Friday 10 December 2021

Broadside 2021 - Posties Rejects - The Battle of Montenotte 1796

 


Last Saturday the Rejects visited and out on a game at Milton Hundred's Broadside. The show has moved from its usual home in Sittingbourne to the Medway Sports Park in Gillingham, (which ids only 20 minutes down the road from where I live!)


The old venue was pretty cramped, while the new one is absolutely not!
You can see from the photo above the rough size of the hall, there is another 30 odd feet behind me as well. One of the best things about the new venue was the light, I've never been to any show were the room was so well lit, nothing was in shadow at all. It was strangely quiet as well, due to the sound proofing on the walls. 
So for me it was a brilliant move and a brilliant show.


Setting up our game, The Battle of Montenotte 1796


This was the third time we've played the game, the two previous games were both historically accurate, as the French completely smashed the poor Austrians. We tossed for sides, Surj and myself were unlucky getting the Austrians, so we knew we were on for a hard job.


Surj moves our artillery off the hill, that hadn't happened in either of the last games.


The French are acting from two sides, there aim is to get to the opposite side of the table, past the village in the distance, to cut off the Austrian army. The Austrian battle plan was to attack French outposts near Genoa, towards where the French are set up at the bottom of the photo. But the French moved first to attack Montenotte.


The whole table


Surj , Postie, Lee and Richard.


To try and hold the French up, I pushed our Grenzers up  and gave fire.


Surj moved his line units up towards the two hills to support the troops already on top.


Both sides of Richard's board explaining the battle in full and how he made some of the terrain.



I'm still holding the hill, but for how long?


On the other flank Postie is pushing the French line up, but Surj has managed to fill the hills with Austrian troops.


Lee charges the French line.


While Surj guards the left hill.


And the right hill.


The game was running very slow, we were getting a lot of people asking questions about the game, which we were happy to answer.


I missed a few game turns whilst chatting to visitors, Surj and Smiffy carried on playing the game.


My troops have been pushed off the hill, while Surj has also been pushed off the right hill.


But at least he knocked back one of the French line units.


Another turn has gone by, the Austrians have been pushed back on all sides towards Montenotte Superior.


But he's still managing to hold up the French on the right hill.


We were asked about the town of Montenotte and why we were using 15mm buildings
(They don't look like 15mm in the pic I know)


Richard tends to use the next scale down building for all his games, using 15mm, a town looks like a town, if we used 25mm buildings you'd have to use 1 or 2 buildings to keep the same footprint and that just doesn't look right. I tend to agree with him.


The French are trying and failing to attack the mountain village of Casina Garbozzo. They need to take the village before they move down and try and take the pass.


Hold the line boys, hold the line.


Its a bit of a mess really!

At this point in the game me and Lee went off to choose who we thought was the best game.
More on that later.


When we came back the game was nearly over.
David from the blog The Ragged Soldier, kept coming back to see our game and have a chat.


He was joined by his pal, Dave, who being a Napoleonic buff, loved our game.

Smiffy kept forgetting the mask was supposed to go over his mouth????


The French were nearly at Monetenotte, while the Austrians were nearly off table.


Which way are we supposed to be facing?


The man of the day makes an appearance.
Young Boney himself, in a heavily converted Trent Miniature


Nearly there.


As the French move and make contact with Montenotte, my Austrian brigade near the table 
edge have throw a morale check. Surj thrust the dice in my hand, nit trusting himself to pass the throw. I threw 2 x D6 and got a 5. 
Which was a fail, they route off board and the French win!!
Surj actually screamed "No", let me throw instead, as he re-rolled the dice.
The fumble fickle of fate, he also threw 5, so that was it!
A French victory, but nowhere as easy as the 2 practise game.
Well done Postie, Lee and Smiffy, but mostly to Richard for his very cool game.

And now for the rest of the show.....

In another post that is...


54 comments:

  1. It was a great looking game.

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  2. Wonderful, excellent background information board, smashing terrain and troops. Gotta love this period for wargaming.��

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  3. Excellent job in providing the details and visuals of this terrific looking game, Ray! After seeing this game in blog posts of others, I have been waiting anxiously for your battle account. Congratulations to Richard for putting on such a fine game. Who makes those fine buildings?

    One point one historical accuracy in a game: simply duplicating the historical outcome does lead to historical accuracy. It simply means you duplicated the historical result. Perhaps the historical result was the most likely result but perhaps the historical result was an outlier?

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    1. Richard tried very hard to make the game end historically. Looking at the game setup, the best and most sensible thing for the Austrians to do is fall back and make a good defensive line. We were not allowed to do that. We weren't allowed to fall back until shots were fired at the mountain village of Casina Garbozzo, but the French kept failing the test to attack it, which held us up even more. In this game, there were 2 bad dice rolls by the French, which lead 2 units to be pushed back, this gave the Austrians a little more time to breath and infact made the game more exciting, although it still did lead to an Austrian defeat.

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    2. Thanks for all the kind responses. Ray, you are slightly mistaken, I wasn't really interested in who won the game. In fact the Austrians had very different victory conditions from the French and could have "lost" but still have "won"... if that makes sense. What I tried to do was provide the similar conditions and limitations on the commanders on the day. All in all, it was a great day with a game that seemed to generate interest, that despite outcomes (historical or otherwise) was enjoyable and appeared to play in what might be considered an historical fashion. Well done to all the Rejects in that respect.
      Richard

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    3. I stand corrected. It was a great game to play and I thought the Austrian's did have a chance in the last game, helped by some dodgy duce rolls by tge French.

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  4. Excellent report mate. I've posted a link to this article on my YouTube channel because a few people have asked for more on our game.

    It was a good game and despite delegating control to Sniffy for most of the game, I'm counting that as a win in my log of games for the year! 😆

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    1. Thanks Lee, and who the hell's Sniffy....lol!

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  5. Thanks for this report, it is an excellent game. I particularly like the fact that you have focussed on putting on a game of the highest quality without resorting to the size of table most people can't fit into their homes. Consequently it will have inspired all who see it to increase the quality of their own games. You can see my games on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEuRv4YveqWXemQ3R2uP7Iw/videos

    Thanks again

    Garry Wills

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  6. Wars of the Fr Rev is a fascinating (and overlooked) era. Good looking game and nice report. Good to see a return to games/shows, too. As a side note, I use down scale buildings as well (ie, 15mm structures for 28mm figures)--never had anyone even notice, really.

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    1. Most gamers do go for the later periods, Waterloo and the Peninsular. You don't often see the Revolutionary Wars at shows or on blogs. Richard has also got the period in 6mm, so look out for games using them hopefully sooner rather than later. I thought it was unusual scaling buildings down, but it seems I was wrong!

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  7. Good looking game, the period so colorful.

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  8. Great looking game with lovely figures, Ray. The venue looks nice too - lots of wide-open spaces and high ceilings.

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  9. That is exactly the size of game that attracts my eye the most at a show because it looks so do-able. Know exactly what you mean about lighting and it's good to hear a cheer for a show move.

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    1. 6x4 is a nice compact size I agree. To be totally honest this size game was forced on us. The game was supposed to be put on at last years Broadside, as there was little room all games had to be on a 6 x 4. So it wasn't worth changing the game. I'm sure we'll be keeping to a 6 x 4 from now on at Broadside.

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  10. Great report, a battle I have'nt played yet, seems to be very interesting...Nice one Ray!

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  11. A great looking game. I often use the next scale down for buildings when fighting large battles. Looks more realistic in my view

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  12. That's a splendid looking game Ray and venue too. I agree with you about buildings too, most commercially available buildings have too large a footprint on the table. For many years my old 25mm ACW armies fought around 15mm Hovels buildings and noone really complained. With the evolution to 28mm figures I made most of the buildings we use now either from scratch or on 15mm Warbases' carcasses. For North European settings I find the venerable Hovels 25mm buildings have a small enough footprint for my eye to accept them.

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    1. It really does work using 15mm building for 25mm figures, you kinda forget their size when playing the game.

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  13. Great looking game and indeed that is a nice bright venue

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  14. Well done, guys!
    Merry Christmas, Ray!

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  15. Great looking game, if unfortunate result! I'm tending to agree on reduced size buildings for anything except skirmish games.
    Best Iain

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    1. Agreed, For skirmish games you definitely need the same scale buildings.

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  16. Superb looking game, the table, the figures, really top notch. Well done to all.

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  17. Nice looking game Ray. I'm picking up pointers.

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    1. Glad you like the game OB, pointers are always good.

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  18. The venue looks very good, and the game looks great. It seems as though it generated a lot of interest on the day.

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    1. It did tbh, we had loads of people talking about the game and 2 guys wanna come and gave a game with us.

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  19. A lovely looking game Ray - hard to be in command of the side you already expect to lose before the first dice is rolled! The venue looks great too although if manufacturers were there trying to sell their wares, the attendance seems a bit sparse?

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    1. I kinda k ew I was going to lose, but wanted to give the French a garden time than our two practice games. We followed Surj's flawed battle plan, which didn't work the way we thought it would, but did kinda work.
      I spoke with Dave, the Chair of Milton Hundred ge said numbers in were roughly the same as past shows, so he was very pleased. I'm sure when other companies come back to the show next year, and Covid is in check (fingers crossed) the show will expand, now they have a better venue.

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  20. Great looking game Ray- the table is outstanding!

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    1. Thanks John, Richard put a lot of effort into the game, rules and the info boards. I'm sure he's very happy about the outcome.

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  21. I have seen several blogs with comments about the game, all complementary. And it does look great, both the layout and the figures. Somewhat jealous as I await my French Napoleonics from H&R

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    1. Thanks, let's hope the figures turn up before Xmas!

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  22. Great looking game and commentary Ray!

    Christopher

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  23. Thanks Ray, nice report of a really nice game, and thanks for the namecheck too! We kept coming back 'cos we liked it so much, of course - though I did realise that by talkng at length we were actually slowing down your progress! Which is a complement to you guys being so happy to stop and explain things to spectators. The show was excellent, and I hope to be back in the summer.

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    1. We always try and talk to people at shows, to give everyone as much info as we can, therefore it does hold up the game. But we don't mind that, we're not there to play the game, just show it off really and hopefully get people interested in what we're interested in. Hopefully we'll see you again at the next show.

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  24. Great looking and sounding game, though at a show I doubt it matters who wins or loses. I use 15mm 'scale' buildings too with my 30mm figures. IN a game Iput on at a show we had a single person taking care of enquires whilst the game unfolded and he kept up a commentary on the game too !

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    1. Sounds like fun, bet he gad a sire throat at the end, I know I did!

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  25. Great stuff Ray and really well re-told too. Those 15 mm buildings work really well. It's good to do better than expected against the history isn't it?
    Regards, James

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