Leipzig 200 Megagame - Battle of the Nations!

On Sunday 20^th October 10 NSW wargamers met at the Campbelltown FLGS ‘The Hall of Heroes’ to play a Black Powder mega game to commemorate the 200^th anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig.

The majority of the more photogenic figures on table were 28mm Perry Plastics suberbly painted by Fon's Mabuhay Miniatures Painting Service. A must have painting service if you want a large Napoleonic army quickly!

We used 4,000 28mm figures and played over 144 square feet of gorgeous terrain.

Of course the actual Battle of Leipzig was too huge even for model megalomaniacs like us to attempt to replicate wholesale. It was the largest battle in recorded history to date, and was fought over 3 days over a huge area. Truly it earned its title of ‘Battle of the Nations’!

Instead we concentrated on replicating just one aspect of the fighting – that which occurred in the South Western sector on the 16^th October on the Wachau ridge. For wargamers this action if of interest because you can mix up the armies from several nationalities – for the Coalition allies, Austro Hungarians fought alongside Prussians and Russians, whilst French, Poles and Saxons all fought for Napoleon.

But as well as being a colourful action, it is also very dynamic, and can easily be broken down into 3 distinct phases. First the Allies, principally Prussians and Russians, launched a somewhat disjointed offensive against the Wachau ridge, failing to coordinate properly with the main Austrian forces….
 

Of course, Napoleon was not long in spotting this, and, having his Imperial Guard and Cavalry Reserve to hand, seized the opportunity to launch and effective counter attack. Well, historically, the Infantry of the Guard were effective, Murat’s cavalry less so…

Auenhayn. Scratch built by Jim and Sons.

In any case the main Austro Hungarian Reserve formations turned up to stablilise the front for further exploitation the over the next days…but not the concern of this game, some other time perhaps!

Designing the scenario threw up some challenges. I wanted to force the action to follow the 3 phases, but retaining a strong element of free play. I therefore came up with a set of Victory Conditions that combined the standard Objective holding with an element of gaining victory by attrition. However in the previous Dennewitz game this all came to nought as players were reluctant to aim for victory by destroying enemy units since they might themselves lose units, and therefore points, in the process…

Victory Points by Attrition:					Victory Points by Capturing Ground:
Move	Theme	Allies to gain	French to gain	Notes	Location	No. of ‘Blocks’	Garrison	VPs when taken
1-4	Allies attack	1 per formed unit destroyed		Allies not penalised for lost units	Markleeberg	1	1 bn ea block	2 ea block
5-8	Fr counter attack		1 per formed unit destroyed	French not penalised for lost units	Wachau	2		3
9-10	Austrians Stablilise	1 per formed unit destroyed	1 per formed unit destroyed		Crostewitz	1		2

The main point to note is that during either side’s attacking phase of 4 moves, they are were penalised for their own losses. This was designed to encourage aggression and plenty of manoeuvre a l’outrance!

Thanks to great work by the Hall of Heroes team and Terry, who is becoming something of a terrain and layout guru, when we arrived bright and early the landscape representing the environs of Wachau was beautifully laid out and deployment cards laid out to aid the process of laying out thousands of model troops. It only remained for the team briefs. Quite deliberately the Coalition command structure was vague and fractured, to represent the difficulties of Coalition command and the interference from the various Monarchs on the field. However by contrast the homogenous nature of the French army was well represented by a clear and focussed brief from Phil as the French Commander.

As the players started to deploy, it was disappointed to see much use of line formation by those not familiar with the 1813 campaign. I often think that Napoleonics would benefit from the clear distinction that Flames of War has given WW2 gaming by dividing it into Early, Middle and Late War, since the players could not be persuaded that the use of line by hastily raised and trained conscript battalions, in the open, would have been rare, to say the least. I resorted to declaring that conscript troops deployed in line would be deemed Shaken, and so subject to Break tests if they received casualties. A little drastic perhaps, but it seemed to encourage more historical deployment.

As the action opened, it was only really in the middle third of the table that the Prussians, under Jason, with Command values as good as the French ones, launched the all-out aggressive attacks that the Allies needed to take advantage of their ‘offensive phase’. On either flank, the lower command values of the Russians and Austrians hampered movement, and on the far Western flank the swampy ground around the Schaukelgraben, which reduced Infantry and Cossack movement by half, and was impassable to heavier cavalry, added to the delay and frustrations experienced by Russian commanders here, Bryan and Austin. The beaten zone of the French Grand Battery was also murderous to the masses of Allied Cavalry unfortunately deployed to its front. Over on the Eastern flank Jim's Austrian light cavalry soon had the French Infantry pinned into square, but once again the poor Austrian Command values meant that getting the Infantry up to take advantage was problematic.

However the Coalition team struggled manfully on, and on move 4, the last move of their offensive phase, they started to reap the reward, with 4 French units being destroyed, and the Prussians launching determined attacks on Wachau. These were initially rebuffed by the defenders in the strong stone building of this town, with +2 to their morale saves, but in the next move persistence paid off, and the 2^nd Silesian Fusiliers stormed into the Eastern half of Wachau, earing the Coalition 3 Victory Points. With another French unit destroyed, as well as the garrison, this meant that the Coalition attacking phase ended with a total of 8 Victory points.

At this stage it was becoming clear that we would not have time to complete all 3 of the planned phases of the game. In a sense as a wargaming group, we are victims of our own success, attracting new blood all the time, which is great, but of course inexperienced players, no matter how enthusiastic, can slow things down. It was agreed with both teams that we would simply play to move 8, omitting the third Coalition Consolidation phase, when the bulk of the Coaltion Reserves and Guards would have arrived.

So at this stage, it was the French turn to take the offensive, representing Napoleon sensing that the Allies had shot their bolt, and now was the time to commit the Reserve Cavalry, and then the Guard, to seize the initiative and take advantage of the failure of the Coalition to consolidate their overwhelming numbers  – entirely as a result of the scenario conditions, of course, not the fault of the coalition team!

It is rare in historically based scenarios for players to get to commit both the Old and Young Guard, and the mass of Reserve Cavalry Cuirassiers, so it was with a certain amount of relish that Phil unleashed the dark blue wave!

Whilst the Heavies made good progress in taking on what remained of the Coalition cavalry, and Terry and Vic were leading the Young Guard in a dangerous looking advance on the Western Flank towards Crostewitz, the attempts by the Old Guard to retake Wachau were rebuffed by the stout Prussian defenders.

However more generally across the Western and Central portion of the field the French and Poles were getting stuck in, and over on the Eastern Flanks forces from Troy's V Corps were effectively interdicting Coalition efforts to redeploy around the swampy ground. As a result of a well-coordinated and bold series of French assaults Coalition units were being destroyed all over the place, so that in no time the French team and met and exceeded the Coalition Victory Points tally.

At move 7, more in defiance than expectation of victory, Richard duly started to bring on the Austrian Reserves, with an outside chance of capturing Markleeburg with its 3 Victory Points. However the curse of low Coalition Command Values meant that his daring and aggressive orders failed, and he had to content himself with stabilising the sector.

The Coalition team can take pride in the fact that they seized half of Wachau, and despite the continued efforts of Napoleon’s finest, held onto it throughout the game. Also worth a mention in despatches I think are the gallant 1^st Silesian Landwehr Battalion, who were somehow able to destroy a unit of the Old Guard!

So all in all the game played out fairly historically, with the initial Coalition assaults frustrated by a disjointed approach (represented by an unpromising table deployment) and poor staff work (low command values); whereas the French were able to capitalise on Napoleon’s presence (Command value of 10) and having strategic holy trinity on hand – the Guard Grand Battery, Cavalry Reserve, and Old and Young Guard corps.

Lessons learnt? If we were to replay the scenario, I would probably lengthen the Coalition assault phase to 5 or 6 moves, or perhaps reduce the impact of the swampy ground to make more of a game of it for the Coalition team.

But all in all an enjoyable and spectacular looking game, and a suitable commemoration of the 200^th anniversary of the ‘Battle of the Nations’…

Dennewitz 200th - Problems with Scenario design...

Last week, we held our postphoned Dennewitz 1813 game to mark the 200th anniversary of that Battle. Now given adequate resources, and time, this confused encounter battle should be one of the easier 1813 games to stage on the wargames table, since the various formations were committed in piecemeal fashion.

I would recommend that anyone thinking of replaying this in 28mm await my mate Kawe's groups' notes on this battle which will be linked on the Westfalia miniatures website: http://westfaliaminiatures.com/

However for our purposes I wanted to come up with a 'Dennewitz Lite' scenario that would adequately give a taste of the see-saw, ad-hoc and confused nature of that fighting. And, if I'm honest, cram as many of our 28mm miniatures on as large a table as possible!



The French lead Brigades...



However, not being utterly divorced from reality, I did realise that our main constraint would be time - we play on a Thursday evening from 7:00pm and so would only have about 3 hours playing time.

Now being a keen, if  inexperienced, Longstreet player, I thought we could hasten play by having victory conditions that simply reflected that, once the armies clashed, the one first to recieve an unacceptable level of casualties - the break point - would withdraw in order to regroup...this surely would allow us to have a visually impressive game without too much time being taken up with full scale deployment - a short sharp battle of attrition to resulting in a few hit and run raids, perhaps a concentrated Artillery barrage or two, perhaps one or two Battalion bayonet charges - then we could all pack up and go home.

Opening Cav clashes - so far so good!

Essentially, once each side had destroyed 4-5 units of the enemy, in any command phase they could make a Victory roll, and with a D6 score plus the number of destroyed units equalling 10, claim victory - so the last half of the game should have had an aspect of 'sudden death' tension!

Instead, what we got, as faithfully recorded on Alan's excellent blog http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/dennewitz-200.html was a massed scrimmage reminiscent of our Borodino refight at the height of that sanguinary epic! So what went wrong?

Well, lets start with the planning - here is my scenario that was sent out to the players:

Dennewitz Meeting Engagement – Black Powder Scenario

This scenario is loosely based on the confused fighting between Crown Prince Bernadotte’s Coalition Army of the North, made up of Russians, Prussians and Swedes, and Marshal Ney’s French-Polish-Saxon Army of Berlin in the sandy woodlands in the Potsdam heathland and forest in September 1813.



Gardes d'Honneur painted by MMPS -
Their pretty uniforms didn't impress the enemy!

 Ney is attempting to take Berlin, but with a smaller army than the Coalition. Having just replaced Oudinot, who was sacked by Napoleon for lack of aggression, he is determined to attack despite the odds. However slavishly following Napoleon’s detailed orders that arrive every day, but which are invariably 24-48 hours out of date, his manoeuvring baffles Bernadotte, and von Bulow, leading to several confused confrontations…

In this tactical scenario, both armies meet head on along a forested road, with little scope for flanking manoeuver. A battle of attrition ensues…

Victory Conditions.

The game ends when an army exceeds its break point of 10. Each Bn, Regiment or Battery destroyed or driven off the table contributes 1 break point. On destroying an enemy unit, any player may announce a Break Point check, and roll a D6 for additional break points. Or the game will end after 12 moves, with the side with the least number of break points winning.

Ground.

The battle will be played along an 18 foot long table, 6 foot wide, with a metalled road running down the middle. Dense pine woods line the long table edges, occasionally protruding into the table to shorten its width. Some undulations are present, which provide dead ground and the opportunity for overhead artillery fire.

French Heavy artillery only rocked up late on...

Deployment.

Each sides lead Light Cavalry Brigade will start on table, the French 3 feet into the table, the Coalition 2 feet in. A cavalry general from each nationality will be on table for this first move. Divisional Generals will automatically rock up on the second move. Each side will know their own order of march, but subsequent brigades will arrive on table, per march order, only if there is space for them to arrive. They will be placed by the umpire deployed in Assault Column on either side of the road, guns on the road.

Orders of march will be posted to each side separately. The +2 orders modifier will apply to Brigades in Assault Columns who remain echeloned parallel and against the road edges, with their guns of the road, as if they were in March column.

The Heavy Cav Bdes were the last to arrive in the scenario - here is the Franco Saxon one with the remnants of the Light Bde regrouping in the background.

However, the game did not develop as the scenario intended, whilst the ‘sudden death’ victory conditions were designed to develop a pell-mell encounter battle, they just seemed to cause a scrum with everyone reluctant to engage…

The French attempt to pick off a Landwher unit -
thats the idea!

And I don’t blame anyone for not reading the scenario and studying the orbats, which meant that players spent several moves deploying carefully for an all-out engagement, rather than picking off easier bite sized nibbles to attrit the enemy. Time is precious, and I have to recognise that we all have different priorities, but I do value team games with players who are not dedicated Nap nuts like myself!

And in the weekday eveinging club wargame setting, a more comprehensive pre-game brief to repeat the scenario would not have helped either as players tend to rock up in dribs and drabs, and only a couple of the players were only present at the start of the game. I think the reality is that the game was far too ambitious for an evening game.

However, its not all doom and gloom - every one had a good time, including 2 newcomers to Black Powder, and this of course is the main aim! But in future, I think the 28mm forays will be confined to the weekends - now where are my 15mm troops.....