Battle Report - Waterloo Campaign Turn 1 - Wavre

Hello so we started off the Waterloo campaign at the club. Serge and I played a game with the Prussians vs the French at my place yesterday. Basically meant to represent Wavre I guess. The main feature of the report thou is that I finally got my new mat from Baueda that I had ordered way back and it's really great so check that out!

So here we have the initial deployment. I elected to be the defender due to all the rivers (Serge always tries to attack), and decided to go a bit different so tried out the infantry support instead of the cavalry. The French went for the light cavalry option.

The bridge is there to way down a kink in the river, but we just played it as a bridge anyway.

I choose the table side and set up first as I wanted to force the French into the rivers as much as possible, so I just put everything in attack columns in a giant line with the cannons in the center. Lines are basically useless in this game so no need to worry about that. My plan is to march to the edge of the river and defend with them in the bad terrain.

So here are the first few moves, going basically according to plan, except that they are massing on one side more then I had anticipated and avoiding the artillery more then I would like.

Now we have a round of prepping attacks, the French mainly move from march columns to attack columns but can then charge as I am to close. I continue more or less as I was but attack more down by the ocean as I felt strong there and need to press in and break some units.

Next turn there is surprisingly little violence, the shooting starts in earnest but only 1 or 2 combats. The French cav are reluctant to charge my squares across a stream. So they maneuver looking for an advantageous combat. This game is all about attacking units 2 vs 1, or creating a situation which forces the defender to half their dice.

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to form a line down by the close marsh, I have 3 units against my 1 but they are to far to charge due to the bad terrain. But that is still 6 dice vs 4 and I am not sure how that was meant to help me, should have pulled back.

Next turn the fun begins, 2 units of cavalry now charge a square finding that to be better odds. And some infantry fight across the river, more combat down on the far side but the pic is blurry. This is the point where thing start to go very bad for me. The square is broken by the 2 mounted units, and my line is lost, and my artillery is somehow broken by the French artillery shooting in a near perfect role.

I launch some ineffectual counter attacks on my turn but not really getting the success that I need. I am not really ever able to capitalize on those 2 vs 1 combats, the maneuvering can be a bit overly tight to that point where we are wondering about millimeters.

Well with loosing so many units the French are able to get even more advantageous battles and things go from bad to worse, they kill my poor cavalry and break some more units putting me into an army morale position, meanwhile I have taken out just 1 french unit. I now have to race to get two mroe to avoid a decisive French victory.

But I am just never able to recover from it and can't get anything to succeed. Even the French musketry is doing more damage then would be average. I pass my first morale test and we move to turn 16, unable to damage the French I am now hoping the day will end before my army breaks, but on turn 16 I roll a 16 for morale and you need to get higher then the turn number. So my army breaks and gives the French a great victory.

This game highlights a few things I don't like about Lasalle, mainly that it encourages you to break off when you are winning instead of pressing the advantage, and in certain situations the geometry can be overly precise. But still a fun game anyway.

I like the change to the victory level conditions that Nick has which frees up the army lists a bit. It's still a bit restrictive for some armies but still is better. More and more I find myself wishing for a second version of this game that modifies and corrects things just a bit. Anyway still fun hope you like the report.

Thanks;
MIke