So after the Waterloo refight the question was asked over what would be next big game and Ligny was suggested. The 3 wise men of Robert, Rob and Goldie elected themselves to organise this game.

Now Goldie has moved to a new, much larger abode so he hosted the game in his lounge as no furniture is in it yet so was perfect for a large game. So last Saturday the game was fought on a 15 foot x 6 foot table.

The map for game is below.

The Victory conditions are as below.
Prussia
 Hold at least 3 of the 4 villages, or
 Break the majority of French forces
France
 Capture at least 3 of the 4 villages, or
 Break the majority of Prussian forces or
 Breakthrough Prussian northern side of table.

The players for the French side were Russ, Rob, Steve, Robert and me. On day I swapped over to Prussians as they were down to 3 players and needed 4.

The Special Rules for game were:

Rivers/Streams
 6” movement penalty crossing the La Ligne stream, artillery cannot cross except by way of bridges
 Units are disordered while crossing or in are contact with the river. Disorder automatically
ceases once unit is no longer in contact with the stream
 Units disordered prior to crossing the stream remain disordered after crossing Villages
The villages are sprawling areas of brick buildings and walls, trees, orchards and gardens, rather than single strongpoints. The battles for villages were extremely bloody and saw attack and counter-attack as the two sides would feed troops into the meatgrinder (rather than a prolonged siege of a single strongpoint):
 Villages are impassable to artillery and cavalry except roads.
 Villages use Rules as Written.
 Defenders get a +2 Combat Result.
 Defenders get all HtH combat dice (i.e. usually 6).
 Defenders ignore Withdraw results from Break Tests but become Disordered. (Note: Losers always lose their cover save).
Woods
 As per the Rules as Written
 All Napoleonic infantry who do not have the ‘skirmishers’ special rule can form a skirmish
formation only to go into terrain they could not otherwise enter, and will automatically
revert to line when they leave it
Broken Brigades
A brigade is broken when the number of units destroyed is greater than the remaining unshaken units in the brigade. Any shaken or artillery units in a brigade are ignored in the assessment.

Orbats were:

Prussian Order of Battle
Prussian Korps had dual command, with the senior commander supported by a junior officer from the GeneralStaß. Each Prussian Korps can be commanded by two players – the corps commander and his chief of staff. In game terms they act as two commanders-in-chief for the Korps, with two players.

Commander in Chief – Blucher SR9
I Korps – GenL Zieten SR9 (Ob.Reiche SR8)
1 st Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr- Steinmetz SR8
2 nd Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Pirch II SR8
3 rd Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Jagow SR8
4 th Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Henckel SR8
I Korps Cavalry Reserve Roder SR8
Uhlan, Dragoon, Landwehr Kav (3 total)
I Korps Artillery Reserve Holzendorff SR8
Artillery Brigade (3) 3 foot batteries
II Korps – GM Pirch I SR8 (Ob. Aster SR8)
5 th Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Tippelskirch SR8
6 th Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Krafft SR8
7 th Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Bause SR8
8 th Infantry Brigade (4) 1 Fusilier, 3 Musketeer, 2 Landwehr – Bose SR8
II Korps Cavalry Reserve Wahlen-Jurgass SR8
Dragoon, elite Hussar, Landwehr Kav (3 total)
II Korps Artillery Reserve Lehmann SR8
Artillery Brigade (3) 3 foot batteries

French Order of Battle
Commander in Chief – Napoléon SR10
Imperial Guard –
Old Guard (4) Grenadiers & Chasseurs à Pied – Friant SR9
Middle Guard (4) Grenadiers & Chasseurs à Pied – Morand SR9
Young Guard (4) Tirailleurs & Voltigeurs – Duhesme SR8 Aggressive
Guard Heavy Cavalry (2) Grenadiers & Empress Dragoons – Guyot SR8
Guard Artillery (3) 3 12pdr foot batteries batteries – Drouot SR9
III Corps – Vandamme SR9
8 th Inf Division (4+1 foot battery) 1 Légère, 3 Line, 1 6pdr – Lefol SR8
10 th Inf Division (4+) 4 Line, 1 6pdr – Habert SR8
11 th Inf Division (4) 4 Line, 1 6pdr – Berthezene SR8
3 rd Light Cavalry Division (2) 2 Chasseurs à Cheval – Domon SR8
7 th Division (4) 2 Légère, 2 Line, 1 6pdr – Girard SR8
IV Corps – Gerard SR8
12 th Inf Division (4+ 1 foot battery) 1 Légère, 3 Line, 1 6pdr – Pecheux SR8
13 th Inf Division (4) 4 Line, 1 6pdr – Vichery SR8
14 th Inf Division (4) 1 Légère, 3 Line, 1 6pdr – Hulot SR8
6 th Light Cavalry Division (2) 2 Hussars & Chasseurs – Maurin SR8
IV Cavalry Corps – Milhaud SR8
13 th Reserve Cavalry Division (2) 2 Cuirassiers – Walthier SR8
14 th Reserve Cavalry Division (2) 2 Cuirassiers – Delort SR8
Total
4 Old Guard
4 Middle Guard
4 Young Guard
28 Infantry
2 Guard Horse (Grenadiers & Empress Dragoons)
4 Hussars/Chasseurs a Cheval
4 Cuirassiers
10 artillery

Additional French formations possibly arriving later in the game:(Terry Note…needless to say..THEY ALL ARRIVED)
VI Corps: Lobau with three Inf divisions and a Cav division
19th Division (4) 4 Line, 1 6pdr – Simmer SR8
20 th Inf Division (4) 1 Legere, 4 Line, 1 6pdr – Jeanin SR8
21 st Inf Division (4) 1 Legere, 3 Line, 1 6pdr – Teste SR8
5 th Cavalry Division (2) 2 Chevauleger-lancier – Subervie SR8
I Corps with one Inf division and a Cav division
4 th Division (4) 4 Line, 1 6pdr -Durutte SR8
1 st Cavalry Division (2) 2 Chevauleger-lancier – Jacquinot SR8

First up below is view from Wagnele on right and La Haye on left at the advancing Vandamme.

View from St Armand which held 2 Prussian bttns. Note on right a sole Prussian bttn guarding area to La Haye.

Alan’s Prussians linking La Haye to Ligny.

And we have Ligny in the corner with another wood…it also held 2 bttns.

Old Nappy has set up shop in front of St Armand.

Vandamme closes in on Wagnele.

Here’s my 7th Prussian brigade….in woods…..my plan was to rush through the woods…..and beat up Steve quickly so that Nappy would need to despatch troops to this flank….foolish me!!

Turn one and the Prussian plan just fell apart……Pirch(Goldie) sent the Reserve artillery of 3 batteries racing towards La Haye on the right flank…….howeverrrrr….. this left them exposed to a French attack…while in march column…yep…they all died.

Brilliant start…turn one and half our artillery gone. The mantle of never being allowed to command artillery again moved from SteveT to Goldie. Thats a really big gap to run through isn’t it.

Over by Ligny Gerard(SteveT) advances onwards….

Dear oh dear….. Rob had painted up a new unit of French Legere…looked darn good…nice bright yellow……they charged Keiths skirmishing fusiliers….so means pretty even..Rob has slight advantage being the attacker…but the curse of the new unit struck yet again…they lost the combat and popped…..

Pain has arrived…..massed Guard artillery….

And over on French right…some heavies arrive from the Reserve.

Big gap on Nappy’s right….. has someone got lost??

A bit further along….Vandamme is really rolling forward……Prussians are still holding Wagnele.

Close up of attack ..it lasted a couple of rounds…..

Way over on other flank…..Gerard(SteveT) spent the game assaulting this piece of wall…..he never got into the village….took lots of damage and kept coming back for more….my troops can be seen in the woods….

Talk about ‘Gung Ho!’…no preamble…Russell threw the Young Guard straight in!

Vandamme(Rob) has taken Wagnele…1st Objective taken.

Hmmm…the Young Guard seem to be..missing…dear oh dear….Nappy is not going to be happy. Sadly the Cuirassiers didn’t care…..now that really would have been a good result had they failed morale!!

French have taken half of St Armand. Oh look…Lobau has wandered onto the battlefield…what..a …surprise…….

Goldie has managed to get a brigade over to the La Haye/Wagnele sector……actually did some damage…

Lobau(Robert) threw units over stream to support Guard moving out of St Armand……at start of game I said to ‘Watch your FLANKS!’…..Robert had left a beautiful one..Alan ordered Uhlans to charge it…fools blundered and rushed ahead…across stream….(next turn French Cuirassirs charged and wiped them out)……but he did then manage to get the bttn we can see on the left which took out a unit….another pooped…good result..stopped French..briefly….

Oh look… d’Erlon has arrived…..expect Ney and Davout will arrive ….kidding guys…..KIDDING……we all know Davout is in Paris and can’t quite make it.

Sigh…back in the middle….a lot of popping occurred in the Prussian ranks…….

As for my bold flanking manoeuvre……move into woods…fail move orders for 2 turns….French manage to get to stream so never going to cross now…so back out…form up…and then…Blunder back into the woods! LOL. They can now join with my 8th Brigade and cavalry and form a rear guard!

So clear French victory….WELL PLAYED BY THE 4 FRENCH PLAYERS…..the Prussian left flank was intact…but the right was gone burger……quite a good game for those that did something….at least I had a comfy chair and twitter to entertain me…..solace is taken in only suffering 2 casualties all game….wood splinters from the trees…. I really hate woods…next game will have NO TREES ANYWHERE ON THE TABLE….OR DISORDERING STREAMS.

Whisky of the week is still the Wolfburn Fathers Day……really enjoying it……have managed to finish a bottle of Jet Fuel(Infrequent Flyers) I got back in the first Covid Lockdown 2 and a half years ago.

Now Infrequent Flyers was recommended to me by buddy Murray…he who owns the lovely Calpe Prussians I was using in the game. Must admit struggled with it at first…not used to the style…but couple of years of Whisky appreciation and yep…my palate has improved……and was really enjoying it when bottle sadly emptied. So will be getting another one!

So that’s it for now….next game is an 1813 Leipziggy mega cavalry game with a gazillion heavy cavalry…be quick..and bloody…fun fun…

Terry out.