Month: November 2011

The end of the first day (16th Oct 1813.) saw a lot of ground fought over being given up. The French on the southern side withdrew to the suburbs of Leipzig again, after so nearly capturing Lieberwolkwitz. While the North eastern sector faired a little better, holding the woodland to the west of Mockern, the village itself and the Army of Silesia being pushed back to it’s very start lines.
During the second day (17th Oct 1813) historically the allies stood the troops down, Napoleon on the other hand stood to attention, sure that the attack would be imminent. Accordingly I allowed the Allies more movement in exchanging formations in the line. The French could swap with their neighbour or move a sector in Leipzig. The allies nearly two boards on the table, or 48″.

The opening for the final day was in the making, Reynier had arrived with his Saxon contingent which was seemingly unreliable at the end of the 16th. While the allied reserves were pressing in from the south-east and north-east their arrival meaning the French would be outnumbered two to one.

Here are a few Pictures of the first days fighting, I have a load of photo’s and it seems a waste not to share them!

I’ll be bringing you another update for Leipzig on Tuesday, there is a busy period at the WHC for the next few days, getting all the new Russians based, attending the show Warfare and play testing the Sudan! (Yes I did say Sudan! All Peter Gilders rules and hopefully a few thousand of his figures!) Yes I know, it’s a hard life..but there are only so many minutes in a day to bring you guys all this excitement!

See you Tuesday.

The fighting intensified along the southern front. Hesse-Homburg launched the massed Grenadiers of the Austrian reserve at Cracowitz, Klenau stormed into Lauriston’s Corps and Victor, Bertrand and Sebastiani engaged the Russian Grenadier division as well as Wittgenstein and Kleist.

Casualties mounted and a see-saw effect was seen in the allied line, the western side of the Army of Bohemia was moving North, while the centre remained static and the eastern part of the line started to get pushed back on Lieberwolkwitz!

In the North MacDonald arrived and marched straight into Leipzig to be deployed when and where he was needed, followed shortly by Delmas’s division. All these troops allowed the strengthening of the force attacking to the south east toward Lieberwolkwitz and those fighting around Mockern. The Army of Silesia was pushed back on it’s supply line and the arrival of Langeron and shortly after Sacken were checked by the French. Pajol’s cavalry managing to pin large amounts of the Russian infantry until Latour-Maubourg arrived with the Saxon heavy cavalry.

Toward the end of the first day the first Young Guard division was launched at Wittgenstein and Kleist in support of Victor. These started to make head way but fading light began to make the engagement difficult! The Austrian Grenadiers fought a close combat action continuously for several hours with the Poles in and around Cracowitz, by the time it got dark the Poles had fallen back and the Austrians occupied the village. Both sides had lost a lot of men and were glad of the imminent re-locating of forces once the first day was over.

Gyulai occupied Landau and the causeway to the extreme west of the city while Meerveldt occupied the gap between the Rivers Pleisse and Elster.

Over a long weekend a bunch of avid gamers got together here at the Wargames Holiday Centre to play out the largest battle of the Napoleonic War, Leipzig. The battle has so many troops on the table that it takes three days, not the usual two, to play it.

The Battle takes on a new concept of the gaming experience as well, here at the WHC we have two tables 6′ wide and 28′ long, along with a 3′ table again 28′ long. Now to move figures and reach them all these tables have three foot gaps between them, allowing the placement of a board in the gap, if needed. Of course the gaps don’t exist in theory, so they butt up against the next board on the other table, leaving no gaps perceptibly. Well at Leipzig we physically fill the middle gap with a number of boards, leaving a twelve foot by three foot gap that is the city of Leipzig. The French play in this gap and are effectively surrounded by the Allies.

You’ll note the edges of the table here, where the board has been inserted to remove the gap.

Reinforcements arrive throughout the first day of battle, 16th October historically, with more turning up on the third day, the 18th October.

For our games there were ten players, so five a side. The Army of Bohemia starts south and south west of Leipzig, the Army of Silesia to the north west, the Army of the North is marching in from the North east and the Army of Poland coming in from the south east to support the Army of Bohemia. The French have Macdonald, Reynier and Delmas’s division of III corps arriving from the North.

The opening phase of the battle was particularly aggressive, the Austrian IV Corps under the command of Klenau immediately advanced on the village of Zuckelhausen to the south east of Leipzig, while the centre opened up with batteries of artillery on the southern defences of Leipzig. Gyulai’s Corps advanced toward Markranstdat and Lindenau with the aim of cutting off the French withdrawal to the west. Over in the North east, Blucher’s army of Silesia advanced toward the village of Mockern, two Russian Corps were marching in to support the Prussian Corps of Yorck.

The French opened up their side of the engagement in true French fashion and attacked toward these Corps. Victors Corps along with Sebastiani launched an aggressive attack back toward Lieberwolkwitz to the south-east of Leipzig, while Marmont (II Corps)and Souham (III Corps) attacked Blucher and Yorck to the North-East.

In the City of Leipzig the French reserve heavy cavalry of Latour Maubourg (I Cav. Corps) moved North east to support Marmont, Pajol (V Reserve Cav. Corps) and Souham in their attack.

The attack by Sebastiani and Victor hit the Prussians of Kleist’s Corps and a large cavalry melee ensued. Victor pushed toward the village of Lieberwolkwitz. Kleust rushed his Landwehr in to the village and supported the position with his twelve pounder battery. Further to the west on the southern front Klenau baga to take casualties from the batteries of Lauriston and Augerau, the huge Austrian battalions easily soaking up the damage initially.

Half way through the morning the Austrian reserve under Hessen Homburg arrived and pushed toward Cracowitz on the eastern bank of the river Pleisse. The village and surrounding area had just recently been occupied by Poniatowski’s Polish Corps, who were fortifying the position.

Further to the west between the rivers Pleisse and Elster, the Austrian Corps under Meerveldt was navigating it’s way slowly through the open woodland toward Cracowitz. Gyulai was marching to cut off the causeway near Lindenau.

The French moved the Westpahalian Observation Corps out toward the causeway to keep this route open.

More tomorrow!

Just a couple more of the command stands from the Julian Wates stable.

I have watched Julian work and it really is a labour of love, each figure takes an average of ten hours painting. He uses a palette for his colour and mixes all his own highlights, building the colour from a base colour to the finished item.

He used a base coat of white on these figures, which lends to the richness of colour I believe, although it can make it harder for the novice in covering up the initial undercoat with colour.

These are certainly some of the best command figures I have seen for a very long time. Julian undertakes very few commissions as he does this more out of interest than a necessity, however, if you have some old lead you want to convert into masterpieces, just ask me or e-mail him at julian.w@tes.bz.

I have the Salamanca game on this weekend, so expect a report on that in a short while.

In the meantime, I have been working on the Leipzig report, the first instalment will be Monday.

See you then……

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the South West, I went to visit a very good friend of mine, Noel Bilson, the Garage Gamer. The aim of the visit was to return a few figures that I had borrowed in lieu of the Russians fast approaching from Reinforcements by post

While down at the Garage I also got the opportunity to get some figures out and run through a couple of scenarios with Noel, I know, it sounds mad but I still get a real buzz out of seeing really nicely painted figures on the table. Noel has some great regiments as well. Some of the really colourful ones such as the Isembourg regiment, the famous Neuchatel other Swiss line regiments.

He also has Kleve Berg, Saxe-Coburg, Hesse Darmstadt, Italians, Vistula Legion and the Corsican regiment. Alright I know some of these were only in existence for a year or so, but hey they were real and they look great interspersed with the French Line. I also caught sight of his command stands, WOW! He has some of the nicest French command I have ever seen.

One of Justin’s many command stands

Among the gamers that grace the Garage is a gentleman by the name of Justin Davey, he has painted and based a number of command stands and quite a few regiments of troops for the Bilson collection and I have to say, I am very impressed. Sadly I only managed to get one picture this time around, more next time as I think they’re worth it.

Many of the other command stands are from the stable of Julian Wates. Julian paints very few figures these days however the ones he does paint are simply breath taking!

There are five shades of colour on the shabraque alone!

Of course Perry Miniatures lend a lot to the look of the finished piece, however the paint job really sells it to me.

Noel also has a regiment from Firing Line Miniatures that now reside under the Bicorne miniatures banner. These are lovely figures with a lot of fine detail, the added bonus is that they come with seperate heads and occasionally the odd seperate arm, so there is plenty of veriety in the look of the regiment.

These were painted by the veteran Chris Cornwell, great job!

This was modelled by Doug, many many years ago and was presented to me by Mike Ingham, a great figure! It’s only on loan Noel. 😉

I’ll be bringing some more of Julians work to you all tomorrow.

The final episode of Borodino!

The Battle of Borodino was reaching a final conclusion, the Poles had pushed in through Utitsa.

Troops of III Corps were storming the Fleches and the infantry of the I corps were pouring into the Great Redoubt.

In the Russian Centre the Imperial Guard was embroiled in a bitter struggle with the French, contesting every metre of Russian soil making the invader pay with French blood.

Eventually the pressure and additional weight of numbers began to tell. The Poles of V Corps driving in on the troops opposing Ney’s III Corps while the combined efforts of the Italian IV Corps, supporting I Corps along with the fresh troops of the Westphalian VIII Corps began to turn the tide in favour of the Emperor.

The Imperial Guard remained intact, resplendent in their full dress uniforms.

These are from the Bicorne Miniatures range, painted and tweaked by Doug Mason, simply the best.

The Band of the Guard began to play “La Marseillaise” victory was theirs!

These are from the Bicorne Miniatures range as well, although these have been painted by One man and his brushes star Dave Docherty.

Overall the battle was a closely contested event, the bad luck of the artillery running out of ammo early in the battle made the defence of the Redoubt even harder for the Russians.

These are from Front Rank Miniatures painted by Dominic Fielder and are from the collection of Noel Bilson. a.k.a Garage Gamer

The troops of the Russian left fought valiantly to hold the village and surrounding woodland, only conceding the ground at the last. In the centre the Russians exacted a heavy toll.

The casualties in the French ranks mounted and only the class of the troops making the difference.

All the gamers were top notch and real Gentlemen, with much banter being shared around.

My thanks go to all of them for making my first General de Brigade weekend such a success. I was so impressed I have booked four games into the diary for next year.

I look forward to them.