I recently received the copy I ordered of The First Battle Lost - 1809 in Germany, a mid-war ESR Napoleonics Campaign Guide. This 210 page hardback book is an amazing resource for anyone interested in gaming the campaign of 1809 up until the battle of Aspern-Essling, whether at the operational level using a ruleset like Et Sans Resultat/ESR Napoleonics, or as a reference for other levels of wargaming.
Let’s dig in:
Visuals
The book is gorgeous. The colors are extremely vibrant, the text is all very readable and distinct. The production quality is high - this is a very well-made book. Sometimes you need to look at all 3 map versions for a given battle to be able to understand the terrain, as a given blue or yellow deployment zone will slightly obscure the underlying ground, but that’s not a big deal. Overall, the book is well worth the investment.
Battles and game content
The book contains 14 battles ranging from Bavaria to Italy to Poland and ending up on the banks of the Danube outside of Vienna. Each scenario has 3 maps (general tactical and one for each side with the information available to that side at that time + an operational summary map), a general briefing and briefings for each side.
Crucially, and this is an upgrade from prior books - the objectives are quite granular for each scenario - there are specific breakpoint #s to achieve or avoid, locations to capture, or other nuances, that give you great flexibility in judging your success or failure.
I was able to run everyone’s favorite Teugen-Hausen scenario, and as the French, it was great fun trying to see how much of Davout’s corps I could evacuate while maintaining an effective defensive cordon around the supply train in the face of a much more active Charles and Rosenberg (battle report forthcoming).
I think these frameworks are easily transferable across rulesets, while offering something you won’t get out of most scenario sets. Considering Teugen-Hausen from a strategic perspective, and not just zooming in on the ground between the two towns, is unique, and gives the players a chance to take a different approach (although in that particular scenario you quickly understand why everyone ended up in that relatively clear patch of ground).
Next, we come to the OOBs. These are all comprehensive, with stats for both ESR v2 and v3. To my eye, they reflect a complete and historical picture of the forces down to the # of battalions or regiments making up each brigade/division, with individualized profiles for each regiment. Another innovation from prior books is that the starting cohesion value for each formation is given, which lets you quickly calculate combat resolution for a formation that is fully deployed.
Finally, all of this content is wrapped into a coherent campaign structure, allowing you to play each scenario and determine the course of the war heading into the pre-Wagram lull on the main front.
Reference materials
The last part of the book is a series of text and images depicting almost any uniforms from the campaign you could think of in great detail, broken out by unit and position.
For example, you will find excellent front and rear paper doll images of an officer, drummer, sapper, grenadier, fusilier and voltigeur for each depicted french infantry regiment. An Austrian cavalry regiment entry features front and rear images of an officer, bugler, and trooper, as well as their saddle equipment. Allied nations and even minor regiments like the Wattrich Jager are included.
When combined with the text sections explaining fluctuations in uniforms across regiments, this book is an all-in-one source for any gamer looking at this period.
Overall, I am really pleased with this book, as a player focused on gaming 1809 at various levels, and as a hobbyist. I can’t recommend it enough.
Thanks for reading!!
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