Neil Thomas One-Hour Wargames Scenario 22

Alright, next up in the One Hour Wargames' scenarios refight series: this scenario (#22) is based on the Battle of Auberoche, which was one of Don Featherstone's favourite scenarios - it was his 'Battle for All Ages', which he not only refought in its historical place (the Hundred Years War) but also re-skinned it for the Napoleonic Wars (in which the Anglo-Welsh longbowman became the British greenjacket) and WW2 (in which the same meta-soldier became the British Para). He obviously loved writing about it, it really seemed to bring out his romantic side. However, I have never understood what was so good about it as a wargames scenario. Almost all the interesting tactical decisions get made, of necessity, before the action begins! The poor French player only has something to do if the British player messes things up; or (if your scenario/rules work differently) British success will only occur if the French player messes things up; this happens if the game unsuccessfully tries to implement surprise mechanics, which are very hard to implement, because the player can't be surprised in this way - hence the wargames gurus I find most influential suggest that to make surprise scenarios work best, you need to start them at the point where the surprise is revealed.. The key point is that in surprise attacks, the reason they are so successful, is that they are very hard to resist because if your pre-planning has failed that badly! Anyway, this is all a long way around of saying I have my doubts about Auberoche as a scenario...particularly when using the Polemos Ruse de Guerre rules. More on this in the Game Notes...

 

The Forces:

Franco-Jacobites: (garrison) 1 Infantry unit, 1 Artillery unit

(relief force); 3 Infantry units, 1 Dragoon unit

Hanoverians: 5 Infantry units, 2 Artillery units, 2 Cavalry units

To avoid some potential confusion, in this scenario the 'Red' force (i.e. the Hanoverian Army) is the besieging army (i.e. the French position in the real HYW battle), whilst the Franco-Jacobites, the 'Blue' force, take the role of the British in the real HYW battle...

The Set-up:

Auberoche castle to the left, the Hanoverian Army facing it, whilst the relief force has approached in secret through the woods.

The Hanoverians face the castle, unaware of what is about to hit their left (bottom-centre)...

Another view

Irish Jacobite infantry and French Dragoons (left) about to spring the surprise...

One last shot, showing what a bad day the Scots' brigade of the Hanoverian Army is about to have...

The Battle:

The Jacobite Irish regiments make no mistake as they commence the battle: a couple of quick, accurate and deadly volleys decimate and rout the flanking British battalion...

The British hurredly try and form some kind of defensive line, but the Irish regiments just pile forward with the bayonet

The Hanoverians keep their artillery trained on the castle...

Another of the Scots' regiments (Fergusson's) is set running to the rear

The Hanoverians are in a severely unbalanced position

Clare's and Dillon's regiments deliver a series of quick volleys, which routs the last Scots' regiment (Leven's), which runs for the rear also...

The Hanoverians have lost their numerical superiority and their position is not strong

But it mattered not: the Hanoverian army's morale collapsed at this point.

Game Notes:

Short and sweet, at least for the Franco-Jacobite forces. The combination of the initial set-up and the rules used (Polemos: Ruse de Guerre) made it the most likely outcome and it duly occurred. Why did the rules make such a difference? Well, in a very attritional system - like in the actual One Hour Wargames rules, or any Neil Thomas set - then that by its very nature mitigates against quick collapses and defeats, since there is no mechanic to achieve it. However, when entire brigades can collapse, which can in turn lead to entire armies collapsing quite quickly, then there is always the possibility of a quick defeat, as happened here. The speed of the collapse came down to three factors: two of these favoured the Jacobites, one the British. The bit of luck for the British occurred in the middle: the last battalion of the Scots' brigade held on despite the other two battalions having broken (1 in 3 chance); the luck for the Jacobites was in the effectiveness of the first volley (just over 1 in 3 chance) and the failure of the Hanoverian army morale once the Scots' brigade had collapsed (40% chance).  I don't think any of this makes too much difference to the overall result - the Franco-Jacobites do look well placed to win in this one, but it did decide how long it was going to last and broadly, the longer this one goes on the more the British are back in with a chance. But not to be today!

 

Figures by Baccus 6mm, castle by Leven (I think!)