Monday 19 November 2012

The Dice Gods hate me!

By now some of you will have already seen Fran and Ray's excellent posts about the Rejects game last Saturday. They did such a good job of conveying the wider battle that I thought I would focus just on my little corner of the battlefield, especially as this was where we effectively lost the battle (both tactically and in terms of victory points). You will already know from Fran and Ray's posts that my forces in this game - a division of French cavalry - were charged, routed, trampled on, scattered and destroyed by just two units of Hanoverian Hussars.

Never have any of us seen such appalling dice rolling (on my part) in all our combined experience of wargaming. As you can tell from this picture I was not amused... and this was taken before the worst had happened!

I should give up wargaming and take up Macramé or something! (Picture courtesy of Ray)

Since that utter thrashing I have been trying to find the will to sort through my pictures and write something about the game. I could have posted something yesterday but frankly I was still in shock and just couldn't face the prospect of thinking about it. Now that 48 hours have passed I feel a little more able to ponder my defeat, although I still wince when I think about it.

The game was a what-if scenario and assumed that Blucher had not arrived at Waterloo in time and Wellington had lost the battle. He had been forced to retreat to his planned fall back position at Hal. Unfortunately the troops there are of poor quality and outnumbered, although they have the benefits of good ground on which to fight a defensive battle. The French outnumber their opponents and have better quality troops, but most units are below strength after three days of fighting.

The initial deployment; The allies command the Brussels road but most of their troops are Levy and Militia. The French on the other hand have a lot of elite units, albeit depleted.

I commanded the 1st and 6th Chasseurs a Cheval and the 5th and 6th Lancers and a 6pdr horse artillery battery under the Comte Hippolyte Marie Guillame Pire. Early on in the game (before it all went horribly wrong) I also received reinforcements in the shape of the 12th Cavalry Division, consisting of 2 Carabinier and 2 Curassier units under the command of Baron Nicolas Francois Roussel d'Hurbal. Unfortunately they arrived right behind my advancing Chasseurs and Lancers creating one huge cavalry traffic jam. But, I thought, I just needed one turn of movement to untangle them and all I needed to do was sweep aside the two units of Hanoverian Hussars in front of me....

The arrival of re-enforcements creates a bit of traffic jam, but it'll soon be cleared (which it was, but now I imagined it!). 

The Hussars charge towards the French and my Chasseurs counter-charge  My opponent and I both roll a fist full of dice and...I don't inflict a single kill. In fact I loose both melee by a wide margin, the Hanovarian's snatch both my flags and I then roll impossibly badly for moral (NOW I get a six!). I then roll to see how far they fall back and of course its the maximum, one full move plus six inches taking them through the supporting Lancers and then the Carabiniers and Curassiers crossing behind them (disordering every unit in the process). This is bad, but the worst is still yet to come!

The Lancers flee the advancing Hussars straight through my Curassiers and Carabiniers

The Hussars elect to follow through with their charge and hit the now disordered Lancers who also loose their melee, turn tail and flee through the 12 Cavalry Division behind them. Then the b**dy hussars charge the next rank of French Cavalry, this time the Curassiers who are not only disordered but side-on meaning they get hit in the flank. You guessed it, I loose that melee as well and by now the whole division is in full flight and I'm making (and failing) Brigade and Divisional moral checks left right and centre!! This can't be happening!

"Courir pour les gars des collines, notre commandant est un coq!" 
(Run for the hills lads, our commander is a knob!)

By the end of this massacre-of-epic-proportions the light was fading and the battle drew to a close. But the shear volume of destroyed and dispersed units, not to mention lost flags, meant the Allies won a resounding victory of 20 points to ten.  

To the victor the spoils...and some well deserved smugness! 

As I said earlier, none of us has ever seen a cavalry charge of such devastating proportions, nor are we ever likely to see it again (I hope). But it has to be said that although the Dice Gods clearly had it in for me on Saturday my opponent John was cool under pressure and pursued his advantage ruthlessly despite the odds. My only hope now is that I have used up a lifetimes worth of cr*ppy dice rolls and will have better luck next time! 

30 comments:

  1. Hi Lee,

    Great pictures and it looked like a terrific game. I am sure that WSC said something along these lines:

    "Never, in the field of wargames conflict, have so many, been so stuffed, by so few....;-)"

    Macrame is pretty entertaining so I understand....

    All the best,

    DC

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  2. Ouch, that hurts, never in the field of battle have the dice gods deserted someone so much. I'd burn those dice.

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  3. Nice pictures Lee, but even though you rolled crappy dice, don't give up on wargaming. We would never forgive you.

    And btw, the French sentences you wrote don't mean anything at all.

    You should write:
    "Fuyez les gars! Le commandant est con comme une porte!" just to keep the play on words with "knob"

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  4. LoL! One does not need to read a thing as Ray's face says it all!! I'm sorry for your misfortune and wish you better luck as it really doesn't get much worse from a wargaming perspective now does it.

    Christopher

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  5. That's unbelievably bad luck Lee. I guess your cavalry must have been celebrating the previous day's victory somewhat too much.

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    1. They certainly had a hangover by the end of this days battle!

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  6. Well I feel better about my games the other weekend.

    I hope you get better dice, hard to see that they get worse

    Ian

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  7. I don't need to say a thing! just :0)

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    1. My god, a dignified silence for a change... what has Fran been putting in your tea?

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  8. I don't want you on my side anymore!

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    1. It was the sight of you draped across the games table that put the dice off...seriously man, it was obscene!

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  9. I have had a similar experience and its not nice. That's dice I suppose. I suggest you get the power tools out and teach the little cubey b_____'s a lesson!

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  10. Condolences ;) On the plus side, maybe you've purged your bad luck for the forseeable future?

    I've been meaning to ask, in what scale were you all playing. I can't tell if they're nicely painted 28s, or beautifully painted 15s.

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  11. Thank you Lee. I am one of those wargames with the command Acumen of Cpt Mannering but even I would struggle to out blunder that one! (I am sure I would come close though and with better dice.)

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    1. I spent the entire game a slave to the consequences of the dice rolls. Once that first melee was lost everything else was just reaction and I couldn't do a thing about it! So frustrating.

      The only units I had that did anything were two batteries of Horse Artillery which I was able to keep out of the way of the unholy mess that developed. I moved both units round to support Fran's infantry attack against the Hanoverian conscripts and let rip against the flank of the allied lines. I had three dice per gun and fired them for three turns (18 dice in total) and I needed 5's & 6's to hit... and all I managed was one solitary hit!!!

      Truly, I was cursed.

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  12. Super looking game and figures (not the 'humans' I hasten to add) as always

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  13. Talk about when things go wrong! Bummer, but still you guys got to have a game. I think you probably should go buy a lottery ticket of something after that much bad luck.

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  14. My worst dice experience was over quickly, but did last the whole game. I had about half the army (11 units) on the first turn one took a long range artillery shot and needed to make a morale check (about 80% chance of passing). It failed, which caused Morale checks on the adjacent units-they had about 90% of passing these checks. Failure after failure cause chain reaction morale checks. I passed one! Yay! Except the next unit was to close to the previous failure and still had to check. When it was over, 9 units had run off the table, one was right at the edge and one was sitting out there all alone looking at 10+ to 1 odds. Game over.

    But at least it was quick.

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  15. Well kudos to you for being so good natured about it. When luck turns that bad it can be very tough to keep a smile on. You're a good lad, Mr Lee! The dice will turn and when they do be sure to document it. (And perhaps stay away from cavalry for the next little while...)

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  16. Phew, that's quite some carnage. 'Man of the match' to the hussars, perhaps? ;-)

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  17. You have my sympathies Lee, the dice Gods regularly fart in my face... what's worse is when you think all is going well, THEN your luck changes irrevocably...
    http://kapitifowgamers.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/free-for-fall-lw-1750pts-eastern-front.html

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  18. A fantastic looking game and one you will no doubt never forget (not that the other Posties would let you by the sounds of it!) Revenge when it comes will no doubt be sweet indeed :-)

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  19. The dice gods can be so unfair! Better luck next time Lee.

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  20. A friend of mine used to bring a small hammer to tournaments and publicy crush the dice he considered the worst..

    He was a bit weird however XD

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  21. In spite of your bad luck, it is s good looking game in the photos :)

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  22. I have got to say I dont what would be worse, those horrible bloody die rolls or the cheesy grins from them other fellas.

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