"About Bonaparte" Quatre Bras game played in California on the 200th anniversary of the battle

I ran my second "About Bonaparte" game in three days on June 16, 2015 at the home of Milton Soong. Since most of us live on the peninsula south of San Francisco, we call ourselves the Peninsula Gamers and we generally meet on Tuesdays after work. This week we planned special refreshments of Belgian beer and chocolate to celebrate the anniversary of Waterloo.

Due to the space required for 54mm figures, not all historic units were represented and some units, including the Brunswickers never made it onto the table. The game began with the troops of Holland and Nassau holding a thin line forward of the Quatre Bras crossroads. They had to hold back the more numerous French attackers until British and Allied reinforcements arrived. One thing I noticed as I set up was that "About Bonaparte" requires more mounted officers than I possess. So we had to make do with dismounted officers and generals, aside from Wellington and Ney for this game.

The French came on very aggressively and perhaps with too much coordination due to my lack of knowledge of the rules and the use of command dice. In any case, the French predictably pushed back the Dutch troops as well as Picton;s brigade on the British left flank.

The French also pushed for

ward their light cavalry brigade with forced the Belgians into square formation. The Anglo-Allied forces received their first reinforcements of Dutch light cavalry (here represented by British Light Dragoons) which helped stabilize their right flank. Interestingly, the French chose not to contest the woods which saw much fighting historically.

The French lancers were able to catch one Highland regiment before it could form square (as happened historically) and they broke and fled the field, leaving the Allied left in poor health.
Finally, the British Brigade of Guards arrived but, even with the road bonus for movement, they were slow in deploying. Meanwhile the remaining regiments of Pictons' division were hard pressed all along the line.

By this time, battle fatigue and the effects of the Belgian beer began to take effect and so we called the game in favor of the French, thinks to the French commanders acting with less caution than Ney did on the historic day. Over all the game played quickly and decisively and we look forward to playing another game, most likely set in Spain soon.