Post of Honour & Shadow of the Eagles

Checking the blog today, I was taken aback by the fact that I hadn't posted for nearly 2 months. How time flies! Anyway, I reckoned a report on a couple of recent games using my own rules and featuring real historical actions might make a worthwhile post.

A Word About The Rules

I was asked recently why I developed Post of Honour for the SYW, when Honours of War was already published and doing quite well. The answer is that, after HoW was published, I decided it might be fun to develop a generic set of Horse and Musket rules with a definite Old School feel. As so often, I started with Donald Featherstone-style basics for movement, firing and melee, but soon realised that these wouldn't really do for 21st century wargaming. To cut a long story short, after a year or more of tinkering, I came up with a reasonable system, but at the same time changed my mind about the 'generic' idea, and instead fine tuned the rules for use with the horse and musket figures I had - that is, the SYW. And so that was Post of Honour.

PoH was always just a fun project that satisfied my Old School tendencies, a project never intended for publication as it would obviously clash with HoW. However, the whole 'generic' thing had got me thinking about other Horse and Musket periods with which I was less familiar than the SYW. Top of the list was an historical wargaming period that was extremely popular, but which I had hardly ever gamed and knew very little about. That period was Napoleonics. So I found some inspiration and spent a couple of years reading lots of books about the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and adapted and expanded PoH into Shadow of the Eagles, which eventually got published by Partizan Press.

The publishing process was a fun experience, especially co-operating with the graphic designer at Partizan Press to produce the best possible product. Being published by Partizan also got me a couple of reviews and a supporting article in the glossy magazines, which was great. But I was also quickly educated in how a set of rules in a heavily populated market like Napoleonics can get lost in the crowd. To keep the rules in the wargaming 'public eye', I would have needed levels of motivation and a desire for self-promotion that I really didn't have  What actually happened was that, after SotE was published, I simply moved onto the next project that took my fancy. This turned out to be WW2, and a set of rules that ended up being called Startline.

And that's where I am now. HoW and SotE are out there and still selling. PoH and Startline are both available for free via the Files section of my wargaming Facebook page. I did think at one point I might try and get Startline published, but development has been slow and involved. WW2 can be a real bugger to write rules for, particularly if you want to be comprehensive as regards both the nations involved, the full time-period from 1939 to 1945, and all the aspects of the conflict from infantry to aircraft. And then there's that 'crowded market' thing. If it applies to Napoleonics, it applies in spades to WW2. So maybe publication isn't worth aiming for.

Anyway, I promised two battle reports. Here they are.

1. The Battle of Znaim 1809

This was a Napoleonic action played at the Cirencester Wargames Club, and as usual the game was planned and set up by Stu, the club's host, Games Master and general lynchpin. The Battle of Znaim (pronounced 'snime' according to the interweb) was fought in 1809 and was the last battle of the Fifth Coalition. You can check out the details of Stu's scenario on his blog, but briefly the battle involved nearly 37,000 French against around 40,000 Austrians, so Stu had to do some tricksy 'bathtubbing' to represent the two armies.

It was nice of Stu to select SotE as the rules to be used. The club had tried out both Lasaalle 2 and Blücher recently, both of which I found interesting and enjoyable to play, but Stu found that SotE flowed quickly and intuitively and I guess they took his fancy. Maybe it was the slightly old school feel as opposed to the feel of the much cleverer sets I just mentioned. He developed a few house rules which streamlined play slightly, and these worked well. 

I suggest popping over to Stu's blog for a proper account if you're interested - here I will just put up some images along with some random comments. Thanks to Chris at the club for letting me use some of his photos. Overall, the game was quite a scrap, and developed into a very toe-to-toe, see-sawing slogging match which was both involving and entertaining. The photo at the top of this post is from the game, and amply demonstrates the intense nature of the fighting. Here, we can start with some shots of the initial deployment. 28mm figures were in use:

These are Claperede's French force, with the village of Zuckerhandel in front of them.
This Corps was under my steady(ish) hand.

On my left was Beckers' corps, with Tesswitz ahead over the bridge,
the latter already occupied by Murray's brigade of Austrians.

Here we see the Austrian corps of Alstern occupying Znaim itself.

Battle commences! French on the left, Austrians to the right. My French infantry
occuppied Zuckerhandel, and just about managed to hang on for the rest of the game.

In the centre the cavalry regiments from both sides quickly piled up and
a series of close combats ensued, with fortunes swinging back and forth.

Tesswitz was attacked by French and Swiss brigades but the Kaiserliches held on.

On the extreme right two regiments of French cavalry elect to hurl themselves
up the hill against Austrian infantry temptingly deployed in line...

...but an emergency change into square was successful and the cavalry fell back.

Overall, the French attacks had failed and the Austrians were the winners. 
Honestly, they were a lot more cheerful than the photo would suggest.
I think I caught them at a bad moment.

A grand game indeed, using a 10' x 4' table and six gamers. The centre of the table was defintely where the main action was. However, sometimes minor dramas catch our attention. The two atttempts by the small French cavalry force on the extreme French right to dislodge Austrian infantry on the heights in front of them was good fun. In both cases a quick change into square was made, with the inevitable result as the French cavalry tumbled back over the river. C'est la guerre!

2. The Combat of Sandershausen 1758

For this game I was the host, and so the clock was turned back 50 years to the SYW. Sandershausen was a small engagement in Germany between Hessian forces under the Prinz von Ysenburg, and a French force under the Duc de Broglie. With 8,500 French troops against 6,500 Hessians, it would be possible to represent the various battalions and regiments on a 1 to 1 scale.

The initial inspiration was from Dinos Antoniadis' HoW scenario book, published last year. Sandershausen is the first scenario in that book. I also quickly discovered the battle had featured in Charles Grant's Wargaming in History, Volume 1, from 2009. The map below gives a good picture of the layout of the engagement, and is taken from Dinos' book.

© Dinos Antoniadis 2025

I made a couple of tweaks to the scenario as developed by Dinos. The first was adjustiing the forces - PoH doesn't have 'small' or 'large' units, although it does have provision for half units. In the end I made all the units a standard size, but the French battalions in particular were a little undersized in real life, so to keep the force ratio correcct the number of French line battalions on the table was reduced from 11 to 9. The five small units of cavalry in the French second line became 3 full size units. Satisfyingly, when the terrain was laid out, this meant the French occupied the same area on the table as shown in the various maps of the real battle. 

Secondly, I placed an objective marker on each of the roads leading off the table to the north, representing the Hessian need to cover their lines of retreat. I should add that the French troops were portrayed by my 28mm Austrian figures, whilst Prussian models represented the Hessians. Table size was 8' x 6'.

An interesting aspect of this battle is that the terrain and the available forces resulted in a rather non-SYW deployment, with light troops on the wings of both armies and the cavalry towards the centre. This was to result in a rather Napoleonic feel to the action, but with the infantry unable to form squares.

And so to a photo report on the action:

The terrain completed. One layer of old TSS 20mm thick tiles had to do for
representing the higher ground upon which the Hessians deployed.

The troops are now added. The area in front of Ellenbach is marked
with some lichen pieces to show an area of particularly steep ground.

The Hessians had a clear plan, and part one was a determined
cavalry spoiling attack against the French centre-right.

A French infantry battalion was sent reeling back, but the French cavalry
were themselves soon involved. The cavalry sortie had done well,
but the French left continued forward towards the high ground.

The left-most French infantry battalion plunged into the woods to
help out its light infantry comrades.

On the extreme right flank, French progress towards Ellenbach was slow.

The French centre is thoroughly disrupted whilst the
big cavalry melee is sorted out.

Overview at mid-game. Part two of the Hessian plan was revealed
as their infantry line fell back steadily, trading space for time.

The French left continued to press forward up the slope. They charged in but were repulsed.
This photo shows their high-water mark.

On the opposite flank, Ellenbach was still disputed at the end of the game.

Things were equally undecided on the wooded banks of the Fulda River.

After the Hessian cavalry were finally sent packing, one regiment of
French dragooons managed to break through to one of the
objective markers (left), but it was not quite enough for a victory.

After the planned 8 moves, the French losses were light - one weakened unit and one sub-general killed, which made just 1 break point lost. The Hessians had five weakened units, two units routed and one lost objective, which came to 6.5 break points lost. They were just half a point from breaking and losing, but it was enough - they had done their job of delaying and disrupting the French advance.

It was clear that if one more move was played the French would rout at least one more Hessian unit and the Hessians would break. It had been a close game, with everything to play for right to the end, which is ideal in a friendly wargame such as this. 

Final Words

The real Battle of Znaim lasted 2 days, and ended in what is usually agreed to be a draw. Our game represented the action on the first day, during which the French took both Tesswitz and Zuckerhandel. So in our wargame the French had achieved less than they had in real life. It was generally agreed that the failure to take Tesswitz was at least partly due to this being the first game of SotE ever played by the commander representing Beckers - his attacks had been piecemeal as result of not fully appreciating how to apply the rules to best advantage. He was sitting right next to me, and I should have advised him better.

The progress of the Sandershausen action had been more in line with how the real battle progressed - the Hessian tactics were similar to those in the real battle, using their cavalry to disrupt the French infantry advance and then slowly falling back as French pressure increased. Despite their advantage in numbers, the French have a tough task to win this scenario - I felt that the two objective markers on the roads behind the Hessians should have been a bit nearer the French, to make the French task at little easier.

One final thing worth mentioning is that the 'non-SYW' style of Sandershausen is far from unusual. It is evident when one starts to check out SYW battles that the idea of linear battles with infantry in the centre and cavalry on the wings is only part of the story. As I mention in Honours of War, terrain and the realities of manouevring troops, as well as innovative tactics by commanders, often created battles far from the coventional cliché. A major example was the Battle of Hochkirch, which I had good fun wargaming many years ago. If you check the link, you'll find I'm still using the same felt battle mat more than ten years later!

Anyway, it was very pleasant to play two decent-sized games that used my rules and were both successful and enjoyable.

'Til next time!