Project Waterloo - The Playtest

 We wound up having 5 of us for the game; unfortunately. Kevin had to bow out at the last minute due to work obligations. Either that, or it was his recent election to the Board of HMGS making him feel overwhelmed, LOL!  As I wrote to him, I voted for you even though I like you!"  :-) Anyway, on the Allied aside we had Kyle, Chris, and Thomas; it was the first visit to the Table for Kyle and Chris. Chris plays more board games, but had played miniatures with William Keyser years ago (a fellow Connecticut resident, and the author of the From Valmy to Waterloo rules. Kyle had never played historical miniatures before, but is starting a D&D Campaign which my older daughter (who likes games, unlike my wife and younger daughter, neither of which is much for games) is evidently going to be a participant!

Barry and I took the French; Barry once again drove all the way from his home in Maine and back for the game. Now that's a dedicated grognard! Our initial advance was finely synchronized, while our artillery bombarded Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.

I got bold with my three units of Light cavalry on the far left flank of our army; probably unwisely so!

I destroyed rthe Brunswicj Hussars, but the Horse Guards were another matter altogether. I put some hurt on this Brunswick line infantry as well, but that meant that on their turn they would shoot back, which is just about as effective as a frontal cavalry charge. 

Note the lack of French Light Cavalry now, and the brooding masses of British cavalry arriving. It is Turn 4, and Napoleon has released the Guard Cavalry... and not a moment to soon, then Chasseurs a Cheval of the Imperial Guard can be seen moving up in support. 

Chris' British cavalry charge; The Legere unit took double hits; 8 dice, needing 3+ to hit. Not a pretty sight (at least if you were playing French, that is!). 

Red Lancers countercharge to Life Guards. With so much British cavalry around, most of my linen units form Square. Squares cannot be attacked in melee, but cannot move or fire, so they really lose all offensive power. In retrospect, it may not have been worthwhile. 

On the French right, Barry has taken Pappelotte, and is making progress against the Allied Left. 

Not looking good for my command (Reille).  I thought the Allies were the ones who formed square?!

Old Guard Infantry arrives to bolster the crumbling French Left! I got lucky when Kyle got really cold dice - 1 hit on 8 dice needing a 3+ to hit!

Meanwhile, Barry (D'Erlon and part Lobau) has destroyed Picton's entire command and is rolling up Hill's now, too. 

View from D'Erlon's starting positions. The "reluctance" of the DB cavalry to charge really handicapped them. Game ended turn 11, and at that point French had lost 11 units of 30 vs 19 of 29 for the Allies. With over 60% losses losses suffered by the Allies, Napoleon is victorious! "Give me night or give me Blucher!"

Thanks so much to Barry, Thomas, Kyle and Chris for playing! I had a blast!

Rules/Scenario Changes from Playtest

Game took about 3 hours to reach a conclusion. Therefore I am going reduce the hits taken by each unit by one across the board. That should see units eliminated faster.

Add Zone of Control (none for LI and Units in BUA's) and diagonal movement rules similar to those in To the Strongest!

Eliminate most of the special rules: the retreat from fire rule, Conscript, Steady, Impetuous, Reluctant and Shock attributes (In the end, they didn't really add much to the game, and some were often forgotten). KISS!

Change rules for Ney so that he simply acts as additional commander who may lead units of any command. 

Earlier release of  Guard Cavalry Turn 3 vs 4), Guard Infantry Infantry (Turn 6 vs 8)

Transfer one Line Infantry from D'Erlon to Reille; that will make all 3 French commands have 10 units each. 

Finally, perceiving the grid on the hills was sometimes difficult. I had planned on making custom ridge lines for the game, and even bought a new foam cutter to do it. Barry has been doing some terrain boards and had a nifty idea about using ceramic magnets to hold the components together. Barry explains "The magnets are from JoAnns fabric, I used a 3/4” speed bit to drill the holes in the foam insulation. The metal tabs were cut from thin sheet metal(from Home Depot or Lowe’s HVAC isle) and then I cut the area they are to go into with a utility knife.  Both magnet and metal plate were hot glued in place."

Sheet metal inset flush into the edge of the foam board

Magnet inset flush into the foam boar edge

Tools and supplies!

    However, I am planning to transfer the bulk of my Geohex terrain to another gamer who will pick them up at Historicon, and space in the car will be tight, so it makes sense to use the Geohex (prior to transfer) for this event at least. We had a variety of ideas for marking the grid, but I think I may just go with rocks on 1" bases, which I already use as casualty markers for other games. I may need to make some new ones, though. That is pretty quick to do, however. If I am happy with how the game goes such that I might run it again at other and/or future conventions, I may tackle some custom hill/ridge terrain for the 6" grid.