Battle of Altenrode - The Game

With the generals arrived and refreshed with tea and chocolate biscuits we adjourned to the Hinton Hut where I assigned commands. Nigel would play Archduke Charles (well of course he would), Tony would play Barclay de Tolly and I would take command of the entire French army until such time as Goya might arrive to assist me. It was a cracking game so let's get on with it.

On my left I immediately pushed foward the Swiss and the Poles with the aim of taking Altenrode. At the same time Nigel also advanced from the other side of the village and we had our first action with the Austrian Uhlans getting the better of my Chasseurs.

Meanwhile Nigel employed his trademark tactic of ordering his men to mill around - presumably to confuse the enemy?

Over on my right Murat was also advancing his infantry and another cavalry clash was developing on the extreme flank by Grunwalde.

A general view of the table after the first turn. The troops on the back table edge are designated as being in reserve and cannot be used until turn 2.

With Goya in temporary command the Swiss have taken Altenrode but not without loss as you can see. That pesky Austrian horse artillery battery was to be a thorn in the side of the French all day.

Murat moves the 25th and 33rd ligne across the Lindenbach Stream in the hope of taking Falkendorf. In the distance a mass of Russian and Prussian infantry are closing in on Grunwalde.

A view of the same action from the extreme right flank of the French line. My Lancers have just delivered a blow against the Silesian Hussars while the 57th "Terribles" move to secure Grunwalde. The Guard horse artillery are taking pot shots at the Pavlograd Hussars.

More expert milling about from Nigel. The Toskanas have ridden forward while the Vienna Volunteers hang back in the rear. The Grenzers however are have a crack at taking Altenrode.

Do I need to say it? Even more expert milling about from Nigel. As you can see here "Wellington's Tree" has deployed to the Konigshohe and has temporarily been renamed the "Archduke's Tree".

Gulp! Tony has an awful lot of Russo-Prussians moving up in a menacing manner. Most worrying of all this column contains the Silesian Landwehr.

This Prussian Guard with their toilet brush hats are moving up from reserve - Tony means business.

The Grenzers have been beaten off in their attack on Altenrode (foreground) while my men are about to occupy Falkendorf (middle gound). At this point Goya had to leave and I was back to fighting single handed.

The Swiss can always be relied on to put up a good fight which is ironic really.

French columns getting their feet wet as that mass of Russo-Prussians bypass Grunwalde.

The 57th have taken the village but they are surrounded by a sea of green and grey clad enemy infantry.

Lesson #1 in 'what not to do with cavalry'. In a moment of over confidence I brought the 8th Cuirassiers forward from reserve to charge the Pavlograd Hussars forgetting that the Russian guns could get off some rounds of canister - which they did ouch!

The 10th legere have occupied Falkendorf but Nigel has finally got his act together a brought his huge column of Austrian infantry up to the village.

The 57th are ejected from Grunwalde after a spirited attack by the Odesa newbies and the Silesian Landwehr. Meanwhile the other newbies the 6th Jagers are mixing it with my 1st legere.

The Austrian guns did some terrible execution all day from their position on top of the Konigshohe.

A general view of the table at about turn 6. The Austrians have just ejected the Swiss and taken Altenrode! 

Here is that infernal contraption again! Tony was doing a fair bit of damage with this until I realised that we hadn't been playing the Rocket rule properly and we were forgetting the 'stray rocket' bit. After he then took out three of his own men he decided not to fire the thing again.

This is not good - the Austrians have taken Falkendorf...

...and the Odesa Regiment has taken Grunwalde.

The 4th Hoch-Und Deutschmeister are firmly in control of Falkendorf and with all those supporting units they're not going anywhere.

But on the plus side - the 85th ligne have just retaken Altendrode.

This is how the game would have looked in 1972.

Oh dear, my right flank has collapsed. The Empress Dragoons, 5th Lancers and 45th ligne are all routing.

A final fling of the dice (well almost) - I assemble what's left of the cavalry for a ride against the Austrian guns.

The Allies control Grunwalde and Falkendorf giving them a hefty 20 VPs.

Lesson #2 in 'what not to do with cavalry' the Austrian guns have blown away the Horse Grenadiers - it's all over.

The table at the end of Turn 8. Final VP score 18 to the French and 34 to the Allies.

It was a really enjoyable (if somewhat exhausting) game that upon reflection was probably weighted too much in favour of the Allies. It was quite different from some of our previous games in that it was predominantly an infantry action backed up by more artillery than usual. The cavalry action until the last couple of turns was all on the flanks.

My thanks to the visiting generals for making the trek up here and to Mrs S in the field kitchen supported this time by the Archduchess.

The rules as usual were my own Muskets & Marshals.

Battle of Altenrode

With any luck we'll be having another game of Muskets & Marshals in the Hinton Hut this week. This time the Duke will be sitting things out on the bench while his continental allies have a crack at the Ogre.

I asked ChatGPT to come up with a ficticious scenario and table layout for the game and this is what it produced:

The Battle of Altenrode, October 1813

In the weeks before the great struggle around Leipzig, Napoleon's armies were falling back through Saxony while the Austrian, Russian and Prussian armies advanced from several directions.

In this sector, the French had been ordered to hold the road running through Altenrode, Falkendorf and Grünwalde, delaying the Allied advance towards Leipzig. An Austrian force under Archduke Charles approached from the north-west, while Russian and Prussian troops under Barclay de Tolly advanced from the north-east.

Napoleon recognised the danger of allowing these two Allied forces to unite. He therefore ordered the French to attack aggressively before the Coalition armies could combine their strength. Napoleon himself took command of the French left wing, facing the Austrians, while Murat commanded the French right against the Russians and Prussians.

The coming battle would decide whether the Allies could unite their armies and continue their advance, or whether Napoleon could defeat them separately.

So with the hard work done by the AI I then decided on an order of battle and adapted the map for my 6' x 4' table as below:

Looking east along the French lines. Altenrode is left foreground with Falkendorf in the centre middle ground.

Looking in the same direction along the allied line. The Austrians in the foreground and the Russo-Prussians to their left in the distance.

I have deliberately kept the size of the armies quite small as we will have either 3 or 4 players so I don't want to overload any one player with too many units. A battle report will follow in due course.

Order of Battle

(the letters after each unit name show the troop classifications for Muskets & Marshals)

French Army – Left wing: Napoleon
1^st Old Guard Grenadiers A+

4^th Swiss B

8^th Poles B

85^th Ligne B

105^th Ligne B

10^th Legere A

Horse Grenadiers A+

1^st Cuirassiers A

6^th Chasseurs B

1 x Battery Guard FA

2 x Batteries Line FA

French Army – Right wing: Murat

Young Guard Voltigeurs A

25^th Ligne B

33^rd Ligne B

45^th Ligne B

57^th Ligne B

1^st Legere A

Empress Dragoons A+

8^th Cuirassiers A

5^th Lancers B

1 x Battery Guard HA

2 x Batteries Line FA

Allied Army – Left wing: Barclay de Tolly
Odesa Regiment B

Moscow Regiment B

Smolensk Regiment B

6^th Jagers B

Prussian Guard Grenadiers A

Pomeranian Musketeers B

West Prussian Fusiliers B

1^st Silesian Landwehr C

Astrakhan Cuirassiers A

Pavlograd Hussars B

Silesian Hussars B

2 x Batteries Russian FA

1 x British RHA Rocket Battery

Allied Army – Right wing: Archduke Charles
4th Hoch-Und Deutschmeister B

15th Szeckler Grenzers A

23rd Archduke Ferdinand B

32nd Esterhazy B

36th Kinsky B

51st Gabriel Spleny B

Vienna Volunteers C

Austrian Grenadiers A

Ferdinana Cuirassiers A

Toskana Dragoons A

1^st Uhlans B

1 x Battery HA

3 x Batteries FA

***Hut Update***

The Hinton Hut roof repair is finished...

Odesa Regiment and Hinton Hut Maintenance

Another unit turned out in record time. These are more Der Kriegspieler Napoleoniques recently sent to me by Don W. They only needed a tiny bit of TLC and rebasing to my house style hence their speedy appearance here.

The flag looks huge but that's just the camera angle. The figures are quite small when stood next to Hinton Hunt types but have a certain charm.

The figures are:

21 x DK56 LINE BN 1812-SHAKO, Receiving

1 x DK57 COMMAND GROUP - equivalent to:

1 x RN/11 Officer, charging

1 x RN/12 Colourbearer

1 x RN/13 Drummer

This gives you a better idea of the figure pose.

I should mention that the flag is Don's original work as all I did was touch up any worn paint and then give it two coats of gloss varnish.

What I find interesting is that DK produced a number of different charging type poses whereas Hinton Hunt generally only produced one.

Believe it or not the Hinton Hut is now seven years old. It seems to be standing up remarkably well to the Scottish weather with the exception that I've lost a few roofing felt tiles on three occasions. These gaps have been patched up but I thought it was time to properly replace the more exposed front roof covering.

After seven years and three major storms I've had to carry out a number of patch repairs but as you can see the roof was starting to look a bit sad.

Our house is on a slight hill at the end of a valley and when the wind comes from the northeast it whips up the valley and right against the front left corner of the cabin where it then huffs and puffs.

The leading edge takes the brunt of things but this was the only area with any trace of water damage. Fortunately this is mostly on the overhang and the timber is sound.

When I built the hut I didn't realise quite how exposed the location is so this time I am applying copious amounts of bitumen mastic to help keep the roofing felt tiles stuck down.

I just need to sort out the ridge now - hmm, didn't Napoleon say that once?

Ok El Nino - do your worst!

This week marks the 110th anniversary of the Battle of Flers Courcellete in 1916. If you haven't read my piece about my great uncle George take a look here.

Terrain for C&CN

You may remember that I acquired a hex cloth back in June that I could use for Commands & Colors Napoleonics games with the Hinton Hunts. C&CN and variations (noteably Tony's Ramekin rules) have been a staple of our little group over the last few years. Although, obviously, I like to play games with Muskets & Marshals, this is not always practical where a visiting General may only have a couple of hours or so available to play. C&CN is a good go-to with its short playing time and easy to remember rules.

The mat has 120mm hexes which work fine with my figure movement trays. What I lacked though was a suitable hex terrain system. Cutting hexes from MDF for hills by hand would be a chore too far for me but fortunately those nice people at Warbases (just down the road from us) do this neatly by laser and luckily 120mm hexes are the maximum size the have in their stock range.

I've glued three 3mm MDF hexes together to make some experimental hills. I tried this first time without any clamps which was silly as they turned out more than a little bit skew-whiff. Having purchased some mini-clamps my second attempt has been far better. For built-up areas I've painted 2mm MDF hexes in brown on which I can place a single 15mm building that can be easily removed when the hex is occupied by troops. I did briefly think about making some scratch built buildings that would allow placement of troops inside but this seems like a lot of effort and I'm happy with my solution.

I probably need to make another 10 or so hills and then possibly some river sections.

Smolensk Regiment

A bit of a departure for me, this unit is made up entirely of figures from the Der Kriegspieler Napoleoniques range (except for the officer). DK were contemporaries of Hinton Hunt being in production in the US through the 70s and 80s. I've mentioned before that many DK figures bear a striking resemblance to Hinton Hunt ones (my opinion, please don't sue me) but the Russian infantry figures appear to be original work.

DK figures tend to be a bit smaller than Hinton Hunt ones. In this case I have added some thin plasti-card under the bases to give them extra height.

The figures are:

22 x DK58 GRN BN 1812-Shako-Coat Charging (one converted to drummer)

1 x DK59 GRN BN 1812-Shako-Coat On Guard (converted to standard bearer)

1 x FN/11 French Officer in great-coat charging (with head swap)

The flag is another original from Revo.

These figures were originally in the collection of US gamer Don W. I have refurbished them rather than re-paint them although the conversions are my own work.

Muskets & Marshals

My Napoleonic Rules Muskets & Marshals have been revised and reformatted in what I hope is an easy to use style. Now available as a PDF download for a price "more than a cup of coffee but less than a coffee and a cake" (quote from Mrs S).

Link here: https://payhip.com/b/w6IHL

What you get is:

• A twenty-one page PDF document
• Including two-page Playsheet to enable play without constantly referring to the main rules
• Game order sheet to use to issue commands to your troops

What I get is:

• A sense of satisfaction having finished these rules after 15 years
• Praise from Mrs S for generating an extra income stream

I hope you enjoy them and if you have any queries regarding the rules please contact me via the email link on my Blog profile.

Life Guards Horse Regiment

You might just remember that back in the beginning of April I painted a test figure for a Russian Life Guards Horse Regiment. This unit then got set aside while I focused on the newly arrived Cuirassiers and then the Jagers. I've now put that right.

The figure is PN73 Prussian Garde du Corps (mounted) charging with a paint job conversion to represent the Russian Life Guards Horse Regiment. The only modification to the figure is the removal of the canteen slung above the scabbard. 

The trumpeter is converted from the same figure.

These are not original figures which you can see here clearly by their rather slim physique. Short rations I guess.

I have to say that I haven't particularly enjoyed painting these. I think the fact that they're not vintage castings coupled with the fact that they're not actually the proper Russian Guard figure is to blame. However, they will fill a gap in the OOB so that's good.

On a different subject - I've been experimenting with using ChatGPT to help me run a solo campaign with my Boer War figure collection. This has been quite fascinating so you may want to take a look (click here) even if colonial wargames isn't your thing as the same ideas could be applied to other periods.