Battle of Sabugal 04 Apr 1811 - A Polemos Refight

Prolific games writer Howard Whitehouse (now part of the Pulp Action Library team) wrote a scenario for the combat of Sabugal back in Miniature Wargames 37.

 It was in the Arthur Harman style, with detailed player briefings and the expectation of an umpire: perfect for a great evening of club play.  However, as a solo player, I had to try and make it work rather differently - see the Game Notes at the end for the mechanics of this.

Orders of Battle:

The Anglo-Portuguese Army: 

C-in-C Lord Wellington (Decisive)

Light Division: Erskine (Plodding)
Beckwith's Bde: 1 Vet/El Infantry SK2, 1 Vet Infantry SK1, 1 Trained Infantry SK2, 1 x 6lb Hs Bty
Drummond's Bde: 1 Vet/El Infantry SK2, 1 Vet Infantry SK2, 1 Vet Infantry SK1, 1 Trained Infantry SK2
Slade's Bde: 2 x Veteran Dragoons, 1 x Veteran Light Cavalry
Arendtschildt's Bde: 3 x Veteran Light Cavalry

Drummond's Brigade arrives after 6 turns (c.30 minutes); the Cavalry and Erskine himself after 12 turns (1 hour)

3rd Division: Picton (Decisive)
Mackinnon's Bde: 1 x Veteran Infantry SK2, 3 x Veteran Infantry SK1
Colville's Bde: 1 x Veteran Infantry SK2, 3 x Veteran Infantry SK1
Power's Bde (Portuguese): 3 x Trained Infantry SK1
Arty: 1 x 6lb Ft Bty

5th Division: Dunlop (Plodding)
Hay's Bde: 1 x Veteran Infantry SK2, 2 x Veteran Infantry SK1
Dunlop's Bde: 1 x Veteran Infantry SK2, 2 x Veteran Infantry SK1
Spry's Bde: 1 x Trained Infantry SK2, 2 x Trained Infantry SK1
Arty: 1 x 6lb Ft Bty

French II Corps: Reille (Capable)

1st Division: Merle (Capable)
Sarrut's Bde: 1 x Trained Infantry SK2, 4 x Trained Infantry SK1
2nd Bde: 1 x Trained Infantry SK2, 1 x Trained Infantry SK1
Arty: 1 x 8lb Ft Bty

2nd Division: Heudelet (Capable)
Arnaud's Bde: 1 x Trained Infantry SK2, 6 x Trained Infantry SK1
Godard's Bde: 1 x Trained Infantry SK2, 3 x Trained Infantry SK1 
Arty: 1 x 8lb Ft Bty

Cavalry Bde:
1 x Trained Dragoons, 2 x Trained Light Cavalry, 1 x 4lb Hs Bty  

The Weather:
The weather is foggy until turn 18.  There is the chance of intermittent showers (on each turn, roll a D6 and 1 = rain)

The Set-Up:

Looking over the battlefield of Sabugal, looking East.  Picton's Division is bottom-centre, Dunlop's Division bottom-left and Beckwith's Brigade of the Light Division is in the enclosures (right); Heudelet's Division is centre and left, with forward elements holding Sabugal whilst Merle's Division is around the woods (centre-right) and P. Soult's Cavalry Brigade is in the French rear (top-centre)

And looking South down the valley, French to the left on the high ground, the British mainly to the right of the Coa with the Light Division's leading brigade in the enclosures (extreme top)

A close-up of Beckwith's brigade occupying some stone walls; Caçadores, riflemen and light infantrymen, supported by horse artillery

Merle's Brigade occupying positions up the hill but ready to attack and drive back the Light Division!

 The Battle:

Merle's division advances slowly through the fog; Beckwith redeploys slightly to cover both enclosures, hoping that Drummond and Erskine will reinforce him before too long

The musketry begins as the French infantry move to c.100m away from the walls.

The French prepare to assault

Meanwhile, Picton begins to push elements across the water; the intention being to confuse and harry the French rather than launch a direct assault on the main strength of the II Corps position

The conflict increases in intensity - Merle, sword in hand, leads his infantry against the British riflemen

Will the British positions hold?

On the British right, the 95th have repulsed one French column (right) but Merle, leading a regimental assault in person has thrown them back out of the enclosure; meanwhile the 43rd and the Caçadores have thrown back the other French brigade.

Unfortunately the French brigade failed its morale check (left)...which led to the morale collapse of the whole division!!!

Merle's Division is spent and moving towards safety in the French rear

The other infantry brigade of the Light Division arrives to support; the French cavalry begin to move to forestall the danger

Meanwhile in the centre, Picton has been unable to resist launching an attack on Heudelet!  He leads Power's Portuguese in person in the assault

But with little success! The allies are thrown back with heavy loss.

The French cavalry withdraw a little after a failed charge against the 52nd in square...

The French tried a counter-attack but this failed due to the sheer volume of Allied fire.  After re-organizing his troops, Picton launches another assault: this pushes some of the French infantry back; although other Allied ttacks are again repulsed

Picton's success can be seen (centre-right)

Erskine's troops slowly advance as the fog lifts

After some intense fighting, the French cavalry is worsted, which spells defeat for the French

  

Picton's troops have pushed Heudelet's troops back into the woods, although the French line is holding in the main; however the outnumbered French cavalry have been defeated and II Corps' morale is broken

Game Notes: A game which did quite resemble the original action, although Merle's Division gave up slightly earlier than in the original action and Picton's attack began earlier.  The first circumstance was as a result of a failed French morale test, although fundamentally probably it was a result of my bad tactics.  It is often too risky to attack with two-base infantry base brigades, because if they are repulsed in the attack, then the brigade has roughly a 33% chance of breaking - but it is really not worth it if it is a two-brigade division in Polemos, because there is a 50% rule within divisions - lose half the brigades and the whole division is spent.  Normally it is worth doing a few attacks to try and achieve an exploitable success, but not with weak brigades like this.  It was a shame for the French, since Merle's attack had been so nicely executed, capturing some British guns and forcing the 95th Rifles back!
Picton was quite lucky that his failed first attack wasn't punished more severely, but this enabled him to achieve some degree of success; second attacks are much easier than the first in Polemos, because the modifier for first-firing is pretty chunky.
The Polemos game mechanics worked well to the extent that command and control for both sides was severely constrained, in particular early on, when the fog was such a factor.  Obviously in some solitaire games it is hard to cheat yourself, but the restrictions on Tempo seemed to produce a fairly realistic effect.  For those interested in the precise rules:

Fog limits visibility to 100m.  This becomes the maximum range and the maximum move distance.  All tempo points issued are counted as being to out-of-sight subordinates (i.e. the tempo points are halved).

As in recent games, the effect of being uphill as been limited to +1
Instead of using the precise modifiers in the rules for troop quality, here I have used:
Veteran/Elite +2
Veteran +1
Trained 0
This reflects the classifications given in the scenario; much the same could be achieved more strictly in the rules as rating many of the French units as Veteran +2 but 1-level shaken; that however is rather worse for the French (they are more brittle despite the same modifier, so I settled for this instead).  

I am moving more and more to the idea of using a single SK2 per brigade for the French, similar to the British system.  A further part of me thinks that maybe the player should be able to choose how many SK2 units are in the army, certainly for the Allied and French armies in the Peninsular.  Any thoughts?

Figures by Baccus 6mm, buildings by Total Battle Miniatures