Battle of Utitza

Or, I thought Utitza’s were bigger?  A scaled down version due to space issues on the table, I guess size does matter, at least on the table top.

Rules are Field of Battle, 3^rd edition.

After having pulled out the Duchy of Warsaw troops during the game room organization effort, I decided to get them back on the table in their role on the French right flank at Borodino.  So I dug through my computer files and found the OB and maps we used for our Borodino game back in 2012 at Historicon.  Unfortunately, I don’t have enough table space for the full layout, so what follows is a compacted battle field.

The initial setup.

The view from the Russian (defender) side.  Cossacks and Opolochenie on the left, 2nd Grenadier Division in the center, and 3rd Division on the right.

View from the Polish, V Corps, side.  Zayonchek's 16th Division on the left, Kniaziewicz 18th Division in the Center, and the Corps Cavalry on the right.

Turn 1

The first turn consisted of wasted cards for the Russians, the Poles on the other hand turned a Move card and Zayonchek’s Division on the Polish left flank surged ahead 2 move segments.  Not to be outdone, Kniaziewicz in the center stormed forward 3 move segments, almost making it to the base of the Utitiza hill.  The Cavalry on the right Polish right flank was clearly intimidate by this display and plodded forward one move segment.  The lone Russian Battery took the opportunity to fire at the infantry as they closed, inflicting one paltry casualty.  This may not be a very long battle report. The next Polish card was useless, but the 2 foot batteries elected to fire while they still had the inititive, and before their infantry blocked their fire.  The result of the cannonade was… nothing.

View from the Russian Grenadier's in the Village.  Boris, this might hurt a bit.

Turn 2

The second turn saw the Russian’s again win the initiative by one, turning… an Artillery Fire card!  Sometimes the card gods are generous.  The Russian artillery fires, inflicting 2 hits on the Polish Infantry, but rolling odd, so the Poles stand. (I think I got that right, while I’ve played Field of Battle 3^rd Edition before a long time ago, I haven’t ever run a game).  The Poles turn a ‘Lull’ card, but the Russian’s fail to seize the initiative.

Turn 3

Turn three saw the Russian’s again win the initiative by 8 and given the close proximity of the Poles the Russians opted to go first.  The first really useful card turned was an artillery fire, resulting in one hit which destroyed the already battered Polish infantry unit in front of the battery.  The Russian Grenadiers in the town used anInfantry Fire card to take a long range shot at the Poles and missed.  The Jagers in the woods used a move 1 command card to side step.

 

The Polish initiative saw them turning their first card which was another move card, things may get interesting.  Kniaziewicz Poles in the center advanced 2 segments into contact with the buildings, unfortunately they rolled odd, taking fire from the Grenadiers in the town, who missed.  2 Polish units fired at the unloaded Russian battery, doing a total of 2 hits to the battery.  The Polish left flank  under Zayonchek refused to move, even when Prince Poniatowski directly intervened, they still refused to move forward.   I guess fearful of the lone Russian Jager unit in the woods?  The Cavalry on the Polish right flank finally decided to move in a big way, charging forward 3 move segments into contact with the Russian Opolochenie, but unable to initiate melee.  

The Polish horse battery used an artillery fire card to cause 1 damage on a Cossack Regiment. 

The Poles then turned another Move card.  Zayonchek division on the Polish left flank cautiously moved forward, the lead unit contacting the woods the Russian Jagers were defending.  The woods erupted in smoke and the smell of sulfur, resulting in 2 hits for the lead polish unit. Kniaziewicz division in the center finally rolled even on a move roll, but only won one segment.  That was enough to allow the Poles to melee the Russian artillery, when the dust settled all that could be seen was the guns, the gunners were wiped out defending their guns.   

The Polish assault on the Grenadiers in town went poorly, with the attackers taking 2 hits and routing them.  The Polish Cavalry rolled one move segment, but the roll was even which allowed them to initiate melee with the Russian Opolchinie, resulting in one hit to the Opolochinie.  I realized I forgot to fire the Opolchinie when the caalry came into contact, so I fired that as well, resulting in no hits but forcing the cavalry to fall back.

The next useful card the Poles turned was a move one command  resulting in Zayonchek on the Polish left flank getting 2 move segments, moving into contact and initiating a firefight with the unit on the far Russian right flank, with the Poles taking 2 hits and the Russian’s taking 1 hit.

Leadership card, unit on Poles left flank recovered 2 hits.  Artillery firepower, Horse battery fires on Cossacks, routing them.

View at the end of turn 3.

Turn 4 saw the Russian’s again win the initiatives, by one and turn a Melee card.  On the Russian right flank the Jagers in the wood melee the Poles to their front, causing 1 hit and pushing the Poles back.  The far right Russian line unit melee’s the polish unit to its front, inflicting 2 hits which destroys it.  The Grenadiers in the middle of town melee the Poles to their front, and rout them.

The Poles turn a Artillery Fire card, and the horse battery fires at another battery of Cossacks, this time failing to get a hit.

View at the end of turn 4

Turn 5 started with The Russian’s again winning the initiative, by four this time.  The Infantry Fire card was the first useful card turned.  The Jagers in the woods reload and fire into the flank of the Polish unit to their front, and miss; while all the other unloaded units reload.  

The Poles seize the initiative on a Lull card, turning a melee card.  The Poles assault the Grenadiers in the Village, who fire as the Poles advance, and miss.  The Polish assault goes in, and they lose, suffering 1 hit. The French Cavalry charges the Opolochine in line.  The Opolochine fire as the French come in and miss.  The melee does 1 hit to the Opolochine and forces them back.

The Russians resume their initiative, turning an army morale card, and Konovnitizin, commander of the Russian right flank 3^rd Division falls, disordering the entire Division.

Russian end of Turn 5

The Poles turn another Melee card.  The Cavalry charges into the Cossacks, causing 1 hit to the Cossacks.  The Poles turn an Army Morale card and the Polish Cavalry Commander falls.  Followed by a Leadership card, with one of the Cavalry becoming ordered.  And lastly all non-routing infantry units reload on an infantry fire card.

Poles end of turn 5

Turn 6 begins with... you guessed it, the Russians again winning the inititive, this time by 3.  The first card is a Move card.  The Grenadier Division rolls even, for 3 move segments.  The Grenadiers behind Utitiza move forward into contact with the Polish infantry, who fire at point blank range with no impact.  The horse battery fires at the Grenadiers as they advance as well, causing 2 hits. The Grenadiers fire at the Polish Infantry causing 2 hits.  The Grenadiers in the middle of town move into contact with the Polish infantry, taking fire from 2 units resulting in no damage.  The Grenadiers then initiate Melee, causing 1 hit.  The Cossacks move forward to threaten the unloaded Polish Horse Battery.  On the Russian right flank the 3^rd Division slowly moves forward, still reeling from the loss of their commander.  Followed by a Leadership card, which had some success in rallying and removing hits.

End of Russian turn 6

The Poles turn an Infantry Fire, reload, and 2 units fire at the Grenadiers, which both missed.  The next card is also Infantry Fire, so repeat, with the same results.  The last card for this initiative is a Melee.  The only 2 units that can use it are already damaged.  The Center is pretty much crumbling, the Polish left flank has stalled, the Right flank cavalry is having success against the Milita units, but still haven’t managed to turn the flank.  The wise thing would probably be to hope for a move card and begin to withdraw, but with the eyes of the Emperor upon you, that isn’t an option, so… Attack!   The 2 battered Infantry units launch themselves into the Grenadiers, winning one and losing another.  

Poles end of Turn 6

Turn 7, the Russian’s go first again. Starting with a Move card, the Cossacks get 3 move segments putting one unit into contact with the unloaded Polish Horse Battery. The Opolochenie roll even and take the opportunity to form square.  Third Division units move into contact but can not initiate melee.  The Grenadiers shuffle their formation around to allow 1 unit to fire on the Polish Infantry with no effect.  Next card is Infantry Fire, all Russian units reload and the shooting commences, destroying 1 Polish unit.  

Another Move card, the Cossacks get 1 move segment, but rolled even, and initiate melee against the unloaded Polish Horse Battery, and the Cossacks loose, routing away.  3^rd Division gets 3 move segments with an even roll, moving into contact and initiating melee, causing 1 hit and forcing a unit back.  

The last Russian card Melee, a Grenadier unit inflected 1 hit and pushed back a Polish Infantry unit and another was able to melee the Polish Horse Battery, doing 2 hits.

 

The only useful card on the Polish turn was Leadership, which allowed them to rally one of the routing units of Infantry.

End of the game view from the Polish view

Time to shuffle the deck.  

 

At this point I called it.  The Poles had been paying the Russian’s morale chips for a while to the point that the Russians were only down 3 morale chips from their starting number. Plus I needed to have the gaming table picked up before our weekend guest arrived. 

I know I got a few things wrong, and sort of forgot about the whole ‘disordered’ thing until around the 3^rd or 4^th turn.  The actual playing time was between an hour and a hour and a half I think.  Hard to tell when you break it up into multiple sessions throughout the day.

The Russian Initiative die rolls were crazy lucky. And I think the Poles winning the 3 move segments early on and effectively screening their artillery for most of the battle actually hurt them in this case. In retrospect, with the Russian's only having 1 artillery battery, I think the Poles should have kept their advance a little more on line and given their artillery advantage a chance to do some damage.

 

All-in-all it felt good to get some Napoleonic figures on the table again.  

 

Take care,

 

So much lead, so little time

 

 

Faux Fulda More Terrain

 Some time ago someone asked me a question off the blog about how I was doing the terrain boards for the faux Fulda project.  I finally got around to finishing another 2'x2' section, and I actually managed to take photos of most of the steps.  

I'm sure there are a lot of different ways to do this, but this is what seems to work for me.  The more of these tiles I do the more I find myself adjusting terrain to avoid nasty things like hills that cross boards to save the hassle of making sure they line up and are uniform in heigh.

This board is part of the southern extension from the original batch and is centered in the Mechbach region.

Let's start with the finished results.

As I mentioned each terrain tile is 2 feet x 2 feet.  I'm using the foam insulation board readily available at either Lowes or Home Depot that has been pre-cut into 2'x2' sections. I'm using the Lowe's variety, it's 20 min. closer than Home Depot plus veteran's discount, win-win.

If you're artistic you can free hand the outline on the foam.  As I'm trying to keep the scale fairly close to 1" = 100 meters on all of these so I'm cheating.  I found a map of the region with a hex grid of 1 hex = 500 meters, took a photo, inserted the photo onto an Excel Spreadsheet expanded the photo until I ended up with the hex being 5".  Printed it out, taped the various sheets together and ended up with the below.  Shown below is the bottom section as well as the completed section directly to the North to make sure the roads, rivers and railroad line up.

Once I was sure everything lined up, I taped one edge of the map to the foam. board, and dug out the carbon paper.  Given the average age of the hobby, I'm assuming most folks reading this know what carbon paper is.  It wasn't easy to find, but as always, Amazon to the rescue.  

the form board covered with carbon paper.  I really didn't need that much paper, this is a pretty boring tile, just a small section of river, roads and railroads.  The hill won't start until the next tile is done.

Flip the map back down, and trace over the important details.  I used the handle of an old paint brush.  Once that was done, I pulled out the color felt tip markers, and traced over the carbon, ending up with this. Which will by modified a little for ease of creation as things go on,

Being limited to 2'x2' sections, the potential of shifting and other unpleasant things happening where the tiles meet I went with a simple magnet solution to help hold the sections together.

Simple round magnets.

A drill, a 3/4" speed bit, and a new home for the magnet is created.

Obviously a magnet needs something to attach to.  Fortunately I have a supply of HVAC galvanized tin that I use for the base of the my troop transport boxes.  So, out come the tin snips, a razor knife to carve a slight recess for the metal.

You can see above that the river has already been carved into the foam.

After that, it's time for the hot glue gun.  I never was a big fan of hot glue guns, but this project has opened my eyes to their usefulness.  It probably helps that I also bought a decent hot glue gun which makes world of difference.

Magnets and metal plates mounted, hopefully they're all flush with the board edge.  The board is turned upside down in this shot.

Next up we start making progress on the board, putting down the roads and railroad tracks.  A bit of a tangent on the rail road tracks.  When I started the project I agonized about whether I should include them or not, at the scale of 1" = 100meters they are way too big, but they are also a potential linear obstacle, and should provide hull down cover for armored vehicles adjacent to them, so I opted to include them.  

I also make a simple little jig (below) out of chip board so the roads/rail roads are all close to the same size/height.

The roads went down super easy on the first batch of boards, but... That was months ago and the AK terrain asphalt had dried out quite a bit since then, so not as smooth as I would have liked.  For the railroad beds, I mixed up some tile grout and applied that the same was as the roads.  I also coated the rivers with joint compound and applied some paint, which gets us to this below point.

Now it's time for the first layer.  For this we'll need glue, lots of glue, more tile grout, alcohol (the rubbing kind - although since we're done with sharp objects now, you can go to the distilled kind if you want), and spray bottle.

Paint on a health coat of glue.  I water it down just a smidge, but not much. Try to keep the glue out of the river bed, and off the road and railroad.

Apply the grout to the glue.  I've found that using a cheap strainer I picked up at the Family Dollar store to spread the grout give a texture I prefer.

You end up with this.  Let it dry for a couple of hours, depending on how impatient you are.  The soak it down with alcohol using the spray bottle.  Why alcohol?  I honestly don't remember, I saw that on the internet at some point and it seems to work.  Which give you a nice wet look like below.

I let this dry for a least 24 hours maybe longer if it still feels damp.  I did this in a couple of sections, mostly due to time issues.

Once it's all coated with grout, hen you think it's dry, it's time to paint on some more glue. Grab your preferred flock, and go wild.  Again, try to keep the glue out of the river bed. For me it seems to work better if I do the flock in small chunks.  Especially since I use a different color flock for the wooded areas, which this board has a lot of.

The sort of cement colored section in the middle of the photo is a town section.  I used AK Terrain Cement for this.

Once the flock is all down I put the tracks on the rail road bed.  I use 24 gauge wire and a lot of super glue.  Any bridges either road or rail, are made from leftover 1.5 mm thick troops bases from my 15mm days. The bases are covered in the AK Terrain Cement.  Rail Road bridges have wire added, road bridges has AK Terrain Asphalt added.

This is a work in progress but you get the idea of how the railroad is represented.

The next step is head outside and seal the whole thing.  I've been using a mat clear paint which seems to work well - so far.

And the last thing, is to add the Woodland Scenics Realistic Water to the rivers.  Depending on how deep you cut the river beds, this may take several pours to the complete. A word of warning on the river, I've found I have about a 50% success rate in the tape I use to block of the rivers where they run off the boards - so make sure you same paper towels or something similar under those areas just in case.

And when that's all done and you add trees, it looks something like the photo we started with.

Whew, that's a lot of photos.  Hopefully I didn't leave out any major steps.  Nothing to earth shattering, it works for me your mileage may vary.

I hope you all have a great summer

So much lead, so little time.