One of the more frustrating aspects of wargaming is creating a suitable scenario for that club night or luxury Sunday game when time is of the essence. I found those games quickly thrown together along the lines of 'Just put a ridge here and a village there, throw some troops on the table and we'll get going' - somewhat unsatisfactory.

Consequently I decided to compile a series of medium sized engagements that could be used for games when time was limited. Though most of us seem to prefer recreating the larger battles we normally do not have the time or the troops to do these games any real justice. After all if I'm going to fight Waterloo I'd like to do this over a whole day as Waterloo gamed in three hours just does not seem right!

One idea was to split the larger battles into different sections or phases and fight these in isolation. I found this to be far easier than first appears, as most major battles were indeed fought in phases, each separate and distinct. To use the Waterloo example again this battle can easily be split into six phases -

The assault on Hougomont.
The assault of D'Erlon.
The French cavalry charges.
Lobau's battle against the arriving Prussians.
The battle for Plancenoit.
The attack of the French Guard.

Each phase was quite distinct and suffered no significant interference from other actions elsewhere on the battlefield. Thus a search through a selection of the major battles of the Napoleonic period reveals a good number of such examples. (Whilst on the subject scenarios can be taken from different periods and simply substituted into the Napoleonic period.)

EXAMPLE SCENARIO: VIMIERO 1808

Vimiero is a further example of where a battle can easily be split into particular phases. Vimiero, though a small engagement, had two such distinct phases; the main assault on Vimiero Hill and the secondary attack launched by the brigades of Solignac and Brennier near the village of Ventosa.

For a club game I decided to play this assault of Brennier/Solignac brigades on the heights behind Ventosa. First I needed to obtain the orders of battle, as there are numerous volumes on the Peninsular War these were easily found.

The forces around the Ventosa ridge consisted of three British brigades under Ferguson, Bowes and Nightingale and the two French brigades of Brennier, Solignac plus supporting cavalry and artillery.

BRITISH
Nightingale 29th Foot (600) & 82nd Foot (800)
Bowes 6th Foot (800) & 32nd Foot (800)
Ferguson 36th Foot (500) & 40th Foot (800) & 7 1 st Foot (800)
Plus six artillery pieces.

FRENCH
Brennier 2nd Leger (700) & 4th Ligne (700) & 70th Ligne (2 x 550)
Solignac 12th Leger (800) & 15th Line (800) & 58th (800) (All third battalions)
Dragoons (240) & six pieces of artillery

The approximate strengths of the units are shown in brackets A these are actually based on Omanis Figures taking into account losses at Rolica, detachments, (e.g. all French grenadier companies were detached to form grenadier battalions), hospitalization, and general wear and tear. With orders of battle where no unit strengths are given a rough generalization must be made. One safe bet is to use the standard army paper strengths of the units involved. Though you can chose to reduce these strengths quite significantly if you wish to reflect campaign strengths. So a battle and its distinct phase has been chosen, the order of battle determined and unit strengths finalized. What next? You now have to make the decision whether to recreate the action on a unit for unit basis, or scale the action down. If you choose to scale down you can do so by a quarter, a third or a half, depending on how large a game you what to create. You can scale down one of two ways.

For example if scaling down by a third:

Simply chop off a third of all formations. E.g. if there are three battalions in the regiment reduce this to two. Or scale the individual units down by a third. If you units are 30 figures strong reduce them to 20, and so on. (Though this is not an advisable method if youire scaling down by a half or more as the units are simply too small to last once they start taking casualties.)

As we can see from the fairly limited forces involved around Ventosa that there is no need to scale the action down and each brigade can be translated straight onto the wargames table.

The next problem is how to accurately reflect the morale classification of the troops engaged. This is fairly easy in cases where units of obviously good or bad quality are deployed. However in an action such as Vimiero there are no obvious elite or militia units, so a study of the order of battle and the actual performance of the battalions during the engagement is needed to provide a guide. A quick read of an account of the battle is normally sufficient.

For instance Solignacis brigade attacked the British line in the flank and drove off two British battalions. However when counterattacked they put up little resistance and quickly broke. A subsequent look at the order of battle reveals that Solignacis units were all third battalions. So we can assume from this that they were certainly not first rate line troops perhaps more akin to conscripts. Thus we can class Solignacis battalions as either second line or conscripts. A further example is that provided by 29th Foods successful stand in the face of Solignacis brigade after the 71st and 82nd Foot had been forced to retreat. So we should place the 29th on an above average footing for morale purposes and class them as either veteran or elite.

So the final order of battle, using the General de Brigade 1:20 figure scale, appears as:

FRENCH FORCES
C IN C BRENNIER

1st Brigade Brennier
2nd Leger 1x 36 figures. Morale - Line.
4th Ligne 1x 36 figures. Morale - Line.
1st 70th Ligne 1x 30 figures. Morale - Line.
2nd 70th Ligne 1x 24 figures. Morale - Conscript.

2nd Brigade Solignac
12th Leger 1x 40 figures. Morale - Conscript.
15th Ligne 1x 40 figures. Morale - Conscript.
58th Ligne 1x 40 figures. Morale - Conscript.

3rd Brigade Dragoons
12 figures. Morale - Line.

4th Brigade Artillery
8pdr Foot Battery. 3 model guns. Morale - Line. ~

BRITISH FORCES C IN C
NIGHTINGALE

1st Brigade Nightingale
29th Foot 1x 30 figures. Morale - Elite
82nd Foot 1x 40 figures. Morale - Line.
Skirmishers 12 figures. Morale - Line.

2nd Brigade Bowes
6th Foot 1x 40 figures. Morale - Line.
32nd Foot. 1 x 30 figures. Morale - Line.
Skirmishers 12 figures. Morale - Line

3rd Brigade fi Ferguson
36th Foot 1x 24 figures. Morale - Line.
40th Foot 1x 40 figures. Morale - Line.
71st Foot 1x 40 figures. Morale - Veteran.
Skirmishers 18 figures. Morale - Line.

4th Brigade Royal Artillery
9pdr Foot Battery. 3 model guns. Morale - Line.

Now that the particular engagement, orders of battle, unit strengths and morale classification have been chosen there is the need to decided upon brigade deployment, reinforcement arrival points and hidden deployment.

I normally opt for historical brigade set up as the game is part of a larger battle, though there is plenty of scope for differing deployments so long as some thought is given to the larger battle as a whole. Reinforcement arrival points and hidden deployment are best dealt with by means of a detailed deployment map. One for each side. In the Vimiero engagement Solignacis brigade attacked from the flank while the British main line was hidden behind the ridge. This can be represented on the deployment map, depicting the exact position of the hidden British brigades while the French players map marks his reinforcement arrival point.

Both players may and perhaps should be given some clues as the rough positions of their enemies. For instance the British brigade skirmish screens should normally be on the forward slope engaging the French skirmishers thus providing the French player with a limited amount of intelligence regarding the exact positions of the British units. Similarly the British player should be given the hint that a particular flank is not held by any friendly troops and that no friendly troops can provide support in that area.

The final task is the placement of terrain. I find that most maps of major battles lack any real detail, so for our scaled down engagements it will be necessary to place a few judicious pieces of terrain in appropriate places.

I hope that you find some of the above ideas useful and that those small to medium sized games that can be fought in a few hours now have real significance with a solid historical background.