Vauban's Wars, Wargame Rules for Siege Warfare 1667 to 1815 - Eric Burgess

General Herrasti personally sighting one of the city's heavy guns during the French siege of Ciudad Rodrigo

Dionisio Alvarez Cueto

Last week I finally got a chance to play a set of rules, Vauban's War, I first became aware of back around 2014 when I was deep into my Talavera project and spotted a series of posts on Eric Burgess' blog, with a mind to using the 18mm Peninsular collection to try out some Peninsular War type sieges.

If you are interested in finding more resources about Vauban's War check out Eric Burgess' blog in the link below.
https://dinofbattle.blogspot.com/p/vaubans-wars.html

My wife Carolyn indulged me last Xmas by buying me a set for a present and they were put on my 'Must Play at Some Time' pile whilst I busied myself completing other projects focussed around Age of Sail ships and AWI Mohawk Indian collections.

Fortunately there is another 'rules magpie' in our club and an old friend, Chas, who also had a copy of the rules and was keen to give them a run and was happy to take point on organising a try out game, with him getting his head around how they work and importantly producing the required fortress walls, saps and other impedimenta that go along with horse & musket siege warfare; whilst I concentrated on my other stuff, but very happy to dig out my French and Spanish Napoleonic collection to put on a game at 'JJ's HQ', which we ran this week ably assisted by Vince who came over to give them a go as well.

The table you see below is our first attempt at playing with twelve battalions of French infantry, massed guns and sappers before their first parallel, as the Spanish garrison of four line, one grenadier and two militia battalions, glower out from their walls.

The rules themselves are based around the Piquet system of card driven activation and opposed die roll resolution using differing die types from d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 d12+1 and d20 with a base die reference point and moving up or down according to circumstance.

As you can imagine the system really does tick our box in terms of 'friction' with a well thought through plan coming unstuck on first contact with the enemy, represented by the card hands for each player or sequence deck of initially eleven cards, that generate specific events and actions through a turn of play, with each sequence deck played through representing three to four days of the siege.

Vauban's War is a quality product with cards that can be cut out for play or you can order prepared casino style playing cards, together with other game record cards and nicely produced core rules

To that initial hand are added another three cards of the player's choice through which they can attempt to modify the events with stuff they would like to achieve at some time during the three to four days, thus when the first saps are being dug, you are unlikely to want to have a 'Let's storm the breach' card in your hand as that would be a bit of a wasted opportunity.

The number of cards to be played each time is determined by an opposed die roll with the Fortress Governor and Besieging Commander rolling off and the winner having the option to play their cards first or second and with the difference in score determining how many cards will be played, by player one then by player two (red or blue as identified on the card decks).

In our case the French commander, probably Soult for 1811, me, was rolling a D10 and the Spanish Governor, Vince a D12, definitely General Herrasti as seen above, with the inactive player able to blast away should he want at incautious sappers and infantry moving about during card play.

A sample of the cards can be seen below and the presentation of the rules is glorious with full colour illustrations and well laid out explanations of how to set up a game of this type of siege warfare with a typical siege likely to play for somewhere between five to twenty siege turns, that could see several sorties and assaults, not to mention the work to dig parallels and saps, set up gun batteries, manage powder supplies, spies, food stocks and undermine the opposition morale as well as the odd wall or two.

In my own experience I found understanding the rules clearer by playing rather than reading, but that just might be my preferred learning style, but having done a bit of pre-game reading and then getting heads together with Chas to actually play seemed to make the rules clearer and before long Vince and I were rapidly advancing through the card play and working out our die changes with little reference to the rules or QRS, which speaks highly of the rules enabling unconscious-competence quite rapidly.

Examples of the Casino style playing cards for red and blue, garrison and besieger

As we were playing my mind was cast back several times to my 2019 holiday to Spain, touring across the country to visit key Peninsular War battle sites, and staying in the castle at Ciudad Rodrigo and standing before the walls of Badajoz gazing in awe at the scars of 18 and 24-pounder shot marks caused by Wellington's Anglo-Portuguese siege batteries.

The main gate and ditch at Ciudad Rodrigo 2019
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2019/07/ciudad-rodrigo-peninsular-war-tour-2019.html

The pictures from those visits combined with those of our game as it progressed hopefully captures how well the rules involved us in managing our siege battle, with the pictures illustrating the French advancing their saps on two flanks to create battering positions to clear the first lines of defenders back within their walls prior to advancing forward for the third parallel and the creation of the forward battering positions to hopefully start preparing a breach.

During this play Vince was building saps out to attempt to flank my own positions forcing me to commit reserve infantry to deal with his advancing out from the walls via his saps.

Meanwhile two Spanish spies were intercepted by my security details and promptly shot, whilst my own spy narrowly avoided capture, only to return to the city and successfully stir up insurrection within, lowering the morale a notch as the Governor was forced to send troops into the town to put down a popular revolt demanding him to hand the city over.

The mechanics of recording the state of both the garrison and besiegers is easily recorded on the status cards provided with the rules, together with a simple stat sheet that keeps a note of the quality of the various forces and as we blazed away at each other with cannon and the occasional musketry the various smoke puffs seen in the pictures recorded who had fired in the turn, requiring a reload card to prepare said guns for another round of firing, and the puffs removed but recorded for when the occasional powder check supply card turned up seeing a test or an outright reduction in the powder supply available for future action.

In addition each turn would see the garrison consume its limited food stocks, equally vulnerable to further consumption or despoiling by enemy action, and with little chance of resupply unless relieved by an approaching allied army, all modelled in the card play and with neither side entirely sure of the state of the other, providing yet more narrative and drama.

The imposing defences of Ciudad Rodrigo 2019
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2019/07/ciudad-rodrigo-peninsular-war-tour-2019.html

This post can only be a first impression and with not enough time to progress to attacking the walls directly with the big guns, an incomplete one, but I and we had seen enough to convince us that these are a very cleverly constructed set of rules that has us wanting to play more and had me ordering up a new set of cards and scanning options for a Vauban Wall collection to run my own games.

I can see that the initial collecting and building of the key terrain items is the main ask for playing Vauban, with the rules designed to work with any figure collection, providing infantry are grouped into units of four bases, double rank, in my case, or single rank, makes no odds, artillery men and guns, general officers and figures in pairs to represent sappers.

The rules lay out the basic requirements in terrain collection with most armies any player would already have suitable for use.

The scars of strikes from 18 and 24-pdr shot fired at the walls of Badajoz by Allied gunners during the siege of 1812, as pictured during my visit in 2019
https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2019/09/badajoz-french-siege-and-allied-first.html

I think Vauban's War is a cracking game and I'm really looking forward to playing again, but I know I will have to concentrate on finishing the other stuff first so will probably content myself with playing Chas and others until I can work on my own terrain.

With the advent of 3D printing and of course  Paper Terrain, the opportunity to build these kind of games has never been so possible and now there are a set of rules capable of generating a very playable system.

If these kinds of games are of interest, then have a go with Vauban Wars, as they really are a lot of fun and seem to me to capture what sieges in this period were all about.

Next up, more ships are building in JJ's Dockyard, and I visited a very historic castle in North Yorkshire during our trip away in March, plus adventures in Vassal land continue to delight. 

More anon

JJ

Assault River Crossing, Second Battle of Oporto 12th May 1809 - Tiny Wars Played Indoors

The Serra Convent overlooking the River Douro at Oporto from where British infantry led by the 3rd (Buffs) Foot crossed to occupy the Seminary on the cliffs above on the opposite bank and around which Sir Arthur Wellesley placed his gun batteries in support of them and other Allied troops crossing to attack the French under Marshal Soult who occupied the city, 12th May 1809

 

A few weeks ago, Bill Slavin sent me an email giving me the 'heads-up' on his next game in the series from O'er the Hills Scenario Book which I have been looking forward to with great anticipation following his post about how he had built his table to refight the Oporto Crossing.

Stand to Games - O'er the Hills, Early Peninsula War Scenarios pdf Version

This scenario playing follows the others Bill has been working through since he started his series of games with 'The Leopard's Debut, The Battle of Rolica, played back in December 2020.

I personally have really enjoyed seeing someone else translating this scenario book, designed to be played with the rule set Over the Hills, and Bill's games have brought back lots of memories of the original play tests Steve M and I did when I was working on putting the book together.

If you are new to the series of games then I have listed below the series of links here on JJ's that will take you to Bill's blog, Tiny Wars Played Indoors where you can see his AAR's for each of the games played so far.

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-leopards-debut-battle-of-rolica.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/02/vimeiro-hill-battle-of-vimeiro-1808.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/03/flank-attack-at-ventosa-battle-of.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/07/battle-of-corunna-elvina-ridge-tiny.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-march-on-oporto-part-one-retreat-to.html

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-march-on-oporto-part-two-rearguard.html

When writing the Oporto scenario, I was adapting an earlier game that we played with the computer moderated rules, Carnage & Glory and needed to make the game a much more easily translatable set up for most wargamers to be able to set up on the table.

The battle was fought over and around a deep cliff edged river gorge with the outskirts of the city of Oporto and the key stronghold of the Seminary, occupied by British troops, the main features of the terrain to be fought over once the battle commenced, following the discovery of the British troops by part of the French garrison.

Our Oporto Table from the original game set up.

Thus, to make this a more easily playable game I opted to leave the gorge out of the map, using the wargamers old friend, 'the dreaded edge of the table' to represent this imposing terrain feature with the possibility of British reinforcements arriving in the Seminary from said table edge together with supporting British artillery fire directed from it on to certain areas of the table representing the batteries of guns Wellesley set up in support of his assault crossing.

Of course Bill was having none of that and opted to go large by building his representation of the gorge, cliffs and wine barges carrying British troops to produce, in my humble opinion his best table yet, leaving me rather 'gobsmacked' at his ability to 'adapt adopt and improve' with a post detailing his build for others interested  in having a go.

Tiny Wars Played Indoors - Building Porto

Frankly, I never imagined anyone going this far with this scenario and was amazed at the ingenuity of this table, and Bill's post is well worth a look to see his ideas on how to put together a put up and take down version of this game.

So if that little preamble hasn't wetted your appetite to see how Bill's game turned out with the troops in battle array across his table, then move on and wait for my next post about something else, but I think a few of the pictures of the game below will prod your curiosity still further.

The game was quite remarkable and one I would not have expected after playing it several times and seeing others having a go with similar outcomes.

When writing a scenario based on an historical actions and constrained by certain known limitations you tend to end up working within a bell curve of outcome probabilities with the the extreme, but still possible, outcomes hopefully moved to the ends of the curve and with the more likely outcomes very much in its centre.

I think Bill's account of his game shows what happens when the game starts to explore the less likely extremes and also the historical peril that Marshal Soult and his corps faced once Wellesley had established a foot hold on the French side of the river, requiring bold and immediate response to stabilise the situation.

The fighting that followed in this game is a classic struggle to retain and regain initiative and made for a fascinating read.

So if you would like to know more then just follow the link below to Tiny Wars Played Indoors for the full details and more great pictures of the game as it unfolded.

Tiny Wars Played Indoors - Second Battle of Porto, 12th May 1809

Next up: Mr Steve and I have been battlefield walking with a trip back to the early English Civil War in Cornwall and the seat of the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon, and I have a book review.

More anon 

JJ

The March on Oporto, Part Two, Rearguard at Grijo - Tiny Wars Played Indoors

Battle of Grijo, 11th May 1809

Well I've had a busy-fun non-wargaming week away after driving down to Plymouth last Thursday to attend Will's graduation ceremony where he joined other graduates from Plymouth Medical School to celebrate the end of their five years of study, to begin work in the NHS.

He and they were alongside Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England and one of the chief architects in the UK battle against Covid 19 and the roll out of the national vaccination programme, to receive an honorary doctorate from the University that was awarded prior to the Covid outbreak, highlighting his other significant contributions to medicine which were rightly included in the address and recognised with a standing applause.

Following that we had a family gathering in a local restaurant before heading off down to deepest-darkest Cornwall for a family week away and more dining out, walks and plenty of banter and laughs - good times.

However the wargaming keeps going on here on the blog even when I'm away enjoying myself and Mr Bill Slavin has had his blog highlighted on the 'followed list' of great blogs, with his next game of Peninsula War Napoleonics from O'er the Hills.

O'er the Hills contains twelve scenarios, including this one, covering the early years of
 British involvement in the Peninsula War during the years 1808-09

Continuing from his last game, 'The Retreat to Albergaria, (see the link below) Bill has followed up with part two of these linked games from O'er the Hills with his rendition of 'Rearguard at Grijo'.

This scenario is designed to link in with the previous one by potentially inflicting Fatigue Hits (FH) on units involved in the previous fight depending on how they were at the end of that action. 

JJ's Wargames- The March on Oporto, Part One, Retreat to Albergaria

The map below illustrates the position that General Franceschi occupied on May 10th 1809 after extricating his forces and wagons back from Albergaria the previous day, hotly pursued by General Sir Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Portuguese force, eager to cut of the French advance troops from their falling back to Marshal Soult's main army occupying Oporto.

The Grijo Scenario map with the blue area indicating the French set up position and the Red the British with additional arrival points along the French retreat route back to Oporto.

As in the previous scenario Wellesley is planning to envelope his enemy with flanking columns, set to arrive in the red areas of the map whilst Franceschi now joined by General Mermet's 2nd Infantry Division seek to fend the Allies off as they facilitate the continued retreat of their supply wagons.  

As in the previous game the scenario presents a retreat/rearguard situation with all the drama that these kind of games can generate, in terms of knowing how long to hold the ground and when to retreat and with who.

Bill's splendid table with the initial forces set up ready to go

Although the French have received a strong reinforcement with Mermet's infantry, Wellesley now has Sherbrooke's British 1st Division with two battalions of 'The Gentlemen's Sons' otherwise known as His Majesty's Foot Guards, who present a potent spearhead to the Allied pursuit force.

French Legere and cavalry prepare to hold the rear as the retreat commences

Bill's game turned out quite different from our own playtest posted here on JJ's back in February 2018

JJ's Wargames - Over the Hills Playtest - Rearguard at Grijo  with, in our game, the French opting to make a strong stand early on in and around Grijo before falling back and a strong attack put in by the Guards at the end.

French Hussars on the move

Of course if you haven't read Bill's post then I will not spoil the fun by giving away the end so just pop over and take a look if you're interested, in the link below, and as you can see from the few pictures I grabbed, Bill's tables and figures are always well worth a look anyway.

Tiny Wars Played Indoors - The March on Porto, Part 2, Rearguard at Grijo

So a nice way to resume normal service to be followed with a post this weekend looking at some additions to my Mohawk Valley collection of AWI Perry Miniatures that have been feeling rather neglected since time spent in JJ's Shipyard over the last two years - More anon.

The March on Oporto, Part One, Retreat to Albergaria - Tiny Wars Played Indoors

Time to get the collection of French supply wagons out on the table as the Retreat to Albergaria gets played at Tiny Wars Played Indoors.

If you've been following Bill Slavin's playthroughs of the scenarios in O'er the Hills, you might be interested to know he has now progressed into the spring of 1809 with his latest game recreating the French retreat from Albergaria, pursued by a British army under the newly arrived Anglo-Portuguese commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley, recently cleared of allegations at the hearing convened to look into the controversial 'Convention of Cintra' that saw the removal General Junot and his French army from Portugal in 1808, repatriated to France in British ships.

I have attached a link below if you would like to follow Bill's highly entertaining account of their play with excellent pictures of his 1:72 - 20mm collection of Peninsular Napoleonics and appropriate terrain to match.

Tiny Wars Played Indoors - The March on Oporto, Part One, Retreat from Albergaria

If you are just picking up this series of games you can follow the link below to Bill's other renditions back to the start at Rolica and through to Corunna.

Tiny Wars Played Indoors - O'er the Hills Scenarios

Scenario 5, The March on Oporto, picks up the the story of early British involvement in what became known as The Peninsular War, following the death of Sir John Moore and the evacuation of the main British army in theatre from Corunna in Galica in January 1809.

It wouldn't be until the 8th February that Marshal Soult's battered II Corps, following the pursuit to Corunna and the battle, was restored enough to begin the French advance back into Portugal via the tortuous roads through the Galician mountains into the north of the country seeing him taking the city of Oporto on the 29th March after a decisive battle with defending Portuguese forces under the Bishop of Oporto who were routed and suffered some 8,000 casualties in their retreat from the city.

The theatre of operations in May 1809 as Wellesley commenced his offensive
from Lisbon in the south to drive Soult out of Oporto in the north and hopefully
destroy the bulk of his forces in the pursuit.

Sir Arthur Wellesley landed with fresh British reinforcements at Lisbon to join the British garrison together with the first elements of the British trained Portuguese army on the 22nd April 1809 and in his characteristically determined approach to demonstrate to the British government the practicability of his plan for holding Portugal as a base of operations for aiding and supporting the guerrilla war in Spain; he immediately activated plans to drive Soult and French II Corps out of the country that would see his spearhead formations clash with a French advance party somewhat unaware of his presence near the village of Albergaria, hastily forced to prepare a rapid withdrawal back to Oporto when they realised the strength of the force that was attempting to envelope them from the south.

The scenario starts with the French march column set up on the road 
through Albergaria ready to march north to Grijo

This scenario is part of a two part series, with the results potentially impacting on the second game as French General de Division Jean Franceschi attempts to pull his cavalry and infantry forces back in the face of a rapid Allied pursuit whilst ensuring the safe passage of his baggage train on a thirty mile journey back to the village of Grijo where he might hope to receive help sent out from Oporto to stem the Allied pursuit as the French fall back over the River Douro.

Bill's representation of the French march column as illustrated in the scenario map above. 
Perfect, what could possibly go wrong?

Steve and I had a lot of fun play-testing this series of two games, working out the tweaks to allow the results to be linked into a mini-campaign game which is all about retreat management in the face of the enemy, possibly the hardest military manoeuvre to conduct and one that produces a game totally different from the usual 'set 'em up and start charging and firing' affair but no less exciting and interesting. 

This series of games gives a good excuse to get some French wagons built and out on the table, which only adds to making the game look a lot different from the usual Napoleonic set too.

As you will see from Bill's account his game mirrored much of our own experience with the French commander reaching decision points in the game as to when and who to turn about to make a stand covering the retreat of others, ready to in their turn, turn about and cover those behind them.

For the Anglo-Portuguese it becomes a balance of rapid pursuit, aiming to keep the pressure on whilst not overextending elements of the force that could be overwhelmed piecemeal, and always with an eye to taking advantage of an enemy mistake.

 

The fox is in sight and the horns sound 'view-haloo' as the Allies press their pursuit hoping not to encounter a 'stag at bay'.

Again, as I discussed with Bill, these scenarios, and indeed I would recommend all of them, repay the players for including the Brigade Morale and Orders rules in Over the Hills as the added pressure of brigades with decreasing morale levels that threaten that they might break off, together with orders going astray or being misinterpreted at a vital time, with all times in a retreat like this often being vital, add a whole new level of interest and simulation without, in our experience, much effort and we played all the games that way because of the fun they generated as best laid plans fell apart or better still came to fruition.

Thanks Bill for a very entertaining series so far, I know Steve, I and others have enjoyed the read throughs and personally has refreshed my enjoyment of putting these games together and I'm looking forward to your next production.

Finally I should mention that not unsurprisingly Bill's posts have reignited an interest in playing the scenarios in O'er the Hills, and enquiries to me about getting hold of a copy, with the book being currently out of print.

Stand to Games Shop - O'er the Hills, Early Peninsula War Scenarios pdf Version

I have been in touch with Adrian McWalter at Stand to Games and would direct you to the pdf copy of the book in the link above which I see is on offer at £9.60 and if plans progress to a reprint I will update any confirmation to do so here on the blog.

Over the Hills - Facebook Page

In addition I would highly recommend joining the Over the Hills Facebook page for the latest updates and information, with lots of input from Ady McWalter and other folks interested in playing Napoleonics with the rules and scenarios.

I hope that helps

JJ