I'm a brigadier in experience with this series, not a divisional commander, so this was my first time trying to divisional command a cav brigade.
As I suspected, the enemy (Biondo and Ciampo, playing the British) went out to take the flanking (east) ridgeline as well as the south ridgeline where the first (and southern) target crossroad was. (Sidenote: the map didn't very well illustrate that the northern crossroad/village was just as high in elevation as the eastern hill/ridge area.) So Miko and I, taking the two smaller divisions (the ones that also had cavalry) met Ciampo's division (I think one was held in reserve at the northern target, but I never heard who commanded it in the afterchat) where we hoped to secure a line of fire upon both target crossroads (keeping in mind we thought we'd be pouring fire down onto the northern crossroad target point).
That was fine, we could have defeated Ciampo's (first?) division in detail, securing the eastern approach to target north and then preparing to meet the third reserve division and outflank it for the northern target.
Unfortunately:
1.) My minor problem was that I couldn't get my cav brigade commander to do much. My larger and smaller infantry brigades did fine, they did their job fixing and reducing their side of the spread out enemy line. Ciampo VERY WISELY anchored his right side (my left) on a pond fed by a brook, so I couldn't send my cavalry directly around there to threaten his arty (and eventually whoever was controlling the British reserve division brought up the other divisional arty to support this line which was a great idea giving a long clear line of fire defense in depth). But I still could have run my cav brigade deep left around the lake to cross the stream and disrupt (if not capture) the first line of arty, and even the second line eventually -- and that might have won us the game. Except my AI cav brigadier was a moron, and I didn't think it would be role playing correctly to take command of his four regiments directly and "brigadier" them myself. Plus doing that would put me totally out of command (for all practical purposes) of my two infantry brigs (as well as out of communication with Miko and Asid), and I wasn't keen about that.
I couldn't get the AI cavalry to exploit several important gaps that I was able to punch in Ciampo's right (my left) either -- except for one, when his regiments near the lake temporarily crumbled: I was able to send my cav brigade to run them down as they ran (heck, I didn't even have to send them) -- but then, with the way clear to Ciampo's arty, I couldn't get them to wheel around and flank the arty either as my infantries advanced.
In the end, aside from that one time, I did the most damage with my cav by ordering the regiments directly. Come to think of it, I created that collapse by giving up trying to send orders to the brigadier and ordering the regiments directly for a few minutes!!
2.) My main problem was that my artillery, all of them, desynched from their captains early in the engagement. This makes two out of three divisional fights this has happened for me, by the way. Apparently this is a known bug, because everyone recommends I take command of the arty elements individually and position them, just to be safe. So noted. One out of my three divisional battles this wasn't a problem at all, and it looked at first like it wouldn't be a problem this time, so I had ordered them up to a commanding view of the battle in the valley where both my infantry brigades were going to push, keeping my cavalry to my left in case I needed to pull them back in a hurry to protect my arty from some kind of sally by the other main force (Biondo as it happens) at the southern crossroad.
They never even tried to go there. My captains did! -- but their arty limbered up and moved down into woods on the other side of the ridgeline to hide for the battle.
This was the main reason for my eventual defeat, and quite probably for the defeat of our wing of the fight. By the time I realized they weren't coming (since they had naturally strung out last in the march and were still quite far away when I gave the positional order, and I haven't played divisional command much and have ignored arty in my years of playing at brigade level so I don't have a clear understanding of their speed -- unless they are running away, in which case their speed is supernaturally godly!), I
might still have been able to turn the flank but the chances of us defeating the reserve division were probably ruined.
Even then I made the mistake (because I was trying to chivvy the cavalry into doing something useful), of commanding the captains to get their arty up on the ridgeline pronto!! -- and then going back down to lend command bonuses on my left flank (and try to direct the cavalry by regiment, which worked to shatter the anchor at the pond, whereupon as noted I made the mistake of trusting the AI to follow my orders to envelop the British arty line.
By the time I realized that wasn't going to happen, someone had brought up British reserve division arty to give support downfield, making my eventual job there harder.)
Nope, no arty on the ridge.
By the time I ran up there and PERSONALLY MADE SURE EVERY ARTY PIECE WAS ON THE WAY TO A USEFUL POINT ON THE RIDGE, our battle was doomed. (Around this time I sent a note to Miko letting him know my division was too broken to continue effectively.)
My minor and major infantry brigades had shattered themselves into being unable to do much more than hold the ground we had gained in the valley for a while. Even once the arty arrived and deployed, I couldn't send them forward again -- and now I could faintly see through the thin treeline to the north, British troops of some kind arriving from the northern crossroad point.
So I gathered up my surviving three cav regiments (the fourth routed to the map edge around this time), took command directly to act as a cav brigadier (I brought him along, too, for a while, for morale bonuses, but eventually forgot him and left him standing around in the grass WHERE HE BLEEPING BELONGED!) shepherded them carefully around the pond, ordered them to advance to the creek, ran back to give a final order to my minor infantry (who looked the strongest at this point -- I couldn't be sure my major infantry even existed any more) to withdraw if they could back to the artillery line (three shattered regiments eventually made it), and then ran back and crossed the creek with my cavalry brigade.
As I fully expected, this forced the British arty to pack up and run. I spent a few minutes opportunistically trying to run them down -- unsure how well I succeeded -- then went to threaten the reserve arty. They packed up and ran quickly, as expected, and from long experience (although SOW:Waterloo seems even worse in this regard) I knew better than to try to chase them as arty can flee like a gale wind.
(I've captured plenty of arty before in TC and TC2.)
By now, although I didn't realize it yet, my cav brigade had outflanked the British reserve infantry divisions which had been moved up by someone (I don't know who controlled them) to keep Miko from advancing. I saw one arty sitting up the ridgeline behind the thin treeline, so for want of anything better to do I trotted up to it to keep it sheeping along instead of deploying...
...and there was the north target, completely undefended!
Dang skippy I trotted my cav brigade into it, just ahead of Biondo's attempts at getting back to it first. (I didn't want them tired out so I didn't race them until the end. But I forgot my cavalry brigadier, Huber, in the run: he was useless anyway.)
Consequently, I took the northern crossroads as a brigadier cav general -- except a crippled one (since I don't know how or whether I can attach units organically to my command, so I was chivvying them all manually). WOOT!
I hadn't told Miko (I figured Asid's lines to me had long been cut anyway, as expected when we planned the overall strategy) that I was heading for north point by myself, since I really had only planned to disrupt the two arty lines, which I figured he would see and exploit if he had anything left to do so. Once I got into the village, I sent out a note to him as a test, to let him know I was there, but I expected it would be intercepted. If so, fine: I wanted whoever was controlling that wing and/or the reserve division to come back so Miko would advance.
I knew DEFINITELY that sending a note to Asid would be intercepted, but by now substantial British forces from South Crossroads had started pulling back my direction so I figured if Asid had anything left to work with he could see the line weakening and do something. I still sent some taunts to the British that way for fun.
(Shortly after arriving and sending off my note to Miko, I announced on the voice that "I AM
LITERALLY TAKING THE PISS NOW!" -- whereupon I went off keyboard to pee, since nothing I did would count anymore other than getting my cav regiments back in the town if they ran for some reason. But figuratively that was my strategy, too, which I couldn't announce to my allies of course but I figured Biondo and Ciampo should know -- since my whole point now was to get them off Asid and Miko as much as I could.)
For the last 15 minutes of the game, or maybe 20, I camped on target north and laughed occasionally. One of my cav regiments took a cannon to the face early and went home, but the other two stayed (with some chivvying) until they finally routed in the game's final seconds.
I shall consider this a moral victory.
Translations for our friends around the world.
Topic: SOW Waterloo Multiplayer 25/02/17 (Read 8308 times)
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March 28, 2018, 08:55:36 PM
