Waterloo Campaign

Below are two attempts at wargames campaigns recreating Waterloo. The first is a series of scenarios suitable for three-a-side. The second is a larger map based game that would support a group.

A scenario based campaign

All scenarios are written for Crusader's Rank & File rules.

The Results so far

1. Quatre Bras - French win (Stu & John)

A map based Campaign

The starting campaign map

 

Week 1 (French move - 15 June)

This saw the campaign open with several French advances. Grouchy and VI Corps secured the bridges at Givet. D'Erlon's I Corps also advanced to Mons with the Guard capturing Thain.

The main action was an attack by IV Corps under the personal command of Napoleon on the river crossings at Charleroi. Seeing Napoleon outnumbered 2-1 the Prussians of I Corps boldly advanced to meet them in open battle.

The French observation force seeing itself out numbered quickly withdrew without a shot being fired

Week 2 (Up to French move June 16th)

A significant amount of manoeuvring through the 15th and 16th. The French consolidated their central position with I, III, and IV Corps moving forward. Wellington and Blucher both advanced to intercept.

Battle was joined between Reille and Orange at Braise Le Comtre

 

Week 3 (Battle of Braise Le Comtre - French move June 16th)

D'Erlon launched his favoured "bulls horns" assault attacking on the flanks but initially holding-back in the centre. In the allied left a cavalry melee eventually resulted in an Allied win, somewhat stalling the French. On the right the Dutch-Belgiums occupied a wooded area and were able to hold-off several French attacks.

With honours largely even at the end the French withdrew and awaited the Allied night marches.

 

Week 4 and 5 (Battle of Grammont)

A combined force from the French I and III Corps, with Napoleon in the rear assaulted Uxbridge's British and German Corps. The French made progress on the British left, driving through 2 lines of defences before becoming exhausted. On the British right the attack stalled as the French gunners found themselves out-shot. The battle ended in a draw

Week 5 (Allied night move, 18th and French move 19th

During the night Orange and Blucher both moved West, with Ziethen moving to cover Waterloo.

The 19th saw the French renewing their attack in the centre of the allied position.  Gerord joined the Guard, III corps reformed and I corps once again attacked Uxbridge at Gammont

The damaged French I Corps launched a vigorous attack across the line and had some initial success in pushing back the Allied skirmish screen. However as the lines closed superior Allied firepower, and a timely victory in the cavalry fight on the right, caused the French attack to stall

 

Closing thoughts

We agreed that we would halt the campaign at this point with no realistic hope the French would capture any of the Allied supply bases by 22nd June. We now plan to undertake a second running but with some improvements:

1. We will half the amount of artillery available to both sides. This should encourage more movement as you can not reply on static firepower alone to win.

2. We will give both sides strategic objectives to capture and so encourage a mixture of attack vs defence scenarios

3. We will tweak the lists so the French forces are larger but low slightly lower quality