LANNES Campaign: Set up for game 5 - The Battle of Wheeling, 1812

Part of Warplan 5/5 Card 12A; the atlas indicates that the distict is firm grazing land with fences and orchards. 

    At the conclusion of game 4 of our LANNES Campaign (Fitchwoods), [played almost 8 months ago, the determination of the next battlefield came up as 12A.14, the village of Wheeling. I recognized this location immediately, because Wheeling  was the site of the climactic battle of our very first Warplan 5/5 Campaign back circa 1971. Charlie (Red, using British figures) and I (Blue, using Bavarians and French - of course!) were allied against Paul (Green, using Russian Troops) and Chuck (Yellow, using Austrian and Westphalian troops).Charlie and I were attacking from the South,  with a significant numerical advantage, but that meant facing the walls of Fort Wheeling (12A.13) Fortunately, we had prepared for this and had our Siege train of 18 pounders  advancing through 12A 18. Meanwhile, Paul's main army was rushing to assist his ally, advancing from the East into 12A.15. 

    Notable events of the battle included Charlie's newly painted British Rocket battery shooting at Paul's lead unit, the recently painted guard Hussars, and by incredible luck managing to hit them with an air burst, causing them to rout and carry with them much of the Advance Guard of Paul's troops, and Chuck's C-in-C being severely injured and out of the battle, an event commemorated to this day by a figure in his uniform being loaded into a field ambulance! This battle was played on an 18 x 5 foot table (two ping pong tables end to end) in my parent's un-insulated attic in July, so the fighting was literally very hot indeed!

    The fort will play no role in this action, though. From the end of game rolls made according to the "pick up battle" set-up for Field of  Battle, Barry will have choice of side of deployment or orientation of the battlefield, and I will have whichever he doesn't take. I will have to deploy 2 command groups my first time laying troops out, and 1/4 of my command groups will be delayed D4 turns in arriving. As Barry noted, thus far in the campaign, if a side has had delayed troops, that side has always won!

    The status of my army at the end of the Batle of Fitchwoods is as below - as I had an advantage of 8 Morale Points at the end of the battle, I was able to modify 8 of my die rolls for unit quality upgrades, resulting in almost all units upgrading. The shaded 4 units are new reinforcements for this battle. 

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Unit #	Unit Name	DD	CD	Routs Caused	Final UI loss	Routed, etc?	End Game Result
1	Vendémiaire Line	D6	D12+1		2		DD+1
2	Brumaire Line	D4	D10	1			CD+1
3	Angoulême Hussars	D8	D12+1	1	2	Yes	CD+1
4	Ardennes Light	D6	D12+1				CD+1
5	Bordeaux Chasseur	D8	D12+1				DD+1
6	Chaumont Hussar	D8	D12+1				CD+1
7	Vertu 6# Ft Artillery	D6	D10				CD+1
8	Génie 6# HA	D10	D12+1	1			DD+1
9	Bouches-du-Rhône Gd	D10	D12				CD+1
10	Frimaire Line	D4	D12				CD+1
11	Nivôse Line	D4	D12+1	1	2		CD+1
12	Côte-d'Or Light Gd	D10	D10				CD+1
13	Rhône Light	D8	D12+1		4	Yes	DD+1
14	Morvan Dragoon	D4	D12+1				CD+1
15	Travail 6# FA	D6	D10				CD+1
16	Gironde Light	D6	D12		4	Yes	CD+1
17	Loire Light	D4	D12		1		DD+1
18	Dijon Chasseurs	D4	D12				CD+1
19	Opinion 6# FA	D6	D12		2	Yes	CD+1
20	Pluviose National Gd	D4	D8				Becomes Line
21	Rouen Chasseurs	D6	D10
22	Jura Dragoons	D6	D10
23	Nord Light	D4	D8
24	Ventose Line	D6	D8
25
General	Name	LD	Special	Hit?	Outcome	Year	End Game Result
C-in-C	Francois Faucon	D12	-	no		1799	NC
A	Simeon Souris	D8	poltroon	no		1799	Down 1
B	Fabien LaFerme	D12	Fabian	no		1800	Up 1
C	Rene Renard	D12+1	Fabian	no		1799	Up 1
D	Henri Hibou	D10	Fabian	no		1805	Down 1
E	Bernard Belier	D10	-	no		1807	NC