I've always had a bit of a hankering to play some really big battles from the annals of history. It's always looked out of reach when it comes to staging these epic and bloody contests using 28mm miniatures, both in terms of time and money. Bloody Big Battles has been getting some good write ups online and I thought I'd take the plunge and give them a go.
The core rules are written to cover the period of roughly 1864-1900 in Europe, although various people have been expanding them into the earlier American Civil War and Napoleonic Wars at one end of the period, and the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 at the other. I've even seen some 18th century wargaming going on with these.
The above photo shows the French divisions (black and green) holding the Prussians west of Woerth. The red unit is a division of Zouaves under General Ducrot I believe. The latter's command post is the turquoise piece in the foreground. The x-shaped Risk pieces are a rifled artillery battery (green) and a battery of the famed mitrailleuse machine guns (black). Both eventually got overrun by the Prussians. The pink unit is a Prussian division in march column moving through Woerth.
The rules are meant to let you play through a battle with up to 100,000 combatants a side on a 6'x4' table in an evening. In the case of Froeschwiller there were about 40,000 French troops on the battlefield against close to 70,000 Germans.
The battles covered in the main book are all from the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, which is not something I knew a lot about going into this exercise, but I'm learning quite a bit as I go along. I think I would still prefer to give Battles for Empire a go for the asymmetric colonial battles of the period, but Bloody Big Battles certainly look to fit the task for mid to late 19th century Europe.
Later in the battle: Prussians are in the process of pushing the French turcos off the hill at top left (Prussians in orange). The green French division in the foreground is fading back to cover the French communications at Reichshoffen. The red Risk piece bottom left is a French gun battery unlimbered to cover the road into Reichshoffen which was being threatened by the Bavarian corps at this stage in the battle. The purple and pink divisions top right are Algerian troops in the Eberbach valley under Pelle.
Before painting up a big army of French and Prussians, I devised a Kriegspiel lite project by drawing the field for the first engagement, Froeschwiller, and using coloured dominoes for the various divisions involved. Risk pieces were co-opted for artillery and cavalry, and some old Diplomacy pieces served as command groups. This makes for a very cheap entry point into the period and you can get playing right away.
It took us three evenings to get through the battle of Froeschwiller. It sees the French under MacMahon defending high ground west of the town of Woerth - currently in the Bas-Rhin department in France - with more and more German forces arriving as the day goes on. The French need to prioritise where they want to defend while ideally keeping their troops out of the direct firing line of the Prussian Krupp artillery.
The Germans eventually won on almost the last roll of the dice.
We got some rules wrong on the way through, including missing the whole Spent mechanic which makes divisions much harder to use in further offence once they have taken substantial losses. There comes a point where it is best to leave them holding the ground they are on, and bring in fresh reserves - if you have them (the French had little to deploy in this area).
We're also still a bit sketchy on how generals work, beyond providing a movement bonus, especially if they are forced to exit the game.
BUT having said that, I'd be keen to play again. I've bought the Indian scenario book (Bloody Big Battles in India) and may give the Battle of Delhi (1803) a try!
It was great fun. Very unfamiliar territory for me, both in terms of era and game type, but I enjoyed it and am keen to play again.
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