This was a fairly small campaign fought during the closing stages of the War of the Imaginary Succession, one of the perennial wars that bedevil Imaginary Germany. The causes of the war were many, but the immediate spark that plunged the entire continent into war was that the elected Emperor of the Imaginary Germans was not a brainless twit. Rudolf XXIII, affectionatly known as Dago Red from his personal and keen interest in the various vintages of Imaginary Germany, had inconveniently died with only 1 son. Rudolf XXIV, surnamed the Ridiculous, threatened all this. He showed a disturbing competence in directing his army, and, worse, he actually took sides in some of the disputes. When this was realized it led, naturally, to a recounting of the ballots in the Imperial Election, the said recount proceding with bayonets, sabers, and cannon. A most confusing 3-sided war broke out and was waged with considerable vigor for several years.
Frumpburg lay in Upper Methylonia, and was the fortress that guarded the only non-mountainous passage between Vulgar Germany and Imaginary Germany. it had changed hands several times during the war, and now, in the 4th summer of the war, was besieged by the forces of the Imperial Crownland and Concordia (backers of Rudolf XXIV). Commanding the besieging forces was Lord Stanley of Gottingen-Hoff, who was, coincidentally, the Commander-in-Chief of the Gottingen-Hoff army (one of the amusing parts of Imaginary Germany is that when a country is at peace it can rent out its commanders, but not its troops, for certain fees. This is not unlike the system found in professional sports, and when a general's contract expires it can lead to vigorous bidding.).
Examining the map, one can see that there were three approaches to Frumpburg. The northern route would require a crossing of the famed Wasser River, and movement through difficult country. The southern route was much longer than the other two, and also suffered the inconvenience of moving through mountainous terrain (the season was rather advanced, and an untimely snowfall could sever all communications). This led the Methylonian commander, Lord Bumble, to decide on the central route through the town of Hochwasser. As a diversion, he sent one division of infantry and 2 brigades of cavalry by the northern route, and moved his main force, three divisions of infantry and a division of heavy cavalry towards Hochwasser.
Lord Stanley pushed light cavalry out along all three of the roads and sat at Frumpburg with three divisions of infantry, a brigade of guards, and a division of heavy cavalry. As the first contacts came in, and skirmishes told him where the main enemy force was identified, he moved two divisions of infantry and the division of cavalry to Hochwasser. Here his troops would dig redoubts and stake out the ground for artillery.
For those unfamiliar with Imaginary Germany, the Quackenbruck Army in this campaign provided the bulk of the troops in the Methylonian Army. The Quackenbruck Army was based on the 1811 British Army. The 1st division contained the Guards and Highlanders, the 2nd and 3rd divisions contained line infantry. The Concordian Army was based on a French 1800 Army, while the Imperial Crownlands Army was a Russian 1807Army.
We had taken the weather rules from those in the SPI game COBRA. We made the mistake of letting the wrong player throw the dice for weather. Bad storms suddenly appeared, but only over the central route. The southern route had the best weather of the entire season, and the northern route was firm and dry. This meant that the forces sent north moved faster than Lord Bumble expected.
They got across the Wasser River easily enough. The light cavalry Lord Stanley had sent out probed repeatedly, but as the forces were small we only had to game out one of the contacts. Under this repeated harassment the commander of the northern force made a mistake. He sent off his light infantry and light cavalry on a raid (that was simply ignored), and attempted to advance without any light troops to speak of. Thus when the cavalry probe hit line infantry (this was the contact we gamed out), Lord Stanley was able to judge how strong the force was, and dispatch his own force to deal with it, the remainder of his light cavalry and a brigade of infantryfrom thesiege lines around Frumpburg. The commander he sent off with them decided he was outnumbered, and spent several days of fine weather observing the enemy with cavalry patrols. Put out, Lord Stanley moved north, took personal command,and chased theforce back across the river (this started out as a light troops ambush, and grew from there, the infantry division being caught in column of march from more than one side).
Lord Bumble continued to march directly on Frurnpburg, confident that the diversion to the north had pulled a numbcr of troops from the central road. He did not yet know that his diversion had been chased back across the Wasser River. Knowing that any diversion would take time, he moved slowly. Each turn, of which there were 4 in a day, he moved 3/4" rather than 1" on the map. One day he waited out the weather, not moving, another was spent baking and distributing bread, and still a third was spent celebrating the Methylonian Candidate's birthday. And all the while the Concordian army, lining the heights above Hochwasser, waited impatiently. And all the while Lord Stanley's contract of a year and a day, ran to its conclusion.
Now a free-agent, he was optioned by Methylonia. Concordia failed to match the bid, and Lord Stanley was informed that he was now in the employ of Methylonia. With a brief adieu he took himself off to the nearest Methylonian force for assignment. Lord Bumble was pleased to get him, and gave him command of the 1st Division. Honor bound not to talk about the defensive preparations he had instituted, Lord Stanley could only wait apprehensively for the trap he had prepared to spring shut.
Lord Bumble was his army's vedette. Aided by his staff, one of whom was wounded, he quickly cleared the town of Hochwasser of its Concordian light cavalry (this was played out as a skirmish game), and set up headquarters at the inn The Bloated Gargoyle. As dawn came up the next day he surveyed the position of the Concordian troops deployed squarely on his flank. He sent back to alert the army for action. His commanders gathered for hisfamous pre-battle briefing. "Winthe battle, I'll lookafter thevillage", hesaid,took personalcommand of oneof thebrigadesfrom the 3rd Division, and confidently awaited his opponent's reaction.
As Lord Bumble deployed his 4 battalions around the perimeter of the village, the other 2 brigades of the 3rd Division were formed up in the gap between the village and the Wasser River, forming 2 lines. The cavalry, up early, formed up in reserve behind the village. An hour behind was the ist Division, and an hour behind that was the 2nd Division. Effective command was now vested in the hands of General Sir Hugh HackwellSlashem, commander of the cavalry division. And that worthy, and everyone else within sight (most especially Lord Stanley, riding ahead of his command to receive orders), stood amazed as the Concordian Army came off its nicely prepared ridge and hurled itself at the town of Hochwasser.
The fighting was classical and straight out of Oman. Concordian columns dashed themselves as the Quackenbruck lines. Lord Bumble, moving constantly around the perimeter of the village roughly handled the division that attacked, while General Flashpan (3rd Division), the only rookie on the Methylonian/Quackenbruck side, easily dealt with the 2 brigades attacking his position. OnlyGeneral Rockhead on the Concordian side showed some memory of Lord Stanley's orders, moving his brigade of heavy cavalry down so it stood squarely across the road to Frumpburg, but out of artillery range.
The fighting was spirited, the mechanics of which are not really worth going over. Some highlights were remembered by everyone, though. General Rockhead left his command briefly to receive fresh orders, and came back to find that the commander of his wing of the army had managed to get one of his two regiments destroyed by attacking through the gap between the woods and the village. General Hackwell-Slashem tried a cavalry charge, and got his command dispersed, the only good part being the breaking of a very shot up square of massed grenadiers by the Life Guards. The Concordian Guard stormed the village and effected a lodgement, but the Highland brigade, newly arrived, deployed across the village common and advanced. The Guards withdrew, but not before setting fire to The Bloated Gargoyle (Lord Bumble personally manned a fire pump). General Flashpan, shown by the gamer playing Lord Stanley how to do a passage of lines, successfully did so, and had the fresh brigade attacked by the tired Concordian troops who had fruitlessly been attacking his other brigade; 5 of the 6 battalions in his attack were routed and pursued by the only regiment of Quackenbruck cavalry that had not been scattered in the fighting.
In the end, for a cost of some 2100 casualties, Lord Bumble's forces found themselves victorious. The Concordian army lost nearly 6000 men out of 23,000, 2 of its 3 divisional commanders killed or wounded, and half its heavy cavalry dispersed. Behind a rearguard the Concordian Army pulled from the field. The way to Frumpburg was open, and after 28 days of open trenches the city was relieved.
On the whole the system worked fairly well. Nobody tried anything too fancy. There was only one diversionary force. The main body's approach was straightforward, the troops keeping together. Whatsupply ruleswere used worked fairly well. We learned that you had to spend a lot of time making sure where each and every force was. This meant that we had to know the order of march of the units involved and how much roadspace a unit took up. For armies of 28-30,000 we decided that no referee was needed, but that a better bookkeeping system had to be worked out. Although no units took part in more than one action, except a couple of regiments of light cavalry, putting the roster states on a 3x5 card didn't work (not enough space).
The battle at Hochwasser was everything expected from a campaign game. It would not have been set up as a casual game between two gamers, being too obviously stacked against one side. (No reason was given for coming off the ridge except impatience on the part of the commander replacing Lord Stanley). Everything seemed to make sense, and the time taken for the campaign, 2 weekends and 1 evening session, was about what everyone expected.
With what we thought were the lessons from this small campaign learned, there was enthusiasm for a new campaign that would exclusively use the Charles Grant system. This was the American Civil War campaign for Vickysburg.
RELIEF OF FRUMPBURG
Table 1 - Weather
- 1 - horrible
2 - bad
3 - bad
4 - good
5 - good
6 - good
Previous day:
- horrible -1
bad 0
good +1
Time of year
- Jan, Dec -4
Nov, Feb -3
Jun, Jul +1
Table 2 - Forces
Lord Bumble
- 1st Division - 6600
2nd Division - 6100
3rd Division - 6100
4th Division - 6100
Lt. Cav - 1800
Hvy Cav - 2100
Total - 28,800
Garrison of Frumpburg: 4,800 men in 2 brigades
Lord Stanley & Other
- 1st Division - 9000
2nd Division - 9000
Gds Brigade - 2400
Hvy Cav Div - 3000
Lt. Cav Div - 2000
Crownlands Div* - 12000
Total - 37,400
* Imperial Crownlands troops who remained in the siege lines during the entire campaign.
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