turns in full, so the action can move quite quickly, subject to the size of your formations and your luck with the card draws. As I’ve mentioned previously, the blocks represent the forces under the senior generals involved on each side during the campaign. The relative strength of each command is managed off-board, on a tally chart recording the disposition and exhaustion level of each unit on a side, information that is shielded from the other player. When moving a formation, the player declares the unit to be moved and draws a card, and the points-value of the drawn card dictates how far the unit can move. Blocks may move together in larger formations, but for each  

As mentioned, we used the free-setup rule for this game; the movement is point-to-point, with each point representing a town or city of the region, and the connections the road and path network connecting these places Some are superimposed with either a French or Prussian eagle; these mark the places at which formations may be placed. T played the French, as is his wont, and set up in an aggressive fashion; as the Prussians, I set up more defensively. It’s not really an option in the game for the Prussians to go on the offensive too strongly, too early. The odds are weighted on the side of the French, both in numbers (the French side fields one more formation than the Prussians) and in strength (most of the Prussian formations are under-strength, and while there are possible opportunities for reinforcements – two cards that can be played in the draw phase, if they happen to be drawn), these only add one infantry cube to a given formation, which in many cases won’t be enough to grant the unit an extra card in combat). 

I did place a double formation threateningly close to Bamberg in an attempt to tie-up some of T’s forces and limit his options. There are four cities on the board worth victory points – Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig (which begin the game under Prussian control), and Bamberg, which is the source of French supply, their anchor for the campaign. In the game these are referred to as citadels. Victory in Napoléon 1806 is points-based; one point for each enemy formation eliminated, with the four citadels worth varying numbers of points. Capturing all three northern citadels would all but hand victory over to the French, but the loss of Bamberg could draw a victory put of reach for the French player.  Not only did T keep two units close to Bamberg, but in a moment of analysis paralysis, he held another two or three units (I suspect one was a Cavalry token) in reserve at Münchberg, too distant to relieve the Bamberg protectors or to provide effective support for the Leipzig-Halle push.

Turn 3: Tauentzien's defiant stand.

As has happened in previous games, this one was dogged by rain (turns three and five). Rain is dictated by the draw of a card during the draw phase and only the; each turn begins with both players drawing three cards from their deck and placing them in their hand. If one or both draws a Rain card, that is placed in the Rain box for the turn. Rain adds an extra exhaustion point to every unit activated, whether they actually get to move or not, and adds an extra point cost to movement for the whole formation. If the rain card is drawn at any other time, it’s used only for it’s points or combat value, dependent on the draw.

It’s tempting to sit out the rain turns, especially with larger formations, but movement is crucial to the game for both sides, especially for the French, who have to bring their forces up nearly the full length of the map to traverse to challenge Leipzig and Halle if they are going to have a chance of winning.

Turn 4: a marked lack of progress on either side.

The free setup also worked against both of us to a degree. It’s been a month since we last played Napoléon 1806, and that distance worked against us. I think T had an overall ambition of racing to the Leipzig/Halle corner of the map and swiftly seizing them before I could reinforce the cities, then turning on Erfurt, but I don’t think he considered the logistics of that action too thoroughly before setting up. The French advance is often hindered by the lack of channels for forward movement. Moving a formation into a position already occupied by a friendly formation will halt your movement (though you only ‘pay’ for the distance achieved). Drawing a low-point card for the first formation in line will stymie anyone following, unless you can find them an alternate route, which I suppose is one of the joys of point-to-point movement games. From Münchberg there is only a single path north until you reach Hef, where the path branches into two paths. This is the most direct passage to Halle/Leipzig, and the only way to avoid the river crossings that may be dynamited by the uppity Prussians. Any stalling there due to a bad activation draw along there is going to slow you down for a turn, maybe two. That kind of delay will almost certainly cost the French player the game.

All the action at end of Turn 6. Blücher (activated, face-down) makes a
desperate run to slow the French progress toward Halle. The draw off a six-point
card - unlikely but possible - could put a French formation into the city in the next turn..

To be fair, I only sprung the free setup inclusion on him when he arrived. If T had been given more time to examine the situation, I think he would have placed things differently I should have put more thought into my placement as well. I was concerned about T pushing up through the forest in the south-west of the map, north of Bamberg (by orientation – upper right in most of the photos) and quickly closing the distance on Erfurt. I tended to pair-up my formations in an effort to make them more of a challenge, while pairing some weaker generals with Cavalry blocks to make them appear stronger. This backfired when T sent Murat and Brassiere against Tauentzien, who was backed only by a Cavalry token. The cavalry blocks don’t provide any assistance in combat; they are really there for bluff value only, to add a further measure of fog-of-war to a battlefield already soaked in it.

Tauentzien, to his credit, didn’t go down without a fight. The formation made its stand at Schleitz (as it appears on the game board), and held the town for the first round of combat in turn three (trading damage point for point, so no retreat required), and fell in the next turn. But his sacrifice meant that that two of T’s better units were tied up for two turns, and with only three turns left, he couldn’t draw a high-enough point card to bring the combined formation up to threaten Halle and Leipzig. Other forces came closer to threatening Erfurt, but I think that was a feint on T’s part; I suspect that of the two blocks one or both were cavalry tokens. T will normally not shy away from a fight, but he refused to engage combat on a couple of occasions with that formation. No so clever as he thinks.

State at end of Turn 7, from the Prussian side.
(Note the one  surviving Prussian Cavalry marker, to the left.)

This game saw a lot of jockeying for advantage, and a lot of false starts due to low card draws and inclement weather, but little actual confrontation. Tauentzien was the only casualty of the whole game, gaining T the only point shift, but his sacrifice probably saved the Prussian cause. There were other altercations (two near Bamberg), but nothing conclusive. Prussia won by default, maintaining control of Erfurt, Leipzig and Halle, but it didn't feel at all triumphant.

State at end of Turn 7, from the French side.

Next week, all things being equal, will be the last game in the Napoleon 1806 6x6 cycle. A considered review should follow soon after. Oh, and I now have both follow-up games; I ordered Napoléon 1807 (Shakos, 2020) from the good folks at Hexasim within days of receiving 1806, and couple of weeks ago, I managed to nab a copy of Napoléon 1815 (Shakos, 2022, and a nominee for the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best Napoleonic Wargame for 2022). I hope to get those to the table early in the new year, with reviews following.

End-game disposition of the French...

... And the Prussian formations. The two stray exhaustion markers are from
pretending to place them while moving Cavalry token, All part of the deception.