Nachod 1866 - a Bloody Big Battles game

[Steve J]

An AAR of a game played earlier this week using the ever excellent Bloody Big Battles rules:

http://wwiiwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/nachod-1866-bbb-game.html

And some pics to tempt you:

[toxicpixie]

Good stuff!

I have a hankering to get onto the 1866, but we're playing the Crimea campaign first

[Techno]

Very nice, again, Steve.

Cheers - Phil

[Leman]

Excellent report and I also agree with your post-battle thoughts on what makes rules successful. The days of the innumerable lists of modifiers are hopefully long gone now.

[Steve J]

Glad you liked it chaps .

I have a hankering to get onto the 1866, but we're playing the Crimea campaign first

Well we might do part of this with 'counts as' troops as Dave wants to play with his cavalry .

The days of the innumerable lists of modifiers are hopefully long gone now.

Let's hope so as life is too short as it is, without endless cross referencing stuff in a game.

[toxicpixie]

Hurrah for the end of half hour long firing sequences with tables of rubbish exactly duplicating the minutia of the process in ten times the length of real time it took, which then produced a correct result at each step and a totally out of place final result

Model the end result and don't sweat the process if it's quick and it works, that's my motto!

[Leman]

Too right!

[Chris Pringle]

Apparently in the UK there used to be mass unemployment, no Sunday trading, only 3 TV channels, tightly restricted pub opening hours, no internet, and fewer sources of entertainment in general. So there was more demand for the kind of game that took 17 hours to play. Times have changed.

Steve, thanks for another fine AAR!

Chris
Bloody Big BATTLES!
https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BBB_wargames/info
http://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.co.uk/

[Nosher]

Nice one Steve

Hoping to get around to BBB once the distraction of SP2 and Baroque have worn off a little

[Leman]

The sooner the better mate. One of the best sets out there.

[Steve J]

Once again glad you liked the AAR chaps . Completely agree on BBB being one of the best rulesets around, but then it gives the sort of game I like. Others may disagree but then that's fine by me.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Great report, pity the Austrians won!

[Leman]

Bloody Antipodeans! 

[mollinary]

I am very confused here. Why do the Austrians get victory points for retiring through Skalitz?  The only reason they were there, and had been detached from the main army by Benedek, was to prevent the Prussians from debouching from the Nachod gap. If they had wanted to get to Skalitz, they could have done  so without ever going near the Prussians. It also seems bizarre that all the Austrians get skirmish capability, even though they normally used their Jagers as elite storm columns, whereas the Prussians, whose standard tactics involved reinforced skirmisher or firing lines, only get benefits for their single jäger battalion in a corps.. This may be a great game, but it doesn't look much like Nachod to me!

Mollinary

[Steve J]

I can't comment on your points Mollinary as Dave knocked up the scenario and may have altered things to fit in the time we had available. I will have a look at Bruce Weigle's 1866 scenario to see how it compares. As for the skirmishers issue, I'm sure Chris will be able to explain...

[toxicpixie]

Id assumed the original scenerio had some sort of "Ramming realises he can't block the pass/take back the heights and instead retires on Skalitz to form up en mass with Leopold" sort of thing going on...

I'd also thought in BBB terms the jaegers justify a single S stand as the BBEB scenarios give them, but your and Chris P's cmment on the blog now make me think they should give an Aggressive rating instead? I know the jaegers weren't used to best effect as skirmishers by the Austrians, but they seem somewhat less "suicidal spear block" than the regulars and were willing to fight and fire instead of storm in very quickly - Or is that they were just being even more gung Ho?

Prussians - had wondered whether to give the Prussians more S per unit as their dispersed firing doctrine effectively makes them *all* skirmishers in BBB terms, at least for that specific war in the context of fighting the Austrians as they stand In the BBEB scenarios for the 1866 Chris has each unit wth a single S stand, which tbh given the probable lack effective of Austrian fire is likely enough, but I reckoned underrated them.

Both the above thoughts should be taken in context of me not playi g either the combined frontier battle scenario (it cvers Nachod, Tratenau and Skalitz with an option for a third possible day as the Austrians retreat), or Koningratz itself, and these days I'm wary about fiddling until I've played something to death a few times over. Too many previous "hack and slash" modifications to make things "right" that just make things more complex or need more tweaking to balance the balance etc etc

[Chad]

I have a few questions:

1. What happened to the Prussian infantry line deployed on the plateau above Wenzelsburg?
2. Did you not recreate the attacks of the Brigades Hertweck and Jonak on the plateau?
3. What happened to the cavalry action at Wysokow?
4. Wasn't it Waldstatten's brigade that attacked Wysokow?

Chad

[toxicpixie]

It's a fictional scenario, knocked up from the basis of a different original scenario from other rules; it's not a recreation of the actual action

[Chris Pringle]

I'd also thought in BBB terms the jaegers justify a single S stand as the BBEB scenarios give them, but your and Chris P's cmment on the blog now make me think they should give an Aggressive rating instead? I know the jaegers weren't used to best effect as skirmishers by the Austrians, but they seem somewhat less "suicidal spear block" than the regulars and were willing to fight and fire instead of storm in very quickly - Or is that they were just being even more gung Ho?

Prussians - had wondered whether to give the Prussians more S per unit as their dispersed firing doctrine effectively makes them *all* skirmishers in BBB terms,

Mollinary and I debated this at length offline last year. I agree that to reflect their tactics properly, the Prussians should be given more Skirmishers and/or the Austrians fewer. As I indicated in my comment on Steve's AAR, in retrospect I should have done this in the BBEB Nachod et al scenario. (Though I still like the scenario for the genuine insight it gave me into the course of the border battles - and a little more sympathy for the much criticized Prince August commanding the Prussian Guards.)

Chris

[toxicpixie]

Ah, fair enough - hindsight is always 20/20

What did you think then - two Skirmisher or more for the Prussians? If the Austrians lose their S and gain A, what does that do to balance in scenario terms? It looks hard enough for the Austians as is I guess that's all you & Mollinary were discussing