Battle Photographs

The following photographs illustrate some of the battles fought using Carnage&GloryII system products. Click on a thumbnail for an enlarged view - then hit back button to return to Battle Photograph page..

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Waterloo, June 2015 - West Point Museum Commemorative Games

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, three GM's, two assistant GM's, twenty-four players, my wife and a host of camp followers descended upon the Large Weapons Gallery at the West Point Museum. The battle was divided into three separate games, Hougoumont; La Haye Sainte/Papelotte and Plancenoit. The three games played consecutively, with three different historical start times. At the conclusion of the three games, the results of each were then combined to achieve the final result.

 

 

The following images are taken from the Hougoumont table throughout the course of the day:

 

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Hougoumont - Alten's Division with Hougoumont in background

 

We played from 9:30 AM until 6:45, with a small break for lunch. In that time we played between eleven and twelve turns, and achieved decisive results on each table. The final result was a Major French Victory, with over 38,000 casualties, missing and prisoners shared across the three tables. Twenty-one Generals were hors de combat in one way or another. The allies lost thirty-three cannon, and four colors, two British and two Prussian. We turned history on its head, and our game would see Napoleon triumphantly entering Brussels on the 19th at the head of an unscathed Old Guard and VI Corps!

 

Thank you so very much to all the staff at the museum for  giving us this amazing opportunity - we look forward to returning!

 

Click HERE for an schedule of the weekends events:

 

Click HERE for the French Scenario information:

Click HERE for the Anglo/Allied and Prussian Scenario information:

 

Click HERE for final results of our refight of the battle

 

The following images are taken from the Hougoumont table throughout the course of the day:

 

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Hougoumont - Looking south

The following images are taken from the La Haye Sainte/Papelotte table throughout the course of the day:

 

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LHS/Papelotte - Overview of table on Turn One looking east

The following images are taken from the Plancenoit table throughout the course of the day:

 

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Plancenoit - Looking southwest [Frischermont woods in the foreground]

Gamemasters: David Bonk [Hougoumont], Myself [LHS], and John Snead [Plancenoit]

Assistant GM's: Frank Luberti and Tom Cusa

Cantiniere: Kelly J. Marsh

Players:

French Hougoumont: Liam Harding, Ed Harding, Chris Maine and Greg Robitaille

Allied Hougoumont: Mike Paine [Honors], Todd Kauderer, Jeff Word and Rich Wallace

French LHS/Papelotte: Pablo Gonzalez [Honors], Rob Painter, Mark Huml and Jesus Rivero

Allied LHS/Papelotte: John Stapleton, Joe Stoltz, James O'Keefe and Joe Roberts

French Plancenoit: Bob McCaskill, Stephen Umbrell, Stuart Schoenberger and Peter Lowitt

Prussian Plancenoit: Phil Spera, Scott Monteith, Scott Horras and Dave Cheng

 

Thank you all for helping provide such a memorable weekend of history and wargaming!

 

Historicon, 2014 - The American Civil War and English Civil War

I hosted four games this Historicon, two on Friday featured a fictional encounter from the Western theater of the American Civil War, and two on Saturday that featured a fictional encounter from the advance to Naseby in 1645. The following PDf's show the results and combat losses of each of those events. Interestingly all the games incurred pyrrhic victories, two for the Confederates, and one each for the Royalists and New Model Army. This seems to suggest that the action was hot and heavy and that the players were tenacious in the extreme, ready to inflict losses to achieve results. Great gaming all round, thank you to all the players, and the other GM's that hosted other C&GII events at the convention.   

 

American Civil War events:

Click here for Friday morning game results

Click here for Friday afternoon game results

Additional photos can be see here  

 

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General view of battle

English Civil War events:

Click here for Saturday morning game results

Click here for Saturday afternoon game results

 

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General view of battle

 

Cold Wars, 2014 - The 1814 Campaign

I hosted two of the three 1814 campaign games which were run on Saturday, John hosted the first, held on Friday.

 

John's game featured the Imperial Guard Infantry, and line cavalry, against an isolated Prussian force. The Prussians didn't put a foot wrong, but unfortunately for them, neither did the French, and the French Guard infantry, supported by line Cuirassier and dragoons, destroyed the Prussian command. The French losses were less than 500, whilst the Prussian command lost four times that number.

 

The next game featured the Imperial Guard cavalry, and line infantry, against a Russian corps. This was going to be a tougher fight for the French as more Russians were engaged, than had been Prussians in the earlier battle. The French cavalry were engaged by Lanskoi's Russian Hussar division, which fielded eight units of Hussars, but these proved to be little more than a speed bump for the French Imperial Guard light cavalry. The French infantry were less successful in driving the Russians out of the farm, that protected the important highway that acted as the Russo-Prussian line of communication, but ultimately the victory went to the French, who saw losses of less than 600 against three times that number of Russian losses.

Napoleon now had two victories, and the Parisians were jubilant.
 
The third battle now loomed. This featured the combined French forces from the first two battles, opposed to fresh, previously unengaged, Russian and Prussian forces. The battlefield was an extension of the earlier second battle, and would be fought in the environs, of the farm, village and hamlet, that were strung out along the highway leading to Paris. As French losses had been light in the earlier two engagements, they entered the third battle with a healthy advantage of close to 5,000 men. The earlier battles had seen wide sweeping flank movements from the French, but Napoleon was content to sledgehammer his opponents into submission in this final engagement. This was to be an infantry and artillery battle. For the allies, it was important to hold the three built up areas, for the French, only the farm held territorial advantage. They were out to destroy their opponents, and capture trophies.
 
The French, buoyed by their earlier successes, were confident of victory, but threw caution to the wind as a result. The 10e Hussards suffered terribly as they vaingloriously attacked fresh Russian positions early in the battle. The 2e battalions of both the Chasseurs a Pied and Grenadiers a Pied, both lost standards, the Chasseurs being effectively destroyed, when each were attacked by combined assaults from Russian infantry and cavalry. On the French left flank, Ricard's division was slowly being forced back, in the face of determined Russian opposition. On the French right, a Russian dragoon regiment struck the 2e Regt de Marine, in square, broke into the square and took their eagle, but the Marines drove the dragoons out, closed ranks, and repulsed the Russians. Napoleon saw victory ebbing away from his grasp, and ordered the Imperial Guard heavy cavalry and Garde d'Honneur into action. The Guard d'Honneur, struck several Prussian infantry columns, one struggling to form battalion mass, and wrought havoc amongst their conscripted ranks. A second unit of Garde d'Honneur burst through a cloud of cossacks striking a Russian battery in flank capturing eight cannon. The remains of the battery redeployed beyond the hamlet, only to be struck frontally by the Empress Dragoons, who rode down the battery, taking the remaining four cannon. Meanwhile the Grenadiers a Cheval, to the right of the Empress Dragoons, rode over a Russian battalion in square, sabering over half the unit and capturing their standard.
 
With serried ranks of French cavalry uncommitted in reserve, the Russian and Prussian resolve broke, and Blucher ordered an orderly withdrawal from the field. Napoleon had won his third victory, capturing five standards and thirteen cannon, but the result was hard won, the Old Guard infantry had suffered terribly, and he had lost three standards, and three cannon. Friant was dead, and both Cambronne and Petit of the Old Guard infantry were wounded. He could boast a victorious campaign, but clearly, his enemy were still capable of resistance, whilst his army was bleeding with little hope of reinforcement.

Click Here for Combat Results from the Franco-Russian battle staged on Saturday morning at the convention. Note the losses amongst the Russian Hussar Division, who were effectively destroyed by the Guard Light Cavalry.

Click Here for Combat Results from the concluding battle staged on Saturday evening at the convention. Note the losses amongst the French Old Guard and Ricard's Division.

 

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Borodino, 1812 - The 200th Anniversary games

In recognition of the 200th Anniversary of one of the pivotal battles of the Napoleonic epoch, we have decided to work towards refighting the battle as a series of linked scenarios at the upcoming Fall-In convention, scheduled for November 2, and 3, 2012.

The map to the left, based on that included in the excellent Esposito/Elting, Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars, identifies the areas that we are basing the three playing areas upon. These represent three slices of the the larger pie. We have elected to ignore the area to the north and northeast of Borodino, as apart from the incursion by Uvarov and Platov into the flank of Napoleon's positions, there was relatively little or no action in this area. This action was effectively contained by Ornano's cavalry division and Grouchy's III Cavalry corps on the day, and to reflect this, all of these forces have been omitted from the overall army lists that have been prepared for the battle as a whole. Click here for Borodino Scenario Maps

The first decision was to split the overall battle into three definitive sections. We selected the fight around the Fleches, the fight for the Great Redoubt and the fight in the southern sector, around Utitsa. Each area would be represented on a table 6' wide by 10' deep. Over the years our collections have grown considerably, but in order to represent these three actions, we still found it necessary to paint a considerable number of figures. With a few years experience of building faux fur terrains, I offered to build the terrain for two tables, the Fleches and the Redoubt. Whilst David Bonk convinced himself that he would take the plunge and build the Utitsa terrain using faux fur for the first time.

Below are a series of photos of part of the Russian forces from my collection that will be engaged in the games. Figures come from Foundry, Perry, Warlord, Eureka, Elite and Old Glory. I simply love the Perry recently released casualty and apothecary wagons. I think they painted up beautifully, I black undercoat, then use Cel Vinyl paints with Army Painter dip. Figures from David Bonk, John Snead, Tom Garnett, Lyle Bickley, Bob McCaskill and Joe Robert's will be used to complete the forces engaged in these events. Click here for Borodino Scenario Info.

Photos From the Fleches:

French major victory - Compan's divison turned the Russian left flank, as Dessaix's division captured the southern fleche as Ledru's division threatened the northern fleche..... Click for the Combat losses from the Fleches

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Photos From the Redoubt:

Russian minor victory - Morand's and Broussier's division in shambles, Raevsky's corps in a similar state. The 1/9eme Ligne captured the redoubt, with Broussier severely wounded. Counter-attacked by the 1. bttn. Pernovskii regiment, and ejected with over 400 men throwing down their arms, including the loss of their eagle. The Italian Velite regiment closes to the attack, their second battalion halting 50 paces from the entrenchment, whilst the first battalion forces their way into the redoubt capturing a standard of the Pernovskii regiment. But multiple Russian battalions await orders to counter-attack...... Click here for combat losses from the Redoubt

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Photos From the Utitsa Kurgan:

Russian major victory - Poniatowski and Junot report over 30% losses in this staggering contest to the south of the fleches..... Click here for combat losses from the Utitsa Kurgan

Photos of Russian Forces engaged somewhere in the game:

Click here for Battle of Borodino Combat losses

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Faux Fur Terrain Tutorial

I've been making faux fur [Teddy Bear fur] terrain for a number of years at this point. The largest I've attempted at this time was Ligny, which was 111 square feet. A typical terrain, such as the one featured the the photos is 6 x 10, or 60 square feet. Below is a quick tutorial of a typical process I use to prepare a 6 x 10 mat. This was prepared for the Battle of St. Michael, 1809.  I purchase the faux fur online from a company called C&R Crafts. The material comes about 5'-3" wide, and is purchased in 3' increments. A typical 6 x 10, takes four yards of material, which I cut into two pieces. A smaller 5' x 9' terrain, would be 3 yards of material. The material I use is Honey Bone in color with a pile length of about 1". This is suitable for 25/28 mm figures, lower pile material is also available, which I presume is suitable for 15/20 mm figures.

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Step One:

One half of the terrain mat [5'x6'] brushed out with pins to mark one-foot grid. The gird is important as this is matched against the scale map that I will have made based upon a google aerial, or scale battlefield, map. This ensures accuracy of the final piece, and helps transfer the map features to the fur mat.