1813 Hesse-Darmstadt Chevau-légers

I've run out of minis for my 1813 armies!

The last thing I've been able to paint is a unit of Hesse-Darmstadt Chevau-légers for XII Corps. The only unit I can paint for XII Corps! I used the Bavarian Cavalry models since they have the right style of helmet.

Never fear, an order has been put into Heroics and Ros for reinforcements, it'll be a few weeks before I get them.

In the meantime my English Civil War armies will get some work done on them.

An 1813 Scharnhorst Game

With much of my 1813 re-organisation done. I thought it a plan to get a game of Blücher in with my son. He took the Russo-Prussian force commanded by Blücher himself and I took the French Army of the Main commanded by Marshal Soult.

At the start of the game there were a lot of Prussians on the table, not so many French though!

After the Scharnhost phase Brendan looked to be in a very good position. Though I had more victory points on the map he had declared a battle with all his troops off the board and most of mine as reserves. However looking at it we realised he had to hold both objectives on the board to win, whereas I would just have to take one of them.

At the top of the table in the photo is my single on table column, facing off against all three Prussian Corps. The Russians have been left as garrison duty in the town.

With such an overwhelming advantage initially Brendan's best hope might be to deal me a swift and decisive blow before my reinforcements arrived. So he attacked... My French line looked very, very thin.

Luckily though they held in time for my reinforcements to arrive and that thin line became really quite thick.

But undeterred Brendan attacked all along the line.

My troops held, they took losses, but they held!

Meanwhile over by the town at the other end of the table my second reinforcement column arrived.

They attacked the Russian troops garrisoning the town and unbelievably two units of Marie-Louises pushed the Russians out! The Russians counter-attacked and pushed the Marie-Louises out... and then the French counter-counter-attacked... and on and on... every turn the town changed hands.

Eventually the Russians had a real foot-hold and the French forces were almost spent, but then the other French column arrived and continued the assault. The Russian cavalry tried to hold them out of the town, but they couldn't stop the French continuing their frantic battle.

The fight for the town continues.

Meanwhile on the other flank, the Prussian assault finally stalled and started to fall-back. Realising that the key to victory was the town I did not follow them and let them go. I could now take the town as I had fresh troops over there and the Russians were almost spent.

The Prussians fall back across the river. The French let them go.

In the end there was nothing the Russians in the town could do, there were too many fresh French units and they were pushed out. They could not hope to re-take it as there were no troops left anywhere near. They were unable to break the French army and so Brendan capitulated as the sun began to set on the battlefield.

Yet another great battle with loads going on.

It was the first time I'd really used attached artillery with my units instead of massed batteries and it does work. The conscript troops, though poor, were more effective than expected. The cavalry in the French force poor to say the least, but it managed. It's quite a different force to play with compared with the early war army. Brendan was using both Blücher and Bülow and so never had to worry about having enough MO pips, even with such a large force. I did struggle sometimes though!

English Civil War in 6mm - the first unit complete

Having loved doing Napoleonics in 6mm I looked around a little while ago for other projects for 6mm. ECW is something I've never really played, but I have always wondered about. I knew very little about the tactics, etc... Actually I pretty much knew nothing and still don't know that much. I'm trying to learn.

Anyway, I decided to start to build both main sides. Luckily with ECW if you build one side you can potentially build both (I know there are more than two), with just a change of flags and in some cases not even that! Or at least that's what I've gathered. Please correct me if I'm wrong! With that in mind I bought quite a few (at lot) of ECW packs from Heroics and Ros and quite a few different rules sets. At the moment Liber Militum Tercios is most interesting to me, with Pike and Shotte coming just after, but I also have Twilight of Divine Right, For King and Parliament and The Pikeman's Lament. (and I just bouth Forlorn Hope as well)

I decided to go with 30mm x 30mm bases with 2 bases of muskets and one of pike making up a standard infantry regiment. Cavalry will go on two. This allows me to play Tercios and also I expect Pike and Shotte.

I've had the first regiment of infantry sat on my bench for a month or so whilst I've been painting my 1813 stuff and decided on Friday that now was the time to get it done. I've gone for the common and classic red and have used Citadel contrast paints for the very first time (just for the red). The uniforms don't have so many colours as Naploenics so I thought the shading would be necessary.

I'm rather pleased with how they have come out...

The idea is that the bases could be used in a variety of ways, not always together, so that units of just pike or just shot could be built as required. The command base is separate and all flags on that. I bought loads of extra command strips from H&R to make a lot of variation possible.

The blank section on the command base will be where I put details of the unit. Nothing as yet as I'm still not sure what to put, or actually which rules to use.

The 3 bases mean that I can do formation changes if needed without too much hassle.

Back to painting Napoleonic French for now... more ECW will follow later.

Edit: After a comment on Facebook that the command should be at the front, I made a change. The only reason I had the command at the back was because of the "huge" flat markings area. I decided I didn't need that. I have cut that down so the command base is 15mm x 20mm rather than 20mm x 20mm. There is still room for a really small identifying mark and maybe something could be written under the command base if necessary.

Some French Allies for Lutzen 1813 - Baden, Hesse Darmstadt and Croatians

My task of getting my troops ready for the Spring 1813 campaign continues. With these latest French Allies I've just finished the French force for Lutzen. They complete the III and IV Corps as defined by the Old Meldrum scenario

Here's the huge III Corps under Ney completed.

Here is the somewhat smaller IV Corps under Bertrand.

Researching all of the new allied units proved difficult.

The first of the new troops is the 2nd Provisional Croatian Regiment. Croatia was a new part of the French Empire having been gifted to them from Austria. They had sent units to Russia in 1812 and those had had their brown Austrian uniforms replaced with new green ones in the French style, even in one case being given a French Eagle. However the 2nd Provisional was not one of these and continued into the 1813 campaign in their old brown Austrian uniforms, but with French style pom-poms and cockades on their shakos.

I decided to continue to use the French Line infantry miniatures, but painted brown and since the cockade was actually mentioned I decided rather madly to completely paint those. You can just seen in the photos that they do have all three colours, red, white and blue.

The second unit is the 3rd Baden Line Regiment. Finding information on their uniforms in 1813 was even harder, though I did find that they had replaced their helmets with French-style shakos. Their flags were easily found though.

Finally there is one of the Leib Regiments from Hesse-Darmstadt. These Hessian troops again were a bit complex to research, everywhere I found seemed to have different uniform details for 1813. Then I found a site saying that in fact their uniforms were all over the place after the defeat of 1812 and that even within units they varied massively. So I decided it was almost impossible to be wrong and stopped worrying.

So that's the French force for Lutzen complete. I checked for the Allies and it looks like there were a heck of a lot of Russian Guard and Grenadier regiments at the battle, a lot more than I have anyway! Looks like I'll have to put an order in...

Edit: Since posting the above someone mentioned to me that the Hesse Darmstadt unit in the 1813 German campaign did not re-organise in the French manner, only the one sent to Spain did that. So I've done a quick remodelling job to remove the colours and plumes from the grenadiers and voltigeurs...

French Marine Artillery 1813

When looking at the French Army of 1813 one unit drew my interest more than the rest, Napoleon's Marine Artillery.

By 1813, these troops were not at all useful in their original role and needing to replenish losses from the failed 1812 invasion of Russia Napoleon changed them into several units of infantry. They kept their uniforms much as they were before and were often in battle with their distinctive blue greatcoats. The colour of which got them confused with the Imperial Guard.

Anyway, since I've moved on to the next battle of the 1813 campaign and need VI Corps, the Marine Artillery was my next project. Luckily they were simple to paint and will look great in my French army.

I've also made some attached artillery markers as I have done for my British and Prussians. I'll need a lot more of these.

1st Battle of Möckern 5th April 1813

This afternoon myself and my son, Brendan, played the first game with the new miniatures I've been painting. The first battle in the 1813 campaign, the Battle of Möckern.

Actually several small clashes over a wide front this is quite a small engagement which didn't result in much really as the French pulled out quite early. I'm basing our battle on the scenario in the "We shall meet in Vienna" scenario book by The Wargaming Company. This is intended for their "Et Sans Resultant" rules and I've had to do quite a bit of modification to get it to work in Blücher's normal scale and have referenced the Old Meldrum scenarios and the Nafzinger books quite a bit.

Anyway, here are the forces ready for the battle.

The French. I will control these.

The Prussians. Brendan will control these.

The battlefield itself is very wide and the scenario I was basing the game on was also very wide. I decided to compress it all to fit on my normal table.

The river is the Ehle and though narrow was very boggy. The Wargames Company scenario says that it should only be passable to infantry with artillery and cavalry having to cross at the bridges. I saw no reason to change that.

The top of the map is the South East side where the Prussians and Russians enter. Prussians to the sides and Russians in the middle. There are four villages, from left to right Möckern, Vehilitz, Danningkow and Gommen. Each of these I garrisoned with French troops. The Prussians have to push through these and get at least 3 units down the roads to Magdeburg at the bottom.

The French have most of their troops off table down those roads.

The Wargames Company Scenario had off-table movement for the reinforcements rather than the random roll that Blücher normally uses and I decided to do the same. I split the roads up into 2BW segments off-table and moved the formations down those at the end of the turn. The troops arriving on table as they did so. This worked well.

Anyway, Brendan decided to bypass all the garrisons with one Prussian force pushing down my left flank and the others crossing the river in the middle. This left me with garrisoned troops on their own able to move out of their towns and in the case of the Italians in Möckern attack Brendan's troops in the rear.

The first half of the game was this movement and the turns went by rapidly, until Brendan got close to the road entrance behind Möckern. At this point he was successfully pushing my Marie-Louise conscripts back each turn. I was taking heavy casualties.

Just as he was about to move the left-hand corps of Prussians off the table though, my main reinforcements arrived to block his route.

Faced with fresh troops arriving to fight his worn out army it didn't look good for the Prussians, but a few terrible combats later the French had been pushed away from the road. The Prussians saw their chance and in their last turn got the 3 units they needed down the road, right under the French noses.

This was truly a very close and enjoyable game, not at all bad for something I had thrown together based on several different sources.

The next battle in 1813 is Lutzen... I need quite a bit more for that one and quite a bit bigger battlefield as well. It may be a few weeks yet before that happens.

1813 French Conscript Infantry aka Marie-Louises

I've just completed my first French Infantry specific to 1813 (and 1814). These are the conscript infantry raised quickly at the start of the year and nicknamed Marie-Louises after the Empress.

In order to distinguish them from my other French Infantry I've used the models with greatcoats, a common approach used by wargamers from what I can see.

I'll have to do a load more of these...

Next up is the rather interesting Marine Artillery Regiments...