Leipzig at Historicon

This year I finally decided to attend Historicon for the first time. I've been to Fall In once before, and to many Little Wars conventions, but somehow I have never found my way out to The Big One.
Well, this year I was determined to go and if I was going I wanted to put on a big game. Since my Austrian, Spanish, and Portuguese armies are fresh off the painting table, I now have the units to play pretty much any Napoleonic battle that was ever fought. After a little thought, I decided on Leipzig. It was on a grand scale and included armies from France, her German allies, Poland, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and even Sweden. In order to do the battle, I would have to make each unit the equivalent of a division. Even so, there were going to be just a ton of units on the table...and the table would need to be extra large (8' x 10') (compared to the one in my basement, which is 6' x 9').

Here are the orders of battle that I created and the units associated with them all laid out on my table ready to be packed for the show.

I scheduled the event to start at 12:00 on Saturday, and estimated that it would take 5 hours to play. I would divide each side into a Northern Front Commander (Blucher/ Ney) and a Southern Front Commander (Schwarzenberg/ Murat). There were eight players, so this worked out perfectly with teams of two each taking control of a command.

I arrived in Fredericksburg on Thursday evening after an all-day drive from Chicago. Friday I scouted the show and browsed the vendor hall.
Saturday morning I woke early and arrived to start setting up at 7:30 am. I needed almost every minute of the time to be ready for the noon start.

Here is the town of Leipzig represented by a Medieval village from Total Battle Miniatures, but painted to fit into the Napoleonic time period. I really love their 6mm buildings as they make great villages on my battlefields.

I know that the buildings sometimes look out of place with 28mm figures, but when each base equals something like 5,000 men, I really can't use buildings that are any larger and have it work.

Here are Poniatowski's Poles south of Leipzig.

Here is the French Imperial Guard in the French center (Southern Front).

Here is a view from the Allied Reserve (note the Russian Cuirassier and artillery heading north to support the main line.

Marmont's French troops (and Badener cavalry) defending Mockern from Blucher's imminent attack.

And here he comes...

The game took 4 1/2 hours including rules explanation (as always, I used my version of Command & Colors: Napoleon).

Results: In the North, the French chose to not send aid across the bridge to keep their line of retreat open (do or die!), and to send the Reserve Cavalry from the South to the North. This meant that they had plenty of troops to deal with Blucher. In fact, they destroyed York's Corps and drove Sacken and Langeron's Corps back with heavy losses. When Reynier's French Corps arrived on Day Two, the combined French attack almost destroyed the Russians. The result was a victory in the North that opened a new retreat route for the French army.

In the South, both sides charged and counter-charged; blasted each other with massed artillery, and generally mauled each other. It was a bloody draw with appalling losses on both sides. At one point, after the French losses had become very severe, three units of MacDonald's Corps (Westphalians, Italians, and Wurttembergers) fled the field.
Late on Day Two, after a last-ditch assault by the Guard petered out without a decisive result, and massive Allied reinforcements were nearing the battlefield from both North and South, Napoleon decided that he had better withdraw his mangled army while he was able. 
The battle was a tactical victory for the French, but an operational defeat since they were unable to crush the Allies piecemeal.

I think that the players had a great time, and I certainly did, though I was pretty beat afterward, having been on my feet and jumping around for something like 11 hours.

Little Wars and Borodino

I attended Little Wars Friday and Saturday this year. The show looked great with lots of attendees, many really great looking games, and the usual solid vendor area support.

I ran my Borodino game on Friday night (5pm - 9pm) and Saturday (10am - 2pm).

FRIDAY
Friday night's game was fully attended (6 players + 1 last minute add-in). The battle started in the south between the Russians and the Poles near Utitza. The French player was very aggressive and pushed the Russians back with heavy losses.
They then opened fire with the grand battery on the fleches, and launched a large-scale infantry assault in the center led by Davout.

The French attack quickly overran the first two fleches, but the Russians immediately counter-attacked and re-took them. The French then fed in more troops and drove the Russians back out. The casualties mounted, especially for the Russians. It started looking like the French players were going to break the Russian army quickly.

The Grand Redoubt (Reavsky)

The only unit on the table that I painted and based from scratch.

The Russians then launched a massive counter-attack capped by a 'Glorious Charge' card. The two units that charged were Dragoons and Cuirassier. They drove back the remaining infantry and over-ran the entire Grand Battery. This startled the French players, who thought that they were going to cruise to an easy victory. After a few more turns, the French were able to win, but the final score was 14 Russian units eliminated (14 needed for the win), and 11 French units eliminated (out of 13 needed).  Very close game and fun. All players seemed to have had a good time.

SATURDAY
The game on Saturday was both similar and very different from Fridays. The French team started out by inflicting many casualties on the Russians and opened up a huge lead that looked insurmountable. However, the fighting raged on both flanks instead of the center. The Cossacks led by Uvarov in the North charged across the stream just West of Borodino and were violently repulsed. In the South, the battle swayed back and forth around the Utitza mound, but the Russians took the lion-share of the losses.  By the time that the action died down and the two sides separated from each other to regroup, the French only needed to inflict 2 more unit losses on the Russians to win, and the Russians still needed to inflict 10.
Then things started to turn around:
An artillery dual began in the center with the Russians getting the best of it. Their guns were nestled safely in the fleches and on the high ground behind them while the French Grand Battery was in the open.
The French commander decided that it was time to launch his attack up the middle to finish the battle. The stream running in front of the fleches slowed the advance down just enough to allow the Russian artillery to rake the French ranks and break up the orderly formation.
The French pressed on, sensing that the Russians were bled white and on the verge of collapse. In truth, however, the Russians were ready and waiting with a powerful counter-attack. As the French attack flowed around the fleches in an attempt to close with the Russians, the Russians met them with a powerful combined-arms attack that drove the French back and crushed their will to continue the fight. The Russians had pulled off a miracle comeback and won the battle!

Credits:
Figures are Perry, Front Rank, and Foundry

Painting:
Russians by the esteemed Scott MacPhee
French: Mostly Fernando, some by Paxx88 and Artmaster Studios, and a few by me
French Allies: Paxx88, Artmaster Studios, Roger Murrow

Basing: Scott MacPhee, Paul Niemeyer, me

Assistant game judge: Paul Niemeyer (Thanks Paul!)


Here are a few of the highlights from Friday's games (My phone ran out of power on Saturday before I could snap some more...The Alamo and Omaha Beach games were unbelievable!):

Little Wars was fun as always. I am so thankful that there is a show like this so close to home.

Keith Rocco Paintings

Keith Rocco, IMHO, is the preeminent Napoleonic artist working today.  I was lucky enough to work with Keith on my board game Napoleon in Europe back in 2001.  I licensed one of his paintings for the cover, and his sketches for the manual.

As e talked, we discovered that other than our love of history, we had a couple of things in common:
* We had both lived in the western suburbs of Chicago (Keith moved to Virginia many years ago, but still comes back here from time to time).
* We had a common friend: Paul Niemeyer. Paul did the map and card art for Napoleon in Europe, as well as most art for Eagle Games.

Over the years I've collected several of Keith's prints, three of which hang in my office. I have always wanted to own an original, and so almost a year ago I approached Keith about doing two small paintings of Napoleonic soldiers.

He finished my paintings today and sent me photographs.

Well, to say that I love them is an understatement!  They are perfect.

 French Dragoon

French Chasseur


I feel very lucky to have these in my collection and will enjoy them for many, many years.

Bavarians

Here are the sausage eaters. ;-)

4th Regiment (Salern)
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studios

5th Regiment (von Preysing)
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studios

1st Regiment (Lieb)
Front Rank Miniatures
Paxx88 (Darren Smith)

Chevau Leger (Thurn und Taxis)
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studios

Bavarian Artillery
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Paxx88 (Darren Smith)

I really like the Bavarian uniforms and raupenhelm helmets. The cornflower blue for the infantry is also very interesting.  All-in-all, some of my favorite units on the table.

Saxons

Here are the Saxon Units:

Saxon Musketiers

Westfalia Miniatures

Painted by Paxx88 (Darren Smith)

 

 

 Saxon Grenadiers
Calpe Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studio

 Saxon Musketiers
Calpe Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studios

 Zastrow Cuirassiers
Eureka Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studios

Saxon Garde du Corps
Eureka Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studios

Grand Duchy of Warsaw

Here are the units that I have for the Grand Duchy of Warsaw:

 Fusiliers
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

 Voltigeurs
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

 Fusiliers
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studio

 Fusiliers
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

 Grenadiers
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

 Chasseurs
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

 8 lb Gun
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

 12 lb Gun
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Paxx88 (Darren Smith)

 Hussars
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Paxx88 (Darren Smith)

 Uhlans
Murawski Miniatures
Painted by Roger Murrow

Uhlans
Front Rank Miniatures
Painted by Artmaster Studio

I really like the miniatures from both Murawski  as well as Front Rank, and these sculpts make excellent units.

The paintwork on them is excellent as well. All three painters do an incredible job.

French Allies: Vistula Legion Poles

I have been building out my French Allies so that I can fight battles from 1812 - 1813.  The project is finally complete.  I'll post a few units per day over the next few weeks.

The first up are the Vistula Legion Fusiliers and Uhlans.

These figures are part of the excellent Murawski Miniatures line, and were painted by Roger Murrow.

I just received them yesterday and based them today so they don't have their lances yet.