Thoughts on Montebello

All is quiet on the battlefield of Montebello.  In fact, the table has been dormant for the past two weeks with no activity at all.  Well, besides figures and sorting projects piling up on it.  That will soon change, though.  Richard has agreed to a rematch from our earlier game (see No Duke of Montebello).  For the next episode, we will swap sides and refight the battle from a different perspective.

Birdseye view of battlefield.

Before that game hits the table, time for a little reflection on the battle, its historical counterpart, and the rules.

Looking back at the battle report linked above, the game offered a tense battle as the French Army under Lannes scraped out a dramatic last‑minute victory.

Game Recap

Against the odds, Watrin’s French division assaults O’Reilly’s advanced position at Rivalta through the tall rye fields surrounding the village.  Initial attacks are repulsed, but repeated assaults eventually break O’Reilly after brutal fighting south and north of the village.  The Austrian jaegers are finally compelled to give up their defense of Rivalta.  As the French push on to the west, Vogelsang brings up his reinforcements to Cascina il Giardina while Schellenberg reaches Montebello.  Ott tries to form a defensive line as the Austrian army falls back toward Casteggio.

Attack on Rivalta.

To the south of Rivalta, the 28th Line ejects Austrians from Cascina il Giardina after repeated attempts to take the strongpoint.  Lannes then leads his hussars in a devastating charge that destroys an Austrian infantry battalion and overruns a retiring battery.  Unfortunately, Lannes falls in the confusion.  The Austrians are not done yet.​

Lannes leads the charge!

Austrian dragoons countercharge and scatter the depleted French cavalry.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a third hussar unit strikes unsupported Austrian infantry.  With the combat raging and both formations on the brink of collapse, the Austrian infantry are scattered and Vogelsang's Division breaks.  With O'Reilly and Vogelsang broken, Ott is compelled to quit the field.  Lannes gains victory with a razor-thin margin.  It could have tipped the other way.

The destruction of Vogelsang.

Post-Game Thoughts

Montebello offers challenges to both players and scenario design.  With both armies arriving piecemeal and a tight timeline to clear the highway, the French are forced into attacking at unfavorable odds.  When Watrin first attacks Rivalta, the defenders hold about a two-to-one advantage.  As the fighting builds with fresh reinforcements reaching the field, the battle emphasizes a measurable quality‑versus‑quantity dynamic as well as trading space for time.  A situation that Ott and Lannes, themselves, faced.  Players faced the same conundrum.  That is, how best to utilize the forces at hand.

With Lannes' qualitative advantage and ability to pick and choose the place and timing of attacks, as Ott, I fell into a similar trap.  When Watrin's initial attacks were repulsed, O'Reilly made the decision to stand and fight at Rivalta.  Only as more French reached the battlefield did he realize his mistake.  By the time Vogelsang approached from the west, it was too late for O'Reilly.  His formation was wrecked and in retreat everywhere.  Vogelsang tried to bring his division up and hold Cascina il Giardina but that stronghold could not be held after repeated attacks.  In the vicious fighting around that stronghold, Vogelsang's Division was wrecked.  With two of his three formations broken, Ott was forced to yield the field of battle.

The flow of the tabletop battle broadly followed the historical battle.  While the fighting may have played out with variation, the end result was the same.  That is, Ott's command was forced to retire from Montebello and head back to Alessandria to lick its wounds.  Five days later fighting would resume at Marengo.

Now, scenario design and often rules' writing remain as works-in-progress.  This refight offers similar thoughts on amending scenario details.  Having realized the historical result in the first outing, how much really needs to be tweaked?  While Victor/Chamberlhac played a role in turning the battle historically, in this playing Chamberlhac barely reached the field.  Same can be said for Schellenberg on the Austrian side.  

Schellenberg arrives.

While providing a good-sized game for two players, Montebello presents a more difficult path for multiplayer games since reinforcements arrive throughout the game.  This might lead to players not getting into the action right away.  Meeting engagements offer unique challenges for multiplayer games.  To steer the game toward this end, the next refight will see game duration lengthened from 8+ turns to 10+ turns while unit arrival times will see some compression.  The caveat, here, is that reinforcement compression may alter the already finely balanced arrivals to match the historical situation.  Do you come down on the side of history or player engagement?  Should arrival times be adjusted based upon the number of players present?  That is, keep historical times in a two or three player game but compress arrivals for larger multiplayer games so that everyone is involved within a turn or two?

Before I take command of the French Army in the next game, there is much to consider.

Cossacks Without Horses

With thoughts rumbling around in my head about bringing the Second Coalition Russians to the table for their first battle and the recent Battle of Montebello still fresh in mind, more early Napoleonics are seeing action at the painting desk.  In work are two regiments of Russian musketeers.  First up, though, is a body of Russian dismounted Cossacks or militia.

Given the harsh terrain of fighting in the Alps during Suvorov's 1799 Italian and Swiss campaign, I figured a number of the Cossacks would be forced into trudging through the mountain passes on foot.  These fellows will be utilized in a dismounted cavalry role.

These dozen Cossacks are Old Glory figures led by (I think!) an Essex officer that I have had lingering in the bits box for decades.  Good to clean out a bin and get these figures into the "Completed" side of the Painting Ledger.  Painting activity picks up in March, and early counts show that totals will exceed 100 figures painted in the month.  A milestone I do not often reach.       

Returning to the Battle of Montebello, the scenario saw action only once.  I plan to rectify that inaction and bring the game back to the table for an encore engagement or two.  Actually, the battle never left the table and remains in situ after the last die roll.  I have been pondering the game and the scenario.  My thoughts on that first game and scenario are being tossed around in my head.  Perhaps some of those thoughts will make it here.

On the gaming front, two games are scheduled this week.  First up, later today, is a return to Koenig Krieg and Richard's tiles as he presents a new remote battle on the subcontinent.  Should be fun.

More gaming on the horizon.

More Highlanders

A second body of Highlanders charges out from the painting desk today.  A third such Highland regiment is currently in work.  The figures are Old Glory and present a motley and somewhat untidy appearance.  Flag is by David at Not by Appointment.  Hopefully they will intimidate any opponent who dares to stand in their way!

The bag of Highlanders contains a mix of figures in a variety of dress and pose.  With 23 figures per unit, I ought to be able to field two such regiments from one bag of figures, but I have managed to only field three units from two bags.  Each bag contained a few broken or damaged figures that I chose not to use.  A few command figures were siphoned off to command lowland units.  Clearly, more Highlanders will be needed if I am prepared to get serious with a Jacobite expansion to the SYW/WAS project.

When I am in command of these fellows, the above view will be the one seen.  When I face these hairy lads, this is the view I hope to see!

Wargaming as an Escape

Keith Flint, in his Wargames, Soldiers, and Strategy #137 essay on wargaming as an escape (see WSS#137 Let's Escape pp 62-63) offers an interesting perspective covering several topics.  Some of his brief thoughts on this topic can be read on his blog at In Which I Became a Global Influencer.

To briefly summarize the escapism portion of Keith's essay, Keith highlights a quote that he has heard from wargamers that,

Wargaming allows me to escape everyday life, and it allows me to be someone else for a while.

Now, I have never heard anyone utter similar words and if they did, I would take such claim in a figurative and not a literal context.

Given this statement's literal weighting, Keith argues that we should reject the notion of hobby escapism that allows one to step away from everyday stresses, work, or reality.  Keith posits that this thinking is misguided since one cannot truly escape the real world.  The wargaming hobby is an extension of the real world and an extension of who we are.  Framing the hobby as an escape tends to discredit both daily life and the hobby.  A more wholesome approach is to view hobby time as a constructive shift between different and complementary aspects of life.

How does this tie back to the Great Wargaming Survey?

In an earlier analysis, I examined the question of why we wargame.  In Why We Wargame: A Closer Look, survey results show that when the top three choices are aggregated across all respondents that "Fun and escapism" contributes only about 13% of the top choices. "Fun and escapism" comes in at Rank #5 of 7.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Now, "escapism" is lumped in with "fun" so separating the two is impossible from the 2025 survey.  If this question is asked again, perhaps, "fun" and "escapism" ought to be separated to identify those seeking escapism solely? 

A related question that examines the role of the hobby as an outlet for stress is present in the 2025 survey.  That question asks, 

Would you agree that wargaming helps you forget about the stresses of daily life?

The results are overwhelmingly one-sided.  Figure 3 illustrates that 62.1% of respondents entirely agree that wargaming helps forget about stresses of daily life.  Fully 93% either somewhat agree or entirely agree with this statement.

Figure 3

Rather than looking at the wargaming hobby as a literal escape, perhaps, wargaming ought to be viewed as a relaxing, constructive shift between our different aspects of life? I think Keith would agree. Keith, thank you for offering up some food for thought!

Do you view the hobby as an escape from real life?

"March"ing Matildas

Inspired by Matt's call to a March kit building challenge (see Mad March), I decided to dip my toe into the challenge.  As mentioned in the previous post, I have a Tamiya 1/48 Matilda kit laying unbuilt for several years.  This challenge would provide sufficient motivation to actually unbox the kit and get on with it. 

Likely little surprise to regulars, I also have a tall stack 1/100 (15mm) Zvezda models similarly laying around unbuilt.  Since there are Matildas in this stockpile, why not make the build a trio of Matildas?  The Zvezda Matildas are both Mk I and Mk II models.

The little Zvezda models only have six or seven pieces so they can be put together in a flash.  The larger Tamiya model contains considerably more pieces and took much more time to build.  However, all three models took less time than I expected.

While Matt's challenge required only the raw build, I forged ahead and painted my offerings as well.  The paintwork was kept simple using bronze green.  Decals were omitted from the Tamiya build since I just did not like the look of them.  For me, unmarked AFVs on the table are fine.

Perhaps one day, the 1/48 Matilda will actually see tabletop action with a complement of support troops?  She is ready when the call comes!

Since building these models put me into the WWII gaming spirit, I downloaded Chain of Command 2 to give the rules a look.

Babylonian Archers

A variety of finished units continue to muster out from the painting desk.  Today's offering sees a return to Biblicals with 18 Babylonian archers.  These 18 figures are positioned across two stands for use as massed archers in Impetvs or, perhaps, To the Strongest! if I ever return to that ruleset.

Figures are 25mm Newline Designs.  Having painted a number of these figures, these are nice sculpts and easy to paint.  More Newline Biblicals are in the painting queue but not Babylonians.

This week has seen a distraction from figure painting.  On the workbench is a 1/48 armored kit given to me as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago.  I figured it high time to pull the kit off the shelf and make the build.  What is the kit?  Well, it is Tamiya's 1/48 Matilda.

Now, I have not built a 1/48 model for many, many years. I think the last such model built was 1/48 Sherman for use in Chain of Command.  That Sherman is still yet to see any tabletop action.  When Scott gave the Matilda, he said that my British infantry ought to have some armored support.  He is right.  Perhaps having a little armored support will prompt me to bring the 28mm WWII collection out for a game or two?  Gosh.  That collection has not even been out for an inspection in more years than I can remember.  With the allies having armor support, can German armor support be far behind?  We will see if these troops make it to the table.

WotR Mounted MAA

In an effort to bolster the mounted arm of the Wars of the Roses project, a couple of boxes of Perry Miniatures' mounted knights have been stuck together and painted.  The first unit of eight to trot out from the painting desk are these fellows.

Although mostly covered head to toe in armor, one or two of the horsemen sport the livery of Clifford.  More units, of similar nature, should be emerging from the workbench soon.  Sticking them together takes time, for sure, but the process was not too onerous.  There will be no dread in tackling even more.

Winter, here, in the Pacific Northwest has been relatively mild with only one noteworthy storm dumping seven inches of snow back in January.  Unless the region gets dragged back into winter that means cycling weather approaches earlier than expected.

Taking advantage of, perhaps, an early sighting of spring, I wrapped up and headed out for a short ride on the last day of February.  While I ought to go back to my cycling log to confirm, this might be the earliest I have braved the cold weather in a long time.  Perhaps I am hardier in my old age?

Although the skies will see much cloudier conditions today than in these photos from the 28 Feb. ride, I expect to return to the bike later today for a much longer ride once the temperature rises.  I hope this mild weather sticks.