5 years of fighting in Spain has taken its toll on the French forces. In 1812 King Joseph and Marshall Soult had forced Wellington out of Madrid but the king was finding it increasingly difficult to control what remained of his realm. Wellington's success has encouraged the Spanish guerrillas who are now so active that even with four divisions general Clausell was fully occupied with trying to keep open the route between Madrid and the Pyrenees
Jourdan, the chief of staff, saw that the South and the northwest of Spain would have to be abandoned, whatever the Emperor might wish, there were not troops available to control all of it. The vital area was Old Castille and Aragon: the route to the Pyrenees, Bayonne and Paris, with the ports of Santander and San Sebastian. In early 1813 The British have retaken Madrid and driven the French back beyond Burgos. Worse, Napoleon has taken 25,000 troops out of Spain to defend Germany. This leaves them about 68,000 men. Joseph has pulled back to what he hopes is a smaller perimeter to defend in the northern part of Spain. But he must maintain the line on the River Ebro. Failing to do so will embolden all of Napoleons enemies to join the Anti French Coalition and doom the Empire.
Wellingtons campaign of 1813 saw his combined British, Portuguese & Spanish army of 79,000 strike northward towards Burgos without allowing Joseph's French armies to concentrate. Wellington’s forces marched hard to cut them off from the road to France. He had spent the winter reorganizing and reinforcing his forces for the purpose to attack the French and push them beyond the Pyrenees mountains.
The Spanish have longed to remove the yoke of repression of the French occupation. The people are rising up against the invader, having been encouraged from the British success in the prior year (1812).
Napoleon needs his Marshals in Spain to repel the British Army approaching the frontier. Taking Burgos would set the British back, as this traces supply all the way to Portugal. He also needs to avoid a major defeat, as that likely would persuade Austria to join the coalition forces in Germany. The British need take the major cities & to push the French out of Spain and capture the main road to Bayonne, which is Frances main source of supply.
Basic Rules
TERRAIN
On the table maps:
“Woods”= Rough (cavalry and Artillery may not enter)
“Hills”= Broken
Buildings = Villages, Town, City, Fortresses are roughly 6” square.
The EBRO is the only Major River (darker blue on Table and Campaign maps) and may only be crossed at bridges, whether permanent or pontoon.
All other rivers (lighter blue on Table and Campaign Maps are Minor Rivers. For the purposes of this campaign, they cost ½ move for infantry and cavalry to cross. Artillery (and Pontooniers) may cross ONLY at bridges.
If combating troops on the opposite bank, the defenders count as in Rough Terrain. Units in rivers cannot fire
All minor rivers are 1" wide (thus NO small arms fire across them), Major Rivers are 2” wide.
PONTOONIERS: Each side will have a unit or more. May not attack or initiate Melee. To Build or take down a pontoon bridge, once the Pontooniers (Engineers) are in position, check once per turn as per the rules;
Success = D10 roll of 7+; if unsuccessful, the next turn they need a 6+, if unsuccessful again, then
on the following turn they need a 5+, and so on. It take one success for a Minor River, 2 successes for a Major river. The pontooniers cannot be used for anything except building bridges.
SUPPLY:
1) Supply status will be checked once an hour, on the hour.
2) Any troops actually occupying the buildings of a Major City (3 buildings), City (2 buildings),
Town (1 building), or occupying a Fortress (roughly 6" square on the tabletop - can hold up to
4 units within max) are always “in supply”
3) French forces must otherwise trace supply to Bayonne or Pamplona.
4) British forces must trace to a source of supply. Burgos (via Valladolid) or to a sea port yet to be established.
5) Spanish forces trace supply to same side they are supporting.
6) Supply MUST be traced through the Key location(s) on each table. These will be marked with a Poker chip – White for uncontrolled, Blue for French control, Red for British. Moving through such location(s) is enough to establish control.
On any given table, if a side does not control ALL of the key locations on that table, supply may traced into but not THROUGH that table.
7) Any troops that are found to be “Out of Supply” will take one and only one Morale check roll immediately, with results imposed immediately.
Additionally, Troops that are out of supply may not advance more than 6” from their present positions; otherwise they may only move towards their base of Operations.
COMMAND: In general, the troops of a command should remain together. Cavalry may be detached as scouts, etc, and troops may be dropped off as Garrisons, etc (see token forces below). Command radius will be 18” for all nationalities. Orders section on Snappy rules will not be used.
All communications must be in writing through the GM, except when the command figures of two or more players are present on the same table, in which case they may all converse freely. Players may not wander around scouting out the action on tables where they have no troops stationed.
TOKEN FORCES
Some difficulty can arise when players leave token garrisons behind to hold critical bridges and bottlenecks, etc. It can unduly penalize opponents encountering such token forces when they have to twiddle their thumbs, unable to move because their opponent keeps running away to do moves in a much bigger battle on another table. Of course, delaying the enemy (within reason), as well as getting notice of the movement of enemy troops into the area, are the two main reasons for leaving token forces to begin with.
1) A "Token Force" consists of not more than 3 units of infantry, or a single Cavalry or Artillery unit. Combined arms forces are never considered "Token Forces".
2) Wherever possible, the owning player will play their own troops provided that it does not unduly slow play on that table or elsewhere.
3) Another player on the same side, or the GM or their assistant may be assigned to run the force
if necessary to maintain the flow of the game.
4) Failing any of those, or by the consent of the owning player, the Token force may be run by the opposing player following the Default Orders given to the Token Force as follows:
Place a pre-printed card underneath the token force when it is detached,
that gives it Default Orders:
- Hold at all costs, always orienting to fire on the nearest enemy.
- Withdraw as quickly as possible away from the enemy.
- Withdraw as quickly as possible towards Deployment Zone _________ (fill in the blank).
In the absence of a Default Order, "Hold at all costs" is assigned.
On encountering the Token Force, and after suitably informing and getting the OK from the GM,
a player could run his own troops and pretty easily and reasonably run the opposing token force. Mostly the token force is not going to move (or will move away as quickly as possible), so one only needs to do trivial movement or roll shooting and morale for it. The Token force will impose a 60 second delay per unit each turn on the cycling of the active player. In other words, a Token Force
of 3 Infantry units would impose a 3 minute delay per turn cycle upon the opposing player. The
timer on a cell phone or similar can be used to track such delays.
Buildings
Fortress = Can hold 4 units; 1 can be a battery; no cavalry
City = Can hold 3 units, 1 can be a battery; no cavalry
Town = Can hold 2 units 1 can be a battery; no cavalry
Village = Can hold 1 unit. Infantry only. No Artillery
Cav and Art can pass thru normally but must exit before combat.
Villages can be attacked by Cav.
New Snappy Campaign Rule:
Deployment Zone delays (speed up player participation) :
At any time, a player with troops he desires to enter a table from a DZ may appeal to the GM to allow these troops to enter without waiting for a full opponent turn. The GM may give the green light for entry if in the GM's judgement the entering troops would not unduly affect the tactical situation, effect undue risk to the enemy. The GM may impose movement and/or attack restrictions such as no attacks on enemy, stay 12" from enemy, enter the table by no more than 2", etc. The idea is try to be fair to both sides, but still speed up player participation.
Special Rules for Summer 1813:
If a Guard unit routs, all friendly units on the same table must take a single MC (similar to supply).
If a Wing or Armee commander becomes a casualty, all friendly units on the same table must take a single MC
Special off board Towns: Some towns may not be on “a table”. There will be a specific area set aside for these “TRANSIT TOWNS” or just “X “ towns. Transit towns (X) will allow for more maneuver from Table to Table. If two opposing forces meet at a “X” town, the larger force will bounce the smaller. There are no battles on X tables. Delays traveling to X towns will be designated on the road cards to simulate the movement across a 4X6 table.
Trail limits: Some roads are not so good. These are shown as trails with dashes, ------. The Road Cards will describe additional limitations using these roads. On table tops trails will negate terrain, but give no road bonus.
Divisional Game scale:
Each Inf Unit = 900 men
Each Cav Unit = 300 horses
Each Art Unit = 12 Guns
