A Remote Wargame - The Battle of Bassignana 1745

This Friday I played a remote game, the Battle of Bassignana, hosted by Jon of https://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com. From memory this is the fourth remote game I have played with Jon who has an excellent setup with cameras and he is well practiced in hosting these games. The last game we played was some 6 months ago - time certainly flies.

Initial positions with the French-Spanish attacking forces at the bottom and the Austrian-Piedmontese defending forces scattered across the hills. (Photo and labels by Jon as part of the briefing notes.)

The briefing notes from Jon (including the setup photograph above) has the battle beginning with the Austrian-Piedmontese army thinly positioned strewn along the high ground on the banks of the Tanaro River. The French-Spanish are lined up and ready to attack from the south. 

Historically, the French-Spanish force, commanded by Maillebois, were victorious. They attacked the Austrian-Piedmontese centre positioned on the hill and after some tenacious defence the Austrian-Piedmontese position was split and forced to retire to avoid being trapped.

No game photographs, but the red arrows show the advances made by the attacking French-Spanish forces.

Playing the French-Spanish I opted for the historical approach of attacking the centre hill.  The left side of the attack was halted by Piedmontese guard and grenadier units, but elsewhere the right side of the attack made early and steady progress assaulting the centre hill and Bassignana. By game turn 7 the French-Spanish had secured the centre hill and Bassignana town. The remaining Austrian-Piedmontese forces were mostly in disarray.

The position at game's end

After game discussions...

The defending Austrian-Piedmontese are always in a difficult position with no obvious defence other than hold on and hope. Their best guard and grenadier troops are on their right flank rather than the centre and a little way off from the main attack.

The rules used were Jon's variation of "Fields of Honor" wargame rule which dice to determine the order of play and tokens are drawn for activation. When you side's token is drawn you can activate any one of your commands. At the game's mid-point Jon mentioned grabbing the initiative can be quite key. This was quite prophetic as I was to gain the initiative in the next two turns and was also able to move multiple commands in succession. This allowed for some very successful French-Spanish assaults which finally broke through in the centre and left wing and was the game's turning point.

One thing I have noticed in the handful of remote games I have played. Is I tend to be more decisive than with face-to-face games. I think this may be due to not always being able to distinguish the tabletop units, other than artillery, cavalry, and infantry. You just see the block of troops and when attacking a position you get all units to pile in, no finessing here.

A thank you to Jon for hosting such an enjoyable game. Three hours went by very quickly.

Next up...

The next post will return to the WW1 Palestine campaign where the Egyptian Expedition Force recently lost its first battle trying to breakthrough the Gaza defensive line and are now regrouping for a second go.