Chateaux and How to Take Them
The basics
First, we must look at the basic objectives / methods that are used in
attacking a Chateau. Why are you attacking this chateau? (Hint: The answer is not Victory
Points.)
Most likely the Chateau is either Papelotte, LHS, or the dreaded Hogomount,
and most likely it is in the way of your main attack, and has been loaded down
with skirmishers ready to pour enfilade fire down upon any troops that try to
attack around it. Right? If that's not the case, ask yourself once again, WHY
are you attacking this Chateau, attacking a chateau can be a lengthy,
resource-draining endeavor, and unless you really need those troops out of
there, DO NOT attack it. Especially for a mere 200 VP, Granted, you would have
to lose 50 cannon or 5000 infantry to make it a wash, but you will add fatigue,
waste time, waste resources, and tie up troops in the attack. THINK before you
begin the attack.
Okay, let's assume that the chateau must fall.
Question: What must be done to take it?
Answer: The garrison in the chateaux must either be 1) destroyed, 2) or
routed out of it AND it must be impossible for your foe to re-garrison it.
How can you do that? There are two different ways to 'destroy' them, with
ranged fire or via melee. And since cavalry cannot enter a Chateaux, then it
must be melee with infantry, even more bad news, when you do melee a chateau's
garrison, the attacking troops have their strength values halved (for purposes
of melee odds.)
Getting the troops to rout out of the chateau and, more importantly, getting
them to rout out of the chateau and making sure it can't be re-garrisoned is
very tricky. The problem with this method is twofold. 1. They will rout at the
beginning of your foes movement phase, which means.. 2. Since they were able to
rout out of the chateau, most likely, troops can get back into the chateau (but
not always!)
On a side note, they will not rout out of the chateaux because of losses
suffered during an (obviously) failed melee, it must be either ranged fire or
adjacent troops that trigger the rout check.
What method you use depends on the type of troops, strength (size) of those
troops, the ground around the Chateau, and the Chateau itself.
The ground
The ground is the first place to start. This must be analyzed before any
attack can begin on the Chateau. You are trying to figure out two things when analyzing the ground around a
Chateau.
1. What ground can we attack the chateau from: both from ranged fire and
melee's?
2. How easy is it to take and hold the ground we must attack from; with (this
is important!) the garrison present in the chateau. Since we only have two
options on getting the garrison out of there, the analysis of the ground is
rather easy. Where can we fire at the chateau from? Think in term's of infantry
lines and cannon. Marching lines up to the Chateau is always less desirable than
cannon, so look for cannon spots first. The easy way, make the Chateaux the
hot-spot, hit the 'ol LOS icon on the tool bar and make a note of any hex that
has LOS to the chateau from 2-6 hexes away. (you can go up to 6 with class-A
cannon). One hex is always a sure thing, and 3-6 all depend on the type of
cannon (3-4 for B, 3-6 for A). All cannon are good from a range of two. Not
quite a one-hex fire power, but much better than 3+.
Once you realize where you can/have decided to fire on the chateau from, the
ground must be secured. This can be the tough part but believe me when I say
this, any attack upon a chateau will fail if you do not secure the ground around
it first. I will repeat that. Any attack upon a chateau will fail if you do not
secure the ground around it first. Now, you do not have to secure it an hour in
advance, it can be secured the very turn in which you take the chateau, but it
STILL must be secured by infantry.
The chateau
The next, and fairly obvious factor is the chateau itself. The main thing we
are concerned with here is path of least resistance. They go in this order 1.
Open 2. Hedge/Embankment/Elevation* 3. Low Wall 4. Gate 5. High Wall (cannot
melee, ranged fire only!)
Gate/High wall are very undesirable unless it is your only option. If a Low
wall or something else exists, I would spend more time taking the ground around
the chateau, so the attack upon the chateaux can take place over the
wall/hedge/open than trying to attack a chateau through a gate or over a high
wall.
*If you can place yourself higher than the chateaux, you can give the
defenders -'s to their ranged fire; However, if you have to be lower than the
chateau you get more -'s for ranged fire and melee's.
The types of troops
Finally, some good news, the only troops allowed in a chateau are infantry,
and infantry comes in two forms. Skirmishers and Line Bn. (lord help us if the
game allowed artillery!)
Skirmishers are the toughest, so we'll talk about those suckers later.
Line Bn. have two big weaknesses in defending a chateaux. 1. Line Bn. do not
reduce ranged fire, so cannon from 3-5 hexes can still inflict a good hurt! 2.
Line Bn. Cannot form a square in a chateau, so they must be in column or line
and therefore they have a flank. Which is a lot more important than you
think.
Your best bet here is to just blast away with cannon and infantry lines,
don't bother melee'n them at all, most likely the numbers and odds will be too
great anyway. They WILL eventually rout out of the chateau or be destroyed from
your cannon's. All it takes is time, if it must be done quickly, bring more
cannon. Only melee when/if the numbers get reasonable (like BELOW 100 left), and
then send in one or two columns for the Coup de Gras. Of course, if they all
die, melee with what you have in the area for that 'defending hex overrun' and
take that freebee!
Routing
While we are on the subect, this is probably a good time to diverge to the
subject of troops routing out of a chateau. First, YES, it does happen. So:
'Show them a way to live, that way they will not be so willing to fight to
the death' - Sun Tzu
If you want the defenders to rout, DO NOT surround the chateau, well, at
least not completely. Your best beat is to secure the ground around the chateau
so you can leave the exists/entrances open, and have no fear of reinforcements
ariving. If you can`t do that, get ZOC's around the entire chateau, but still
allow an exit to be open. Its a tricky manouver, but can be done. The problem
here is a troop will rout at the beginning of your foe's movement phase, which
means he will be able to re-man it if you keep an exit open. This (sometimes)
can be prevented with creative ZOC's. Figure it out.
This is also why the flank of the columns and lines help out a bunch. If you
are lucky enough to get a line enfilade, then not only will you get a +2 to your
FRT roll, but you also get that ever-important +2 DRM to the rout check! If
their in column, no big deal, no +2 FRT mod but cannon still get there 50%
increase in fire factor (25% for infantry lines), and the +2 DRM for the rout
check still applies. Even Qual-7 troops have a chance of routing with just the
enfilade modifier, qual-5 or 4 forget it.. they are out of there.
Skirmishers
This is your nightmare. Skirmishers defending a Chateau. First, if there are
more than 250 of 'em in it, blast away just like it was a Line Bn. Until their
numbers are reduced to 250 or less (hopefully you can get 'em to like 275, and
kill 50-100 to get them actually below the 250 skirmish mark, and not right at
it). It is very helpful to have the chateau isolated by this point too,
otherwise more troops will keep piling in and you'll never get anywhere.
Remember, leave an exit open if you can! At this point, the skirmishers have a
good chance to rout, if not completely destroyed, w/t ranged fire. Once one
rout's, they all disorder making the rest easier to rout, then when a couple
start running low on ammo, they rout even easier, etc, etc...
Once the skirmishers hit the 250 skirmish mark, or if your foe was smart
enough not to overload the chateau, life becomes miserable. And this really
becomes a game of understanding the game mechanics, lucky rolls, and throwing
columns of troops upon the chateau, hoping & praying that you don't lose too
many troops, or fatigue too many troops in the attempt. [Editors Note: If you
are playing with the optional isolation rule, once skirmishers get below the 250
mark, and are isolated, their effective force is 125 or less, almost making it
possible to melee with some decent odds, without sacrificing your entire army in the
process.]
Also, after a couple of failed melee's (it will happen!) the troops inside
the chateaux fatigue should be up around the 4+ mark and beginning to effect the
rout chances. At this point you might want to really consider giving the troops
a path out (of course without allowing more troops in), and letting the cannon try
and get the lucky 25-man hit and get the defenders to flee. This is important,
even if you can't get them all to run, at least you can reduce their numbers,
making the melee's a little less painful.
Combo Best bet here. Treat 'em like you would any Chateau defended by
battalions, try get 'em to rout and hope they take the skirm's with them. If
they don't, make sure you have read the section on skirmishers real well.
The strength
The actual numbers are not as important as the quality of the troops
defending the chateau. Everyone knows what a pain those qual-7
Footguard/Coldstream skirmishers are. We've all tried to dig them out of
Hogomount before. Its not that easy, is it? But yet, Those qual-4 skirmishers in
and around Papelotte seem to go much easier. Weird.
Numbers are numbers, and all numbers can be defeated with more numbers,
quality on the other hand. Quality can overcome numbers and situation, and lets
face it they got a good situation here. Which means its just that much more
difficult.
Example of melee: 2-100 man skirmishers are in a chateaux, to melee it with 6:1 odds you must
attack with 2400 infantry. i.e. It can't be done.
Check out this table:
Those are some horrible numbers. A brief summary on game
mechanics.
What that means, if your fire, upon ANY target has a greater negative
modifier than the one given in the Max. Modifier column, you CANNOT do damage to
that target, all you can do is increase the fatigue, and if the modifier is two
greater "negatively" than that value, you can't even do that. Remember this. Ohh
yeah, the qual-6+ (mod 1) to fire increases the Max. Modifier by one.
Here's something else. When skirmishers are below the skirmish line (250
troops or less in a hex), the MAXIMUM fire that 6-class D cannons can do (at
range one) is 18. No higher, that's at range one, and range two its 12 (that's
A,B, or D's) and at range 3 (for A's or B's) its 8.
One last thing: good luck people, you`ll need it...
