Another DSLB Big Battle

Last sunday I was invited by the club "Le Aquile" from Gaeta to a DSLB Big Battle in Cisterna di Latina, in Luigi's game room. Stefano from "Le Aquile" organized a French vs. Russians battle, one Division per side. The location and hospitality was fantastic, and we all had  a great gaming day. I was given command of a French Cavalry brigade on our right flank, with orders to hold my position and protect the right flank of of our center brigade, commanded by Federico. Diego, with his left flank veteran brigade was to attack the enemy immediately, in order to break the enemy right. On the Russian side, Stefano was the CinC, Renzo commanded their right flank brigade, Luigi held the center and Fausto the left flank.
 After secret deployment we lifted the screen and started the battle.

 The stuation after the first turn. At the bottom f the pic my cavalry brigade (left) and - behind the wood - Fausto's cavalry brigade, bigger than mine but with 2 Cossack pulks.

 Another view, from behind the Russian cavalry brigade.

 After a couple of turns, Diego attack on our left is starting to ay some dividends, while Federico and I just held our ground using the artillery as best as we can.

The battle unfolds. The Russians: from left to right Renzo (blue cap) Luigi (standing) and Stefano (sitting). On the right of the pic Diego rolling his attack dice.

 Action in the centre: a Russian Cuirassier unit (the only Russian heavy cavalry present) aggressively moves towards our lines (top right). This was probably the turning point: the Cuirassiers charged our centre, breaking an infantry battalion. At that point they should have been recalled, but Stefano decided to breakthrough, charging another infantry battalion straight ahead. This unit was also broken, but the Cuirassiers were at this point blown (DIS3) and in our following turn a Dragoon regiment broken them.

 Almost nothing happened on my flank, with Fausto's Cossacks hidden in the woods and the Lancers circling around it. The real fight was in the center, where Luigi (above center) pressed on Federico's shaken brigade, and on the left, where Diego's veterans were gaining ground and inflicting heavy casualties on Renzo's brigade. The latter was soon shaken, also losing a battery.

 The final stages of the battle: we had two shaken brigades, but no artillery or cavalry losses. The Russians had also 2 shaken brigades, but they lost 2 batteries and the Cuirassiers. Furthermore, Diego penetrated into the Russian right flank with infantry and cavalry in command, so we got the final points needed to win the game. In all, we played about 3 hours with one player (Luigi) not knowing the rules at all.

The tradition of these big battles at Luigi's is that Mrs. Rita prepares a fantastic meal that we really enjoyed (left to right Luigi, Stefano, me, Fausto, Diego, Renzo and Federico).

After lunch, we went back to the gaming room (actually a dependance in the garden) and played a couple of turns more, "just to see what happens". I must say we confirmed the result achieved in the *real* game by inflicting even more losses to the Russians. Before going home, a last picture with the whole bunch...
"Le Aquile" club should  - after 15 years playing only Shako - decide in the next week or so to change to Drums & Shakos Large Battle. And I would be honoured if they will.

DSLB Big Battle tomorrow

As I did last year around december, I'm organizing for tomorrow a DSLB Big Battle.
10 players will meet in my game room to play a fictional 1812 battle between a French and a Russian Corps, both made of 3 Divisions.
This time I'll set up a 300 x 180 cm table (about 9x6): the biggest ever in my flat (I had to move some furniture to get space). As last year, players will come from Florence, Arezzo, Canino and Rome and I designed some new rules to play in multyplayer with a CinC and 3 subordinate leaders per side.
If these rules will be "approved" by the group, we could release them soon.

In he pic above, last year's session with 11 players and 3 tables (east, centre and west). This year we'll have a single, big table and a single Corps made of 3 divisions. The main problem of last year's battle was that the CinC had little *power* over his subordinates. This year - with the new rules I wrote - subordinates will DEPEND on the choices made by their CinC to play, so I hope it will work better. For the rest, it's just standard DSLB. Massimo and Andrea will not play but will assist me in taking pictures, so I hope to post a batrep soon after the battle.

Pics, pics, pics!

Finally, I succeded in posting the pics from the SDS BIG Battle I organised on december 9.
Above the 11 players that came to Terni from Arezzo, Rome and Florence to play the One-Day-Battle. It was set in 1813 some time before Leipzig. We had three table 120x180 cm.: Centre, West and East. One CinC was present at the battle (Filippo from Florence, commanding the Allies), the other (Massimo from Rome, commanding the French) was in Rome, connected by sms and e-mail (and occasionally, voice). Below is the "clock" I used as a Master/Referee to keep track of the time and of the flow of Orders and communication between the Generals.

 As you can see from the above pic, we were playing the 6:00 AM turn, and there are messages set to arrive at 6:30 and at 7:00. Below the felts I used to represent up to a Brigade in different formations (deployed and in march). I said "up to" because the real amount of battalions/regiments was secret. The felts are numbered and I kept track of who's who..

 Below, the West table with Federico from Roma moving his troops. He played against Andrea from Florence and Antonio with their Russians. Federico's Bavarians performed very well.

 Below, the Central table. Here Marco and his Aid-de-Camp (his son Giovanni) battled against Diego, who commanded the Russo-Prussian Guard. Felts were removed after the troops were spotted and moved out of them.

 Below the East table were Narciso's Prussians met with Alessandro's left wing of the French Army. Felts were - of course - color coded (Black for the Prussians, Blue for the French, and Green for the Russians).

 That's me, writing a message to the French CinC in Rome from one of his Generals. Note how small is the paper with the order: this also was intentional, to avoid writing too many details.

And finally, Filippo (the Allied CinC) studying the map I sent in advance (and realizing it was slightly different from the reality). The experiment was quite a success, with a French minor Victory. The game started after 10 AM and ended about 5.30 PM. There are many improvement to make to get a perfect battle, but I think that it was a good start.