The considerations for Quatre Bras

When Alan talked about playing the BP2 Quatre Bras in 28mm he wanted to use the flavour of not just the units but the commanders having different skills – as in the BP2 scenario book - rather than being generically the same. This brought a level of difficulty with Ney (and Alten being Headstrong) and having to activate 1^st before any other commander on their side.

After a lot of head scratching, and play testing I have devised a combination of the Basic General blending the advanced rules for CinC (able to give orders to a unit, or a brigade group within his proximity 12”), and the Battlefield General (that allows the Staff Rating of the superior officer down the line, also with the 12” proximity rules). But we have 3 levels of the command TOP Level I am calling the CinC, MIDDLE will be the Divisional General, and at the BOTTOM the Brigade Commander. The CinC, and Divisional General will have the same advanced powers (see Download section Quatre Bras Command Notes). We had also created two sets of dice (like bolt action) a D6 Command dice with: ORDERS, RE-ROLL, FAIL!, RALLY, FOLLOW ME, JOIN MELEE. A D6 Unit dice with: MOVE (refers to 1 or 2 command orders), RUN (3 command orders), CHARGE, HOLD, RETREAT, FAIL (provided by Walt on STL file). To help keep track at the back of the unit. For the big visual game the CinC and Div Generals stands can be lost - so a large flag with their name on it was made to sit beside them, or to be used to represent their presence if there was no space for the larger based figure. There is a turn by turn 2^nd play test on the North Ayrshire Wargames club that turn 1 and 2 would be helpful to look at. I will add the QRS, Command Notes, Clarifications, unit markers on PDFs on the downloads section.

As you will see from the 15mm practice Quatre Bras (see separate battle report) we were using the Michael Hopper scenario from the back of Shako II, with a small modification on thinning the woods on the west side, and breaking up Quatre Bras into 3 sections for individual victory points. Also using the BP2 scenario book photograph of their battlefield with the extra added fields and hedges. The paper map was improved by being created by Stephen B on Inkarnate and printed on two 8x6’ polyester sheets that were sown together to create the 12 x 8’ map we fought on. As you can see below the terrain is on the map but extra hedges, fields, buildings can be added.

The Brigades and Divisions their arrival is as with BP2 Albion Triumphant, Alan’s Amy list shows the break down and the arrivals (see Army lists in the Download section). Pire was delayed to turn 2 as there is simply no space for the cavalry in turn 1. The Allies Bylandt has two small Jager battalions, one in Gemioncourt the other just north of the bridge blocking the road to Quatre Bras.

Setup

The view from the North over Quatre Bras to Gemioncourt.

View from the West to East.

The view from the French entry point on the South.

Angled shot large Belgian line, 2 Jagers, Militia off to the East.

TURN 1:

The French Arrive Foy nearest Bachelu at the top of the picture, Ney in the middle.

The Allies arrive Picton and Wellington.

View across the battlefield. Not much exchange in fire as the French artillery hits on Gemioncourt are saved by the Jagers.

Bylandt Jagers get a disorder on the French artillery, the Allies horse gun is out of range.