Planning Armies: 6mm War of the Spanish Succession

Quite a niche post follows, even by my own low standards! It is about miniature army planning and scope - including scope creep...it might be of some mild interest to that tiny subset of gamers who are currently pondering the War of the Spanish Succession in 6mm; or perhaps, slightly more widely, gamers thinking about new horse-and-musket armies more generally

 

Model manufacturers are probably well aware of this, but it is definitely true that nice figures and models will help to persuade us to buy more than we might have planned. My 6mm War of the Spanish Succession collection is a case in point. The original scope of the project was quite tight: it was to be a 'tabletop teaser'-type force, with two armies, each just large enough to refight all the sources of 'Tabletop Teaser' type scenarios I possess. That amounts to, more-or-less, the Tabletop Teaser series in Battlegames magazine; Grant and Asquith's 'Scenarios for All Ages'; Grant's 'Programmed Wargames Scenarios'; and Neil Thomas' scenarios in One-Hour Wargames. And, in terms of playing, this is more-or-less exactly what has happened. Roughly speaking, the following forces will cover you for all of this:

 

BLUE FORCES:

4 units of Artillery

1 unit of Light Artillery  

1 unit of Engineers

3 units of Heavy Cavalry

3 units of Medium Cavalry 

3 units of Light Cavalry 

2 units of Elite Infantry 

3 units of Light Infantry

10 units of Line Infantry

 

RED FORCES:

3 units of Artillery

1 unit of Light Artillery  

1 unit of Engineers

3 units of Heavy Cavalry

3 units of Medium Cavalry 

2 units of Light Cavalry 

1 units of Elite Infantry 

3 units of Light Infantry

9 units of Line Infantry

 

1 Pontoon Train 

4 Supply wagons 

 

So this was my target. And it was achieved quite easily. I themed the 'Blue Force' as French, but with a very high proportion of foreign units, especially Irish. The 'Red Force' was themed as British, with as high a proportion of Scottish units as could make sense. The rationale for the above was using them as the regular troops involved in the various Jacobite rebellions, as well as for the generic Horse and Musket scenarios.

 

But, it turned out that efficiency be damned, I really, really liked painting WSS figures!  So The Red forces also got a brigade of Dutch Foot (which were Scottish), and another brigade of Dutch Foot (which were French), the French got a couple of Spanish units too (mainly Irish regiments). The Manchester Regiment, The Royal Ecossais and various Jacobite units were also done as if they had been raised for the '15 rather than the '45. You get the idea. As the armies expanded, I looked to the couple of sets of rules I had for the WSS which included army lists to give an indication of what a reasonable-sized complete army might look like.

 

Firstly, the army lists in Horse, Foot and Guns:

 

The Imperialist Army: 1 x Headquarters, 1 x Command Post, 5 x Cuirassiers, 2 x Dragoons, 1 x Hussars, 28 x Infantry, 1 x Field Artillery, 1 x Heavy Artillery 

 

The Anglo-Dutch Army: 2 x Command Posts, 11 x Horse (3 x Dutch, 2 x British, 2 x Danish, 4 x German), 9 x Dragoons, 2 x Guard Infantry (1 x Dutch, 1 x British), 3 x Grenadiers, 49 x Infantry (15 x Dutch, 12 x British, 2 x Danish, 4 x Prussian, 16 x German), 7 x Field Artillery, 2 x Heavy Artillery. (n.b. The British Horse become Cuirassiers in the middle of the war).

 

The Franco-Bavarian Army: 1 x Headquarters, 1 x Command Post, 2 x Elite Horse (1 x French, 1 x Bavarian Cuirassiers), 6 x Horse, 8 x Dragoons, 4 x Guard Infantry (3 x French, 1 x Bavarian), 2 x Grenadiers (1 x French, 1 x Bavarian), 39 x Infantry (34 x French, 5 x Bavarian), 7 x Field Artillery, 1 x Heavy Artillery (n.b. I don't think there can be strong objections to replacing some French units with Spanish, to taste)

 

There were a few surprising things in there to me: the lack of Imperialist artillery, and the preponderance of Foot over Horse were perhaps the most obvious. Grenadiers don't seem to have played quite as big a part in the WSS as these figures imply. In any case, these armies did represent a significant expansion over my originals! However, I am nearly there for the Anglo-Dutch and Franco-Bavarians, I think I am only missing some of the German Foot for the former, and some of the French Foot for the latter.  

 

The other set of army lists I have for the WSS are those in the 1e of the Polemos WSS rules.  They imply much bigger forces, big armies by anyone's standards, even in 6mm:

 

Ansbach (1 Foot, 2 Dragoons)

Austria (36 Foot, 28 Horse/Cuirassiers, 11 Dragoons, 4 Field Guns, 8 Light Guns) 

Bavarian (12 Foot, 13 Horse/Cuirassiers 1 Field Gun, 2 Light Guns) + 2 Guard Horse 

Cologne (3 Foot, 3 Horse, 2 Dragoons)

Denmark (13 Foot, 8 Horse, 3 Dragoons)

France (67 Foot, 45 Horse, 11 Dragoons, 2 Hussars, 8 Field Guns, 10 Light Guns, 4 Siege Guns) 

Franconia (3 Cuirassiers, 2 Dragoons)

Hanover (13 Foot, 6 Horse, 6 Dragoons, 2 Field Guns, 4 Light Guns)

Hesse (7 Foot, 5 Horse, 3 Dragoons)

Holland (21 Foot, 22 Horse, 6 Dragoons, 1 Field Gun, 4 Light Guns)

Holstein (2 Foot, 1 Cuirassier, 4 Dragoons)

Ireland (4 Foot, 2 Horse)

Italy (1 Horse)

Mainz (2 Dragoons)

Mecklenburg (1 Cuirassier, 1 Dragoon)

Munster (3 Foot, 1 Horse)

Upper Reich (Oberreich) (8 Foot, 2 Horse)

Palatinate (10 Foot, 6 Horse)

Portugal (9 Foot, 12 Horse, 1 Field Gun, 2 Light Guns)

Prussia (14 Foot, 5 Horse, 4 Dragoons)

Savoy (10 Foot, 4 Horse, 3 Dragoons, 1 Field Gun, 3 Light Guns)

Saxe-Gotha (1 Cuirassier, 3 Dragoons)

Scotland (4 Foot), 

Spain (11 Foot, 16 Horse, 5 Dragoons, 2 Field Guns, 3 Light Guns),  

Swabia (2 Cuirassiers, 2 Horse, 1 Dragoon), 

Switzerland (4 Foot), 

Britain (18 Foot, 6 Horse, 3 Dragoons, 2 Field Guns, 3 Light Guns),  

Walloon (4 Foot), 

Westphalia (2 Horse), 

Wurttemberg (3 Foot, 1 Horse, 1 Dragoons), 

Wurzburg (2 Dragoons), 

[Allied artillery totals (12 Field guns, 18 light guns)]

 

(the bold is just to indicate the larger contingents involved)

  

So I have enough units to paint for a very long time, if I want my games to be accurate to the individual facing colour level. This is not however what Heretical Gaming is all about! So my actual target has evolved into having sufficient forces for the HFG lists, plus functional extras as they come up (so a few units of Spanish Horse for Almanza say). 

 

The other way to approach this would be to look at the overall forces one would need for the battles listed in the ruleset, viz.:

 

Chiari 1701: 

Imperials: 27 bases Cuirassiers, 36 bases Foot, 9 bases Dragoons, 4 bases Field Artillery, 8 bases Light Artillery 

French: 34 bases Horse, 66 bases Foot, 5 bases Dragoons, 5 bases Field Artillery, 10 bases Light Artillery  

Luzzara 1702: 

Imperials: 28 bases Horse, 35 bases Foot, 12 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Field Artillery, 5 bases Light Artillery 

French: 31 bases Horse, 39 bases Foot, 14 bases Dragoons, 4 bases Field Artillery, 6 bases Light Artillery  

Speyerbach 1703: 

Allies:13 bases Horse, 30 bases Foot, 6 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Field Artillery, 4 bases Light Artillery French:17 bases Horse, 27 bases Foot, 3 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Field Artillery, 4 bases Light Artillery  

 

Blenheim 1704: 

Allies: 26 bases Horse, 43 bases Foot, 16 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Field Artillery, 7 bases Light Artillery Imperials: 20 bases Cuirassiers, 10 bases Horse, 21 bases Foot, 19 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Field Artillery, 3 bases Light Artillery 

French: 11 bases Cuirassiers, 50 bases Horse, 88 bases Foot, 8 bases Dragoons, 4 bases Siege Artillery, 6 bases Field Artillery, 10 bases Light Artillery  

 

Ramillies 1706: 

Allies: 43 bases Horse, 74 bases Foot, 19 bases Dragoons, 12 bases Field Artillery, 18 bases Light Artillery 

French: 48 bases Horse, 2 bases Hussars, 70 bases Foot, 17 bases Dragoons, 8 bases Field Artillery, 10 bases Light Artillery  

 

Almanza 1707: 

Allies:14 bases Horse, 23 bases Foot, 4 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Field Artillery, 5 bases Light Artillery French:20 bases Horse, 26 bases Foot, 3 bases Dragoons, 4 bases Field Artillery, 6 bases Light Artillery

 

One could then create a 'Blue' Army of the maximum number of bases to fight as the French, and a 'Red' Army of the maximum number of bases to fight as the Allies or Imperials. In practice, that just means sufficient bases to refight Blenheim and Ramillies, everything else fits inside. 

Helpfully, this family of Polemos rules also includes options for Smalland Medium-sized games based on the above. Broadly speaking, they imply forces of a third to a half of the above figures for Small, and around two-thirds for Medium. Even for 'Small' battles, it is noteworthy how much proportionally more cavalry and artillery there will be on a Polemos battlefield than on an HFG battlefield. The 'average' small armies work out as follows:

Chiari:

Imperials: 14 bases Foot, 9 bases Cuirassiers, 3 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Light Artillery, 1 base Foot Artillery

French: 22 bases Foot, 10 bases Horse, 3 bases Light Artillery, 2 bases Foot Artillery 

 

Luzzara:

Imperials: 9 bases Horse, 13 bases Foot, 3 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Light Artillery, 2 bases Foot Artillery

French: 9 bases Horse, 13 bases Foot, 6 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Light Artillery, 2 base Foot Artillery

 

Speyerbach:

Allies:   6-7 bases Horse, 13 bases Foot, 3 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Light Artillery, 1 base Foot Artillery

French: 12 bases Horse, 13 bases Foot, 3 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Light Artillery, 1 base Foot Artillery

 

Blenheim:

Allies: 27 bases Foot, 17 bases Horse, 12 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Light Artillery, 2 bases Foot Artillery

French: 26 bases Foot, 22 bases Horse, 3 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Light Artillery, 2 bases Foot Artillery  

 Ramilles:

Allies: 23 bases Foot, 15 bases Horse, 6 bases Dragoons, 6 bases Light Artillery, 4 bases Field Artillery

French: 24 bases Foot, 15 bases Horse, 7 bases Dragoons, 3 bases Light Artillery, 3 bases Field Artillery 

 

Almanza:

Allies: 10 bases Foot, 6 bases Horse, 2 bases Dragoons, 2 bases Light Artillery, 1 base Field Artillery

French: 10 bases Foot, 6 bases Horse, 2 bases Light Artillery, 1 base Field Artillery  

 

Roughly speaking, these armies are about a Baccus Army pack plus a couple of extra individual packs in size, with the exception of Blenheim and Ramilles, which are more like an Army pack and a couple of reinforcement packs.  That might be a good target for the average gamer. The Polemos 'Small Armies for Big Battles' lists are similar-ish in size to an HFG army - which makes sense, when a base is Polemos WSS 1e is ~ a battalion, and a base in HFG is ~ a brigade.

 

An Allied Army would come out as  27 bases Foot, 17 bases Horse, 12 bases Dragoons, 6 bases Light Artillery, 4 bases Foot Artillery, which would be:

1 x Generals Pack (£4.32)

2 x Foot Booster Packs (£47.52)

1 x Foot Pack (£8.72)

1 x Horse Booster Pack (£23.76)

1 x Horse Pack (£10.08)

1 x Dragoon Booster Pack (£23.76)

2 x Dismounted Dragoon Packs (£8.64) 

2 x Light Artillery Pack (£8.64) 

1 x Foot Artillery Pack (£4.32)

Or about £130-140 all-in. 

Neil Thomas Horse & Musket Scenario 014

The next scenario in this series of re-fights of Neil Thomas' One-Hour Wargames is an attack on a slightly fixed defensive force (i.e. it has to statically defend some objectives with the majority of its forces).  Here a town and a hill are objectives which have to be protected by a minimum number of units, with the placement of the others being discretionary. As ever, the battle rules used are another Neil Thomas' set, Simplicity in Practice.

 

The Forces:

Franco-Jacobite Army:

6 Infantry units

2 Horse units

1 Dragoon units

 

Hanoverian British Army:

5 Infantry units

2 Artillery units

2 Dragoon units (this last is a bit of a guess - maybe it was 1 Dragoon unit and 1 Horse unit; made no difference in any case).

The Franco-Jacobites have to take the hill and the town to win.

The Set-Up:

The British are defending a town and a hill, and have put some infantry and dragoons forward into the wood to defend that.

Fergusson's and Leven's Regiments defend the town.

Seymour's Marines and some Dragoons defend the woods

The Battle:

The Franco-Jacobites arrive: their initial dispositions seem to indicate an assault on the wood or the town, rather than threatening the hill.

A view from behind Regiments du Roi and La Reine towards the town

The musketry of the British Dragoons begins to tell on the Jacobite infantry as it advances towards the woods

And on the French infantry as it advances towards the town

The Jacobite infantry reach the edge of the woods and their accurate musketry makes the British Dragoons scurry back to the far edge of the woods; meanwhile French Horse advances to threaten the British reserves trying to reinforce the wood.

A rather ineffectual musketry exchange continues around the edge of the woods

Eventually the Irish infantry and French Dragoons attack into the woods...

Berwick's Regiment and Seymour's Marines fight with bullet, bayonet and butt in the woods...

Seymour's Marines are victorious!  The Irish infantry disperse...

Not so easy to see, but the Jacobite infantry are advancing on the left-hand side of the woods, but the British reserves are now occupying the rest of it

More of the Jacobite infantry are thrown out of the wood with heavy losses (left-centre); the Franco-Jacobites are struggling to make any kind of progress

After regrouping another Jacobite assault is made..and repelled

The French infantry is stuck in front of the town, exchanging fire...

The position as the  Franco-Jacobite general calls an end to the battle, despairing of making progress.

Game Notes:

A much simpler affair than last time, The Franco-Jacobites just had nothing go quite right for them so it seemed right to pack up rather than carry out an almost certainly doomed third assault.   Perhaps someone else can read the tactical runes better, but I still think that the basic plan has to be to clear the wood, separate the British positions then defeat in detail.  Anything else is going to fail without wild amounts of luck. As it was, the Franco-Jacobites didn't even have modest amounts of luck and so everything basically miscarried.

The scenarios in One Hour Wargames are expressed in the same terms as real military exercises in that they have a 'Blue' force or army (the friendlies) against a 'Red' force or army (the enemy).  Charles Grant scenarios are expressed in the same way in many instances.  But I wonder if this leads to unconsciously making the tasks of the Blue side a little harder than that of the Red?  The reason I mention this is that I usually make the 'Blue' side the Franco-Jacobites and the 'Red' side the Hanoverian British, for obvious reasons.

Figures as ever by Baccus 6mm from its WSS range, the buildings are mainly Leven.

Neil Thomas Horse & Musket Scenario 012

There has been a bit of a lull in my gaming recently, partly as some real-world responsibilities kicked-in and some personal issues weighed heavily, but mainly because the pre-war tension and then the invasion of Ukraine were so awful and depressing.  Bad real-world events don't make me think that gaming itself is bad, far from it - it is more that if I am feeling really down, then I don't generally feel like gaming.

But I did manage to get a game in this morning, at last.  I had it set-up for a few days before actually playing the thing, so if there are slight fluctuations in the shadows and scatter terrain on the photographs, that is why.

The game is the next scenario from Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargames book.  This features a defending army caught slightly short by an attacking army patrolling and finding a river crossing over the flank.  I think it is quite clear which real battle this is ultimately based on, but I don't think it is mentioned in the actual OHW book - instead that is adapted from a Grant scenario.  But to my mind, this battle is strongly reminiscent of Second Oporto (and my refight of it, here) from the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Anyway, as ever, I am using a slightly modified version of the Neil Thomas' Simplicity in Practice rules from Battlegames 023.

 

The Forces:

 

The Hanoverian Army: 

6 units of Infantry

2 units of Dragoons

1 unit of Artillery

The Franco-Jacobite Army:

5 units of Infantry

3 units of Dragoons

1 unit of Artillery

The aim in this scenario is for the attacking force to get across the river and take the high ground.  The attacker moves first, but cannot fire during that first turn.  This will allow them to seize the crossing point, as the defending army is restricted to being within a certain distance of the town.  I have some thoughts about this in the Game Notes!

The Set-Up:

The Franco-Jacobites are on the near side of the river, the British are on the far bank.

Another shot

An English and a Scottish regiment guard the town.

The main body of the defenders in a somewhat improvised line of battle.

The Franco-Jacobites are ready to carry out their attack.

Another view

And another, this time showing the regiment detailed to watch the town and pin its defenders.

The Battle:

Action breaks out as the Franco-Jacobites cross the river.  Some of the dismounted French Dragoons fall victim to British fire (top-right) but the musketry of the the Irish and Royal Ecossais regiments causes heavy losses in Fergusson's Regiment (centre)

The Franco-Jacobites have managed to get their Dragoons and a Swiss regiment across the river.

Despite local inferiority, the British infantry attack with the bayonet to disrupt the Franco-Jacobite line

The Dragoons' fire is insufficient and they are pushed back with heavy losses.

The balancing part of the equation: French Dragoons charge the now exposed flank of the British Foot

And the British infantry are thrown back with heavy losses in their turn: the French Dragoons suffer from musketry fire and are recalled but ignore the order and charge home; the British infantry rally and turn the tables on their pursuers!

The French Dragoons are defeated!

The lead French Dragoon elements have been isolated and cut off by the advancing British infantry and dragoons

Meanwhile, the British regiment (top-centre) has collapsed from the intensity of the converging fire, although the French artillery has been suffering heavily from counter-battery fire.

The position by the bridge; the narrow bridgehead is secure but the overall position is so poor for the Franco-Jacobites that they may struggle to exploit it.

Especially as the British counter-battery fire has now destroyed the French artillery

The Franco-Jacobite Foot is redeploying to support the effort at the bridge

The wider shot

Seymour's Marines put the final attack in on the remnants of the dismounted French Dragoons; the mounted French Dragoons are in a nearly as poor a state

A wider shot

The British Dragoons charge home - there is little hope for the isolated French Dragoons

The Franco-Jacobites face almost impossible odds now, but refuse to give in, renewing the attack (bottom-right)

But the lead regiment is driven back on the bridge: the Franco-Jacobite general comes forward to try and rally the wavering regiment.

A wider shot

But the British  sense that they are not going to be stopped today and launch another charge.

And that sense is proved correct, as the Swiss regiment cannot stand the sharp bayonets and manly bearing of the advancing 17th Foot...

They are broken, the general is taken, and the Franco-Jacobites must concede, having no chance of making further progress and their army on the brink of collapse.

A wider shot.

Game Notes:

If I am correct and this battle was inspired by 2nd Porto, then we can see, perhaps, how the small change in scenario compared to history can make a big difference: in that battle, the British (who were the equivalent of the Franco-Jacobite force in this game) not only crossed the river but fired first too, so the first counter-attack of the defenders was in trouble from the start.  In this scenario, the situation is rather different, with the attackers under heavy fire first - crucially this allowed the British (in this game) to weaken and break the Franco-Jacobite line quite early on.  I am not quite sure I understood the point of the 'no fire' in the scenario instructions anyway - why not just allow the attackers a certain number of units and distance across the river and then let the defenders have the first turn?  This scenario rule seems somewhat redundant.

In terms of the actual flow of the battle, the big moment was the failure of the French Dragoons to change orders and let the infantry continue the attack on the discomfited British; an infantry attack would have certainly destroyed the British regiment, whereas the way it happened was that the French Dragoons were destroyed and the regiment escaped.  Allied to the early cutting off of the French Advanced Guard and the Franco-Jacobites were in for a thin time - as it proved.  I wasn't too enamoured of my tactical handling of the Franco-Jacobites all round in this battle actually.

One thing I have always played but not written down as an amendment, is that if a defeated unit's retire move would take it off the board, I allow it to stop at the edge of the board rather than be lost.  However, if it is forced to retire further, then it is lost.  This seems fairer than not.

Figures as ever by Baccus 6mm, buildings by Leven and Timecast.