Wednesday, April 3, 2019

BP2 28mm LEIPZIG 16 OCTOBER 1813 Update 4

I was away at the weekend in Methil in Fife for a 2 day large scale 28mm Napoleonic game.  It was played by 10 gamers from our AB1 group plus myself umpiring and was a refight of Leipzig 16th October 1813.  The game covered the action on the Southern front where the Allied Army of Bohemia faced Napoleon himself.

The rules used were Black Powder 2.  The House Rules employed were basically those being used for The Great Game Waterloo but using our revised turn sequence.  It was fun with lots of troops on the table.  The game was still in the balance at the end but it was certainly going the way of the French.  The allies had lost 5 broken brigades (historic divisions) and the French only 1.

The Allies were played as follows West table John Perkin (Kleist), Centre 1 table Ian Carter (Wittgensein) and Jim Conquer (Eugen of Wurtemburg), Centre 2 table Angus Konstam (Gorchakov), East table Ken Pearce (Klenau).  The French were played by West table Bart Zynda (Poniatowski)), Centre 1 Table Jack Glanville (Victor), Centre 2 table Donald Adamson (Lauriston) and Campbell Hardie (Augerau), East table Chris Stone (McDonald).

Thanks to everyone who provided figures and John Perkin who produced all the unit and commander cards and reviewed my other paperwork.

We fielded 170 infantry battalions of 24 figures, 100 cavalry regiments of 12 figures and 81 batteries each of 2 guns - a total of 5,600 figures and 162 guns.  In all 4,700 figures got onto the table with 900 still in reserve.  You will see that the Allies had quite a numerical advantage at the outset but the French reserves arrived faster.

The battlefield we used consisted of 4 6ft by 12ft tables.  Below there is a layout drawing of the 4 tables showing the numbers of the initial on table units and their immediate reserves. The game was played lengthwise and there was a 5ft gap between each table. The tables did not interact except that units within 2ft of the respective baselines could move to adjoining tables.  Not shown are the roads that ran south to north linking the villages on each table. We learned some lessons on the BP2 rules to be applied to TGG in June.


Drawing of the 4 tables with initial troop deployment.


I have added the Order of Battle with starting positions, Unit Stats and House Rules to my Blog pages on the right of the screen.

Now some photos from the game - the first photos I took made the dustsheets look very white but the colours improved when I moved to a low light setting.  Here is the link to all my photos with descriptions on Flickr:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskQdgPRM


Russian and Prussian allies close on the defenders of Wachau commanded by the wily Jack (Victor)

Donald (Lauriston )organising the French counterattack south of the Galgenburg
Carabiniers and Cuirassiers engage the Prussians

Klenau's forces massing for another attack

9 comments:

  1. What a great event Bill. I would dearly loved to have taken part and I am very envious of your weekend. Looking forward to your views re BP2 in anticipation of the Waterloo weekend.

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  2. That is a LOT of figures !! Looks excellent

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  3. Fascinating way to do it, and awesome to have a big game like this, thanks for the report Bill!

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    1. The layout suited the history here as the allies attacked in very distinct areas. It solved the issue of the depth of the table. we also used this layout for our autumn big ACW game.

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  4. Marvellous looking game! I look forward to your future instalments.

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  5. Hi, sounds very impressive and I like your suggested House Rules. How did the game play out? Was history changed? Thinking of trying to wargame some or all of Leipzig, so most interested in how it all went. Thanks for sharing

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    1. It was bit of a stalemate except on the eastern table where the French gave the Allies a pasting.

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