Blücher - Spring 1813 Map Campaign - Forth Battle

Its taken quite a while to find a day to actually play this game, but finally today we completed the forth, and largest, battle of our Blücher Spring 1813 campaign. 

This battle was over the town of Brandenburg which the French held. They needed to push beyond it to enable them to take Potsdam and make their way towards Berlin. The Allies needed to ensure this didn't happen and if possible capture Brandenburg.

On the Allied left flank the French had an impressive force. A thin line of Prussian infantry and artillery was all that stood in their way. They assaulted in columns behind their eagles...

On the road to Brandenburg Bülow's Russian Corps stood and considered attacking. But the French forces looked far too strong to even consider it, so they set up a line on the road and awaited the French attack. They must not allow the French to take the road.

And it was not to be. The French forces in the Brandenburg area proved to be mostly Marie Louises, the young conscript troops, fanatically loyal to their Emperor, but no match for the steadfast Russians. They broke on them like the sea against rocks...

On the left flank the Prussians held a desperate defence. Their numbers dwindled, but they kept the French at bay. Cavalry sallied forward to pick off French troops too slow to retreat to safety. Then the French reserve cavalry arrived. The crème de la crème of the Grande Armeé were reduced in stature after the defeats of 1812 and could not turn the tide for the French.

On the Brandenburg-Potsdam road the Russians saw their chance to begin an assault on Brandenburg, but it was not to be. The French troops, though massively reduced, were too strong and the assault faltered.

In the last few turns the Allies realised that they only needed to rout one more unit of the French to win the battle and take the entire battlefield, pushing the French out of Brandenburg automatically. But the French began to retreat and there was no way that total victory was going to happen.

As the sun began to set in the West, the battlefield became quiet. The two sides counted up their losses. Both sides had fought hard and lost many men, but the French were hit harder. They paid dearly to hold the key town of Brandenburg. The Allies had regained one location making it slightly more difficult for the French to manoeuvre next turn.

And with that this turn of battles is completed. We didn't have time to start the next campaign turn. That may have to wait until August now... 

DBA 3.0 Rebasing - Part 1 : Graeco-Bactrian and Graeco-Indian

After, more years than I'd rather think about I'm starting to play DBA again. With this in mind I'm rebasing my old DBA 2.0 armies off their hand-cut cardboard bases onto accurate 3D printed bases. I'm also re-organising them properly and with that in mind I thought I'd catalogue the different armies I can put together.

First up is my Graeco-Bactrians (Bactrian Greek in DBA 2.0 terms). There are two styles to this army, mixed and all cavalry. First up the mixed options:

With 4Kn (cataphracts) and 4Ax option

With 3Kn (Iranian lancers) and 4Ax option

With 3Kn (Iranian lancers) and 3Ax option

With 4Kn (cataphracts) and 3Ax option

And the all cavalry version:

Next up is my Graeco Indian army. I actually never got around to completing this back in DBA 2 days. I've had to paint up the Indian cavalry. There are a few options with this as well:

With Cv and 4Bw option

With LH and 4Bw option

With LH and 3Bw option

With Cv and 3Bw option

I can field these both together and they are aggressors against each other.

The Battle of Roundway Down at "Joy of Six"

Yesterday we ran the Battle of Roundway Down demonstration game at the "Joy of Six" show.

I had originally booked in to the show 2020 to run my Blücher Vyazma game, but since Covid happened that was cancelled. With my 1812 armies re-organised for my 1813 campaign, a different game would be needed, so I've been spending the last couple of months preparing my first English Civil War game, with Roundway Down, 13th July 1643 as the chosen battle and Liber Militum : Tercios as the rules being used.

I'll not go into the detail of what happened at the real battle, the British Battles website gives an excellent description of that, but suffice to say, that yesterday the Royalist Troops did not have the massive success they had in 1643, but instead suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the Roundheads. This was blamed on bad dice rolling, of course, but also a bit of unfortunate general-ship that lead to the death of the Royalist commander.

Anyway, we had a lot of interest from the public at the show and had a great day.

The terrain was based off the real-life contours as found on modern Ordnance Survey maps of the area, blown up to the right scale.

Hills were cut out from these following the contour lines;

MDF shapes cut-out and the edges bevelled;

and contours applied with 5mm thick expanded polystyrene floor insulation, before being covered with Sculptamold, plaster, paint and static grass.