Shadow of the Eagles - setting up a game

 

Two new sets of Napoleonic wargaming rules that were released earlier this year are Lasalle (2nd edition) by Sam Mustafa and this one - Shadow of the Eagles by Keith Flint (hereafter, SotE). Both appeared to offer a good way to play a 'divisional' sized battle which would suit the number of painted figures I have in my collection, so I bought both. I haven't yet tried Lasalle, and my one game so far with SotE, while enjoyable, was too full of rules fumbles to be worthy of any kind of battle report.

So, the plan is to give both sets a good run of games, alternating between them, and possibly using the same terrain layout (to save setup times as much as anything).

This first game will be with SotE, but I'll be using the free scenario released by Sam Mustafa in support of his new rules - The Battle of Eselbach - which I've renamed to The Battle of Nebenstrom on account of my using Prussians instead of Austrians. I also made some tweaks to the setup and army sizes, but the scenario is broadly the same, with both sides fighting for control over a town in the centre of the battlefield with a nearby stream/river and a single wooded area.

The link at the bottom of this post will take you to Sam Mustafa's website should you want to see the scenario for yourself, and of course check out the new Lasalle rules. As I say, my next game will be with those.

The battlefield

Here are two rather foreshortened pictures of the battlefield. The table is 6 x 4 feet, which I couldn't easily photograph in one shot. The French have an L-shaped deployment area in the top-left corner; the Prussians have an L-shaped area in the bottom-right.

The stream is large but passable, which in SotE rules means any troops crossing it have to halt their movement at the half-way point and then continue as normal the next turn. The town, fields and woods are classed as difficult ground. The road is my own addition to the scenario. It's there for aesthetic reasons as much as anything, and I'm not sure if it'll have any tactical bearing on the proceedings, but any cavalry or artillery wishing to pass through the town must do so on the road (in march column or limbered). The stream dwindles to nothing just west of the the town, and can't be crossed by artillery at any point along its length, except on the road.

The forces

FRENCH

CinC: Dubois

1st Brigade - Boche

3 x line infantry battalions (regular)

1 x medium foot artillery (regular)

2nd Brigade - Fournier

3 x line infantry battalions (regular)

1 x medium foot artillery (regular)

3rd Brigade - Leroy

2 x light infantry battalions

1 x line infantry battalion

4th Brigade - Laurent

2 x light cavalry regiments (regular)

1 x light horse artillery (regular)

PRUSSIANS

CinC: Wolff

1st Brigade - Kraus

3 x line infantry battalions (regular)

1 x medium foot artillery (regular)

2nd Brigade - Goode

3 x line infantry battalions (regular)

1 x medium foot artillery (regular)

3rd Brigade - Hauptmann

2 x line infantry battalions (regular) 

4th Brigade - Schrode

2 x light cavalry regiments (regular)

1 x light horse artillery (regular)

Independent unit: 1 x light cavalry regiment (inferior)

The figures

My usual collection of course - all 20mm miniatures from Newline Designs. I was short of one command figure for the Prussians, so Major General Goode, who happened to be in the area on a diplomatic mission for the British, has been offered the job! I also don't have any models yet for artillery limbers, but plan to add some very soon.

The French

The Prussians

So, both armies are of a similar size and composition. The French have an advantage in skirmishing, having two units of light infantry against none for the Prussians. To offset this slightly, I gave the Prussians an extra light cavalry unit in the form of landwehr. For the sake of keeping things simple while I get to grips with the rules, I decided to rate all troops on both sides as 'Regular', except the Prussian landwehr cavalry which are 'Inferior' for training and 'Regular' for motivation. Likewise, the CinCs and the brigade commanders are all 'Capable'. SotE has an optional method for randomly generating commander ability ratings, but I'll leave that for next time. In addition, I'm going to ignore the skirmish screen rules for now – perfectly good though they are – purely because I don't have any easy way to represent them. Hopefully that won't skew the game in any way. However, the two French light infantry units will still be able to use skirmish formation.

The deployment

To add a bit more randomness to the encounter, I decided that each side will have part of its force starting off table - Leroy's brigade for the French, and Hauptmann's for the Prussians, along with the independent landwehr cavalry unit. Each side will dice for arrival at the start of its turn, with the forces in question arriving on a d6 roll equal to or less than the game turn. In addition, a successful 'even' result means that the troop arrives on the road. An 'odd' die roll means it'll arrive somewhere along that side's table edge (randomly determined).

I'll be playing the game solo, so in terms of where each side will deploy within their respective areas, I'll do my best to formulate a 'hidden' plan for each side. This will probably involve coming up with a few different possibilities for each side and then randomly choosing one.

Game length and victory conditions

I'd like to specify a turn limit for the game, but without much knowledge of how quickly SotE plays out, I'm not sure what would be a good length. Sam Mustafa's scenario specifies 8 turns, but that of course is for Lasalle. Will that translate well to SotE? I've no idea, but I'm going to go with it and see. If it doesn't fit, I'll just play until the game reaches a satisfactory conclusion.

The default victory condition in Shadow of the Eagles is when one side has lost half its units. In addition, any scenario objectives (which for this battle will be the town of Nebenstrom) are assigned a value in terms of units. For this game I'm going to say that controlling the town is worth 3 units. To control the town, a unit must be within 2" of it, without any opposing unit within that distance. I'll be fairly loose with the whole victory thing - I'm more interested in playing the game and learning the rules.

A note on measurements

The measurements in SotE assumes 28mm figures, but the game can be played with any size of miniatures, and Keith Flint has created playsheets with suggested measurements for those different sizes. See the link below for where to find the free downloads.

I'll be using the suggested measurements for 15-20mm figures, which basically means all measurements in the book are read at two-thirds. My battalions in line are roughly 6 inches wide; a little less than this for cavalry. The 6 x 4 table shouldn't be too cramped for this game, so I could probably get away with just using the measurements as written, but I'll go with the reduced ones this time and see how it works out.

So, that's the setup done. Deployment next and then on to the battle. I am fortunate in being able to leave this table set up, so I'll be playing the battle in stages as time permits, and trying my best not to forget too many rules. Look out for the first part soon!

Links

Lasalle downloads
Shadow of the Eagles website