The Battle of Brückenau, 1796 - A French Revolutionary Wars Batrep

 

Last weekend a horde of Rejects got together for our last game of 2025, Richard had very kindly volunteered put on a French Revolutionary game using his magnificent collection of 25mm figures.

I got carried away playing the game and I'm sure I missed taking lots of photos, so this will be more of a photo report, you can always click here, to view Richard's report on the game.

Here's the background and order of battle, shamelessly stolen from Richard's blog

Background to the Battle of Brückenau, 5th September 1796

36 hours after the defeat of the French Army of the Sambre et Meuse at the Battle of Wurzburg, the pursuing Austrians have caught up with the rearguard close to a river closing at Brückenau.  General Jourdan has given orders to his retreating troops to not just delay the Austrians, but to give them a bloody nose to deter any further pursuit.

The Austrians are in high spirits.  Meanwhile, the French have been retreating for weeks leading to a fall in morale and a crisis of confidence in their generals.  A victory here would go a long way to restore sunken spirits.

The aim for both Jourdan and Archduke Charles, the Austrian commander, is to severely damage their opponent.

Archduke Charles controls the initiative.

Rules: My own written rules
Umpire: Me
Figures: Mostly Elite Miniatures, Foundry, some Eureka.

The Armies
Austrian Army (Surjit, Steve and Stuart)
Commander in Chief:  Archduke Charles

Hohenlohe’s Brigade (Stuart)
4 infantry regiments (2xline; 2xveteran)
1 light gun

Hadik’s Brigade (Steve)
4 infantry regiments (2xline; 2xveteran)
1 light gun

Georger’s Brigade (Surjit)
4 infantry regiments (2xline; 2xveteran)
1 medium gun

Schottendor’s Brigade (Steve assumed control)
3 infantry regiments (2xline; 1xveteran)
1 Grenzer Sharpshooters (veteran)
1 medium gun

Not deployed and never arrived
Spiegelberg’s Brigade
2 units of Hussars (2xveteran)

Rosenberg’s Brigade
2 units of Dragoons (2xveteran)

French Army of the Sambre et Meuse (Ray, Dan and Colin)
Commander in Chief: General Jourdan

Legrand’s Brigade (Ray)
4 infantry regiments (4xline)
1 grenadier unit
1 light gun

Simond’s Brigade (Colin)
4 infantry regiments (3xline; 1xveteran)
1 carabiniers skirmish (1xveteran)
1 medium gun

Olivier’s Brigade (Dan)
4 infantry regiments (3xline; 1xveteran)
1 carabiniers skirmish (1xveteran)

Not deployed and never arrived
Klein’s Brigade
2 units of Chasseurs (2xline)

Ney’s Brigade
2 units of Dragoons (2xline)

Palmerolle’s Brigade
2 units of Dragoons (2xline)

For the start of the game Richard had planned for something a little different, which should have worked really well, BUT, due to the Austrian players inability to cooperate, well.....err....didn't!!

The idea of the blind movement was to get our armies up close to each other and jocky for position. The game was loaded against us French from the start, which was ok, it just made for a different kinda game.

The Austrians had to throw each turn to lose control of the blind movement markers, if they won, they could choose to move one of their markers or force the French to move one or move a French marker themselves. If they lost the initial throw, it was the French's turn to decide what to do.

What they should have done was move the blinds up, while pushing ours back, but there dice rolling was pretty crap, giving the move to us, we just kept moving their markers back all the time, stifling their movement, but when the did have the chance to move, they made us move, which was NOT the right thing to do.

The French had 3 blinds that were actual units and 3 dummies, the Austrians, had 4 unts and 4 blinds.

The reveal.....

Now, here's where it started to go wrong. When we revealed our troops we had to set up in a 12 inch square, then move out into position, but....

We found that, partly due to us moving the Austrians back, left and right, we had 3 brigades of Austrians on our left flank, against Dan, none in the centre facing me and Colin was up and Surj on our right.

So the only thing I thought we could do was for Colin to keep Surj in check on our right, Dan to form up defensively on our left, and for me to advance out and threaten Steve's force on the hill, if it works we might be able to hold them up for a while???

My command

Steve's

Steve's 2nd command on the hill.

Colin's command

Suj's command

Posties command, way out on our left flank

Dan moved into position to defend behind the walls, while Steve, tried to form into an attacking formation

I started the move towards the hill.

Each turn, each unt can do 2 things, (move & fire, change formation and move etc.) 

I won the chance to do 3 things, which meant I might be able to hit Steve in the first 2 moves, which I did.

Unfortunately only 1 unit could reach, but it was my combined Grenadiers!!!!

Poor Dan had a lot of troops flowing his way!!!

But at least he had time to prepare.

On our right, Colin started to bring his troops round, while Surj sent a unit into the town.

The advantage were just in my favour in the melee, all I had to do was kill 1 more than Steve did....

Which I didn't do!!

Steve is cursed with good dice rolls, I am not. He beat me 6-4.

So back I went!

He also after changing his mind about 6 bloody times, charged down the hill into my skirmishers, who were also soundly beaten by Steve's soddin dice!!

As I was in a pretty dangerous situation now, I chose to do a few voluntary fallbacks, if i threw well 50/50, they would go back in good order........well I think you can guess that didn't happen.

Most went back disordered and going down 1 morale grade...sigh.....

We stopped for luch, thank gawd, and Postie bought out some Birthday cake for Richard, I won't tell you his age, its got a three and six in it, I'll let you guess which order!!

After lunch we knew we were in trouble, so I tried moving back again to get out of Steve's reach, which was a bloody disaster.

So we did what any good general would do......fled the field to fight another day.

Conclusion

Richard was very disappointed how the game played out, sometimes the players just don't do what you think they'll do in a game, which can ruin or make the game just not work. I think that's what happened here.

If the Austrians would have stopped arguing with themselves and worked together I can see the game would have worked more in line to how Richard thought it would.

Once again the dice played a major roll, I should have beaten Steve on the hill, but the dice had other ideas, I probably should have held my attack for one turn to make sure I had 2 columns charging one Austrian unit, but the blood was up and I got carried away.

Although we lost it was still a great game, it certainly looked the part, so ell done to the Austrians, but a bigger well done to Richard himself!

AHPC16 - Prep & Plans

 

I've been busy prepping all kinds of figures for the up and coming 16th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge that starts in just 8 days time. Its been a very busy few weeks and I'm hoping to finish all the prep before that date, but might not make it.

As for my plans.....

I'm going to revisit a few old projects, some I already have figures prepped for from a few years ago, I plan to visit.

Vienna 1683 - Donnybrook and no I've still not had a game yet?

The Retreat from Moscow - errr I've not had a game with these either.....

With the release of the newest set of Beneath the Lily Banners, I've planned 2 new 15mm armies, I'm hoping to get some of these figures painted too.

Vienna 1683 - Yeh I know, I've already got it in 25mm, but I want it in 15mm too, I can't help it.....its just too shiny.

I'm not happy starting one new project, so I'm gonna start two.....well why the hell not?

Once again I'm joining forces with Reject BigLee, he's doing one side and I'm doing the other, we've both been cleaning and undercoating like mad men, more info on that a bit later. But here's a sneaky pic to get you guessing??

We've the final game of the year in the shed this Sunday, so look out oft a French Revolutionary War batrep soon!!!

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 16 - The Start

Yes, its that time of year once again, so if you fancy some Challenge action, head on over to Curt's blog and sign on the dotted line.........

The Basics

The Painting Challenge runs from the first day of Winter, 12:01 am December 21st, through to the first day of Spring, 12:01am March 20th, Central Standard Time (CST).
Miniatures (i.e. figures, vehicles, artillery, etc.) can be prepared, assembled and primed prior to the start date, but you cannot start painting until December 21st. In order to gain full points. The figures should be based (if appropriate) and any planned groundwork completed. The figures have to be painted by you.
The Challenge follows the honour system in the completion and entry of figures.
Miniatures can be in any scale and from any genre (pulp-adventure, science-fiction, fantasy, etc.).

The Challenge provides a simple (if imperfect) scoring system so participants can establish a benchmark to work towards. To be clear, the Challenge is NOT meant to judge peoples' painting, but to simply help inspire them to get stuff done.

For purposes of scoring, participants will create draft blog posts of their work on the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge blog. Up-to-date scoring (or as up-to-date as we can manage) will be handled by our intrepid team of Minions and displayed the blog's main page.
I will send out an email to new participants a week or so prior to the event to provide additional details on submitting your entries to the Challenge blog.

Please Note: All participants must have at least one entry submitted within the first four weeks of the event (i.e. January 21st). Failure to do so will result in being dropped from the Challenge roster. Yep, remember, this is not called a Challenge for nothing. :)

The Scoring

Below is an outline of how the scoring of entries are handled:
6mm foot figure = 0.5 point
6mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 1 point
6mm vehicle = 2 points


10mm foot figure = 1 point
10mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 3 points
10mm vehicle = 6 points

15mm foot figure = 2 point
15mm mounted figure, artillery piece or large crew served weapon = 4 points
15mm vehicle = 8 points

20mm foot figure = 4 points
20mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew-served weapon = 8 points
20mm vehicle = 15 points

28mm foot figure = 5 points
28mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 10 points
28mm vehicle = 20 points

40mm foot figure = 7 points
40mm mounted figure, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 15 points
40mm vehicle = 25 points

54mm foot figure = 10 points
54mm mounted figures, artillery piece or crew served weapon = 20 points
54mm vehicle, limber, etc. = 30 points

Other scales, miscellaneous models/figures will be scored on a submission-by-submission basis.

Terrain Submissions

To the delight of many previous participants, scored terrain submissions will be returning to the Challenge! Long-time Challenger Byron will be in charge of adjudicating terrain submissions on each Sunday. In a few days he'll be posting his arcane and sadistic methodology for scoring terrain, so stay tuned.

The Return of the Theme Rounds

Those doughty Challengers who wish to to gain bonus points can gird their loins to participate in three theme rounds where they are asked to paint an entry specific to a particular theme. These are scheduled for January 11th, February 8th and March 8th.

The theme rounds are voluntary. Participants do not need to enter them to enjoy the Challenge. It's an extra diversion for those wishing to try some theme-based challenges.
In a few days I'll follow up with a post laying out the specifics of the three themes.

Our Marvelous Minions

While I am the first to nudge the wagon down the hill, the actual hard work of steering the Challenge along is done by a group of great people who manage each day's submissions. Here are the 'Daily Minions' for Challenge XVI:Monday: DallasTuesday: PeterWednesday: SylvainThursday: GregFriday: MillsySaturday: SanderSunday: Dave
Terrain (Sundays): Byron
We also see the return of MilesR who will be our spreadsheet wrangler (it's a cantankerous thing that always needs appeasing). Thank you guys for stepping up to help for this year's edition!

Signup, Personal Targets and Duels
For those wishing to participate please send me an email, providing the following information:

1) your full name (no, not your cool nerdish handle, your actual name),
2) your country of residence, and
3) your points target for the three months of the event (see below).
My email address is:
curtcampbell at mac dot com
I will post a comment below when the roster has been filled and will follow-up with an email in a couple weeks detailing the specifics of the event.
Points Target: Many participants have found the personal points targets to be a great incentive to maintain their pace over the three months of the Challenge. I encourage participants to pick a target that is just beyond your comfort zone, but still achievable. As a rough benchmark, 300 points is considered a manageable amount for someone who is new to the the event and/or has a busy work/life schedule. Also remember that a significant amount of points can be secured by tailoring submissions to this year's various themes (more on this later).

Duels and Side Challenges: Related to the points targets, many people have a lot of fun issuing 'paint duels' or side challenges to other participants. This could be racing to meet a declared target, painting the most figures for a specific period, etc. Feel free to dream up your own bit of fun and we'll cheer you on!

The Cost of Entry

Last year we had great success with our donations to Doctors Without Borders and the Glow Mission. Thank you again to all those who supported those worthwhile causes. This year I ask participants to donate to a charity of their choice and mention it in an early entry.

Challenge XVI begins at 12:01am December 21st!
Now, sign up for the Challenge and get you minis prepared for painting! We'll see you on the start line in a few weeks!

Warfare Wargames Show 2025

 

Four Rejects braved the cold and drove south to Farnborough for our annual trip to Warfare. This is the third year on the trot that we've got to Warfare and I can't see why we wont be back again for the next few years either. Its a lot smaller than some shows we go to but still packs that punch you wanna get from a show. 

First stop was the Bring & Buy.

I was tempted several times but held fast, Warfare has the best Bring & Buy of the shows we go to, sure there's some toot, but there's also loads of reasonably priced goodies, unfortunately none of which I wanted.

Rant Time

I've taken my usual glut of photos of the games on show, some will have labels some won't (ggrr)!!

I'm gonna moan now, if you are bothering to go to a show to show off your figures and play a game, at least do us a favour and have a piece of paper saying who you are and what you're playing, and a little interaction would be nice too, I don't want a 2 hour talk about your game, just a little bit of info, so I can add it here for others not fortunate enough to attend the show. No names mentioned but at several tables I was glared at for having the gall to take some photos and interrupt the running their busy game, their photos of their game have not been included in this report.

Have a little thought please, that's all I'm asking, myself and BigLee have said this I don't know how many times????

Farnborough War Games Society -  The Great Escape

Wasteland Raceway - Gaslands

Flank March Miniatures/Full Metal Miniatures/BattlegroundHD

Fulda Firestorm - 1980's Cold War 28mm Skirmish

Phew!!!

Medieval????

Wargames Association of Reading - Darkest Africa - What a Tanker???

Boscombe Down & Amesbury Wargame Club - Battle for St Venant - France 1940

Chain of Command

Abingdon Wargames Club - Oi! Dat's my loot/Ork train heist???

???

I had to fight to get any pics of this game....

Ecorcheurs! Historian in Harness - Crossing the Somme - 1346?????

28mm HYW

Kettle Hill Cuba 1898???

15mm Napoleonic?????

Malvern Old Wargamers - Armati

Battletech???

The Werelords - Grond! The Battle of Pelennor Fields

Society of Ancients - Breach & Scutchen????

Deal Wargames Society - Polish Blitzkrieg - Polish raid on Fraudstadt

At last someone who gives us information on there game!!

Ilford Wargames Group - The Rocketeers Guide to Rocketships

Prince Rupert's regt of the Sealed Knot - 28mm Monmouth's Rebellion Alternate History

Society of Ancients - The Battle of Gaza 312BC

Loughton Strike Force The Battle of Pydna 168BC

Nice sign!!!

Newbury & Reading - Action in Palestine 1000BC

Nice and clear Who and What the game is....Thank You!

Shepway Wargames Club - Ils sont a Sedan!
WWII 20mm

Joe Bilton  - Operation Charnwood - Caan 1944

What a Tanker

?????? Sigh

Ardhammer - What if Russia

28mm Napoleonics

No clue who or what this game was, but I took lots of pics, for a little recon as to how my and Lee's Retreat from Moscow will look like.

Lunchtime!!

There was a purchase made from Parkfield, no pics though as its my and Lee's next secret project!!!

Everyone's favourite MDF merchants, Diane and Martin
Warbases!!

Guilford Wargames Club - 1036 - Treachery at Gylford.

A selection of photos of some of the Tournament games

We  bumped into Reject Fran's old pals Christophe and Jeff

And lastly my very meagre haul, loads of paints and bases from Warbases, a bear and a secret new project that me and Lee and keeping quiet about for the moment!