A wargame at Nigel’s

On Thursday I was privileged to attend an inaugural wargame in Nigel’s fabulous newly converted dedicated wargame room at his home in the rolling Cumbrian hills. After a bit of panic in the morning due to the cancellation of my train I made good time by car to join Nigel and Tony for a battle based on the Prussian arrival at Waterloo.

I took the part of Blucher while Tony played the dastardly French, Nigel umpired as we were using his own house rules. Most of the figures were Hinton Hunt and all were from Nigel’s vast collection.

Nigel's man-cave.

The table is 8' x 4'. This is the initial setup with the Prussians on the left and French on the right. That's Plancenoit church at the far end of the table with Papelotte in the foreground (the two other buildings near the farm mysteriously disappeared before the game began).

Here are the Prussians and that's Blucher himself in the rear. Most of Nigel's infantry units are 30 figures and cavalry are 16.

My lads are getting ready for the assault on Plancenoit.

However, the action started with an attack on Papelotte as in this scenario the farm had been occupied by the French.

A view along the Prussian line with both sides starting to advance.

The French edge forward towards the church.

While the Prussians do the same!

Tony and I both had a large cavalry force in the centre and of course we couldn't resist getting stuck in with the sabre (the lovely Leib Hussars with their big white plumes are a conversion)..

The battle in full swing.

And how it might have looked in the days when Nigel started wargaming. In the end it was the Prussian cavalry who were to emerge victorious from a seven-unit scrum.

Over at Papelotte though Tony had the upper hand and I was never able to occupy the place.

My infantry were thrown back from the church but I had sneakily brought up two batteries and started blasting the place apart.

A melee at Papelotte where I just about held my own.

The Young Guard in the foreground are running away but they were to rally next turn.

Blucher brings up the Landwehr - you know the French have had it when that happens!

In the end (we managed a full 8 turns) it was a narrow victory for the Prussians but this only came about as I was able to reduce Plancenoit church to rubble thereby denying it as a VP location to Tony.

It was a great day and full credit goes to Nigel for running an excellent game and displaying an impressive grasp of mental arithmetic during some rather complicated melee calculations. I very much enjoyed trying a different set of rules to my own, but ones written in the same vein with mechanisms harking back to the 1970s. I hope I get the chance to play again.

My thanks to the Archduke and Archduchess for their generous hospitality.