General de Brigade

[Orange]

Gents,

No doubt the general piss take will ensue but wanted to kick off with a big thank you to Dave for organising a superb weekend and a fantastic game.

And what terrain - truly magnificient. Probably the best terrain that I have ever played on. Made the event a real spectacle. Many thanks to Doug for this (and putting Maturin in his box everytime he tried to cheat).

Obviously each player will have his own perspective of the game based on the section of battlefiled that he played - for my part, I have to say that the French right played out uncannily like the real thing. The weak French battalions, the closed terrain, the threat of the allied light cavalry and the threat of the Prussians all combined to faithfully recreate the limitations under which Durutte operated. We even ended the game rather realistically with the French infantry withdrawing (in good order I might add, and without losing a single gun) to form a fresh battle line to face the Prussian onslaught under the cover of Jaquinot's cavalry - (taught me a thing or two about the importance and usefulness of having a fresh light cavalry reserve on the field). Crucial to me being able to maintain some semblance of order to face off the Prussian hordes that were arriving with frightening regularity was a stunning victory by Milhaud over the allied heavy cavalry in the right-centre.

What can I say except that, after two days, I really felt that I had commanded the right wing of the French army at Waterloo! Really superb occasion and already looking forward to the next one.

Orange

PS:- Came back home totally starstruck as a result of meeting the Perrys - you guys have no idea how funny it was trying to explain that to the wife and eventually having to fall back on unsatisfactory famouse fashion designer analogies ....[/b]

[Rudorff]

Brilliant game, great weekend, nice to meet some old friends and hopefully to have made some new ones. I can only speak for the Allied extreme right, but I think we fought it about as well as we possibly could. It looked horribly exposed and thin first thing Saturday morning, and only got worse as the day progressed. Kudos must go to John W. and Tony G. who with practically no experience of the system sussed it out almost immediately and had the skill to throw high when it mattered and low when it didn't. The poorly rated Brunswickers and Nassauers were able to stall the French at just the right time and in just the right place to allow the KGL and British LC to roll up a significant portion of them, and the DB Conscipt LC were more than happy to slug it out with the French Cuirassiers ( and with a degree of success as well!)

As for a bit of gentle leg-pulling, Napoleon pretended to be asleep for hours to avoid his well deserved ragging, and I'm sure I heard Henry Hyde ask if the French Carabinier Brigade were doing a demonstration of formation counter-marching 8)

[Maturin]

I too would like to thank Dave and Doug and all those others involved for putting on a wonderful game from which I retired happy and totally exhausted.
I am sorry that O believes I was cheating. It is true that I made mistakes in remembering the rules and correctly auditing casualties from time to time but I feel this was done on BOTH sides and not deliberately or maliciously in any way on my part I can assure you.
So I will take his goad as masking that he spectacularly failed to take D'Erlon up and over the ridge. Not one of the Allied units (60% conscript/2nd Line, if I remember correctly) holding the left flank was broken or even dispersed. However his myriad of battalions were either all shot to bits or lost emulating speed bumps for KGL Hussars.
In return I got my Union Brigade truly trounced due to an appalling but rather amusing set of dice throws just at the wrong time (and just as the charge of the Scots Greys was playing on the DVD in the background as well for effect!) which Doug's Cuirassiers punished efficiently and professionally without mercy. I got so excited at one point that I even tried to charge down the hill without a general.......doh!
Next time, and I truly hope there is a next time I shall attempt to have a more sanguine approach, but I don't think I could enjoy myself much more!
Well done everyone.
Cheers
Maturin

[Orange]

Maturin said:-

[amxgill]

As a newcomer to this group, I would like to thank everyone who made me feel very welcome over the weekend. I have not enjoyed a game more in years. I always thought that looking after British cavalry at Waterloo would be a short lived affair - but Dornburgs brigade was powered by Durecell !

Special thanks to Gary (Rudorff) for his mentoring on the day. Look forward to playing many more games with this group in the future.

The Carabineer ballet on the French left flank was particularly impressive to watch (grand old Duke of York style ).

Again thanks to all for an excellent weekend.

[battleeditor]

I'd like to add my thanks here too, albeit just as an awe-struck spectator.

I've added a couple of pics to the Gallery for the event.

Oh, by the way, yes, I was indeed particularly impressed with the manoeuvres performed by the elegant, nay, majestic French carabiniers. ;)
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[Milhaud]

---from the Carabinier commander---

we really enjoyed the game
emag eht deyojne yllaer ew

and look forward to the next one
eno txen eht ot drawrof kool dna

Cheers, Mark
kraM ,sreehC
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Cheers,
Mark

[BillyS]

Hi all yep just to reinforce thanks to all who organised the weekend.

Great terrain, great figures, great personalities.

met some really fine people.

Can't wait to do it again. Doug, Gary, Bryce were the guys in my immediate area who were French, Robert (Wellington) as well as Mark who I for some reason called Phil most of the weekend, as well as Derek were directly opposed to units under my immediate control. You guys played well but I can't help feeling you had a little help from providence (double sixing with irritating regularity) and by the time Wellington ran 2 of your larger infantry units out of ammo it was all over in any case. No sour grapes though it was an excellent weekend fought with and against excellent fellows. I hope we all meet again and I look forwards to such.

If I were to play this again I would do one or two things a little differently, I now think whoever plays napoleon needs to control only the guard and perhaps provide some closer support/direction for the various corps commanders. Gary was without doubt instrumental in holding the allied right together when things appeared pretty ropey.


Next time!

[Rudorff]

[MPHILLIPS]

For myself and Mr Hairy, we had an excellent weekend, thanks to all. Our role was fairly easy and stress free...hold LHS and the ridge. Though I think a bit of filling in and repair to LHS will be needed, after all that cannister the yard must be full of lead by now. Clearly a Health and Saftey issue there. As for double 6's, well yes, there were a few, in fact Dave rolled a double six followed by another 6 with the Skirmirshers at one point, but there was also some pappy dice rolls too..and LHS finally collapsed under the weught of lead.
But, whatever the result (yeehay, we won!) it was a great weekend, and a smashing pleasantly played game. Again, our thanks to all.
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[Tom Plunkett]

I would like to thank everybody involved at the weekend for a great couple of days, mostly Dave for letting be Wellington.

The game itself was gret fun, one of the hardest I think I have evey had. I think luck was definitely on our side as some double sixes at the right moment really helped. I would like to thank all the allied players for putting up with me telling them things that they already knew, & Bryce for his patience of having 3 guys talking to him from the front & one from the back.

I feel if the French had been a bit more aggressive from the start & used more bayonet ,less cannister they would have won the day. The advantage of so many good cavalry was also not as much of a threat as I had feared.I was very well served by the allied sub commanders & Gary in particular, although everybody did a splendid job.

[Ronan the Librarian]

Sorry, almost forgot - thanks to Robert/Gary for the Eureka Grenzers. I can see more of these entering the lead pile/painting queue at some point.

(Drat, drat and triple drat...... )

Btw, have you all seen this?
http://www.dailymotion.com/Chretzel/video/x6fpu7_1806engl_videogames

Excellent stuff - an idea for next year''s game(s) perhaps?

(The noise you can now hear in the back ground isn't fireworks, it's Dr B shooting at me from Essex.......)
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You can lead a horse to water, but a toy soldier can no longer be lead (due to Health & Safety Regulations).

[Eugene1809]

How good is that!!!

What a superb compilation. Great site tip Ronan!

Cheers

Carlo

ps - glad I hung onto all those painted 1805 Elite 28mm French in Bicornes ...now ...where are those GdB precut bases!

[DCRBrown]

All,

Would someone, esp those who took photos (alas not me! ) be good enough to do an after action report for Waterloo and also post it to TMP.

Many thanks.