Campaign Eylau-Friedland LIVES!

[Sgt_Rock]

I was just to post about the game on this forum but I see that Big Duke beat me to it! :)

Yes, I am now working on Campaign Eylau-Friedland (CEF) and its been a lot of sorting through files from past designers and map makers to get a set that I think is the best for us to work with. I went and created my own OB files based on my own research and so far we have:

23-24 Dec 1806 - River Crossing at Czarnowo - Davout's III Corps breaks out of its bridgehead and drives Tolstoi's 2nd Division back after a lively night assault. This one is into playtesting now. One of our guys finished the solo scenario taking  the last of the objectives on the last turn of the scenario. Nice challenge for solo play. Head to Head version up for testing now.

26 Dec 1806 - Battle of Golymin - just finished up this afternoon and ready for playtesting - Murat, Davout and Augereau try a pincers move on the Russians in the mud of Poland. The Russians held them off and were able to retreat at nightfall.

26 Dec 1806 - Battle of Pultusk - Lannes arrives at Pultusk to find most of Bennigsen's army waiting for him. In vain he tries to drive on the bridge. Davout's 3rd Division arrives late to take the pressure off of Lannes' V Corps.

8 February 1807 - Battle of Eylau - I dont have to say anything about this battle. Well known and we all have been enjoying the various "mods" that are out there on the battle. Here are the scenarios I have built so far that are being tested:

The Full battle - two teams are testing it. My game is at turn 9 of 80 turns.

Eylau: Seruzier's Advance! (Segment #1) - small action where an artillery commander and some Legere advanced on Baggovut's position and retained a good firing position despite a strong counter attack by the Russians. I playtested it using the "Hot Seat" play and its fun.

Eylau: Augereau's Assault (Segment #2) - the ill-fated attack by VII Corps into the blizzards of Poland. Variants will make it more balanced. The playtesters tried it out anyway with expected results. Not much you can do when you have two infantry divisions with no cavalry support advancing into the teeth of the center of the Russian line. Variants include Murat attacking with Augereau as well as a variant where the two divisions attack in the right direction in assisting St. Hilaire with his assault on the Russian left flank.

Eylau: Murat's Charge (Segment #3) - the big charge of the battle. After two games I am going to have to lower the Russian command values to allow for the French cavalry to catch some of the Russians still Disordered from Augereau's attack. They recover too quickly in the current version. (note: its not always easy to model history with the JTS Nap series games but we do our best ... A little tweak of the wrench and some fiddling with a screwdriver and we can get things to work as close as possible) The French Garde cavalry arrives during the scenario to help Murat.

Eylau: Davout's Attack - Part 1 (Segment #4) - Davout's initial attack fell on Baggovut. Russian cavalry was moved over to slow the French advance. Precursor for the big push by III Corps.

Eylau: Davout's Attack - Part 2 (Segment #5) - Davout has taken Serpallen from Baggovut and the hills near it and is now ready to make his big push north into the Russian rear and center. With Gudin up and in reserve the III Corps will roll. Variants will include Napoleon sending an additional cavalry division from Murat's cavalry to assist in the assault.

Eylau: L'Estocq's Attack (Segment #6) - L'Estocq arrives to save the day! Its the counterattack by the Prussians. Davout's men are exhausted when the Prussians (and some Russians) hit them. Only the arrival of Ney (which distracts Bennigsen into calling off the rest of the attack) saves III Corps from destruction.

In many of the above scenarios losses from the previous fighting has been deducted from the units. Fatigue has been added as well.

I will probably add in a short scenario for Ney's attack but frankly it was limited and with the darkness and no idea what he was facing he was loathe to continue very far. Funny enough Ney's arrival probably did more to decide Bennigsen's hand. With the road to Konigsberg open to being cut by the VI Corps on the morrow the Russians retreated from the battlefield.

There are still a lot of room for variant scenarios AND while I have already built six variants for the full battle scenario I want to find out how the historical battle games play out before I "crank out" any more scenarios.

There are maps for battles such as Heilsburg, Guttstadt and Mohrungen. A map for Danzig exists but I am not sure how many people enjoy the sortie scenarios. I have not seen much play of the Danzig sortie scenario for Leipzig. I probably will add in one scenario but siege situations do not work well in a "Battle" type of game.

Next up: two small actions that were "preludes" to Eylau:

Rearguard Action at Hof - Barclay slows up the French advance days before the Battle of Eylau

Clash at Eylau Village (or the Battle of Bonaparte's Baggage!) - on the night of the 7th of February on the eve of the Battle of Eylau the Emperor's baggage was sent on ahead to Eylau with no idea that the majority of Bennigsen's army was very close to the village. The Russian captured the baggage and would have looted all of it had the French not shown up in some force to contest it. Messy fight but nonetheless I will include it anyway.

The good news about this game is that a lot of the map work is done. I will have to build a few maps but the maps look fine and with only some minor updating will work great.

The weather in December through February does not bode well for large scale maneuvering so don't look for large map scenarios. I may put in a couple that use a 15 min. turn but the movement is SO slow (MUD) that it would be boring to play. Instead I will have a couple of campaigns that will deal with the situations of Pultusk-Golymin and Eylau. The players will make their march route choices and then play a battle based on both choices.

There will be THREE major campaign files dealing with the December to January campaign, the Russian Winter Offensive in late January to mid February and then the Spring campaign of May to June. I am hoping to be done with all of the battles by the end of January and then work on the campaign files from February to April. Add in my usual "plethora" of bonus documents at the end and finish up in May. Because I am never sure when the artwork will be finished I cannot comment on when the exact release time would be. Certainly before the end of Summer I am sure unless something causes a delay.

I am waiting on the artwork for the French Rev Wars game I worked on for the last year. Almost done with that one. With 28 battles I am sure that you will be plenty busy until CEF is released. :)