Vintage Dresden - The Game

I was joined by Nigel, Tony and Goya for the game. Each player commanded the troops on their half of the table with reserves to be fed in and assigned to a player on arrival. We started with a round of artillery bombardment and then got stuck in.

Schwarzenberg (Nigel) wasted no time in getting things moving on the allied left, his men launching an immediate attack towards the village of Lobtau (worth 10VP to the allies, 3VP to the French). The Austrian 4th Hussars (foreground) are obvioulsy eager to cross swords with the enemy in their first outing as a full unit.

On the other side of the Weisseritz River the rest of Nigel's infantry are making for Plauen (worth 5VP to either side). All that painting and refurb work on the Austrians appears to have paid off.

Meanwhile Wittgenstein (Goya) brings up the Prusso-Russians to within striking distance of the Great Garden. At this stage the garden was thinly defended by a handfull of French Voltigeurs and a single unit of Young Guard.

The 26th, 51st (Splenys) and 59th Austrian infantry regiments advance behind a screen of Jagers who are exchanging shots with the French Voltigeurs in front of Plauen.

The Russians near the walls of the Great Garden - so far so good for the Allies.

The French left is in danger of being enveloped. The Great Garden is worth 10VP to either side whilst Windmill Hill (in the rear) is worth 10VP to the Allies but nothing to the French.

Fortunately for the French Ney (Tony) is on hand with the Young Guard. The Marines supported by the 9th legere (seconded to the Guard for the day) move up to meet the Prussian hordes. In the distance the Eclaireurs are clashing with the Silesian Hussars.

Turn 3 and out of nowhere the entire Allied heavy cavalry appeared and descend on the French centre. The Allies drew the card for their arrival from reserve and placed them in their front line (sneaky). This was my (St Cyr) section of the line held by the 45th and 24th regiments. The 24th managed to form square in the nick of time but the 45th became disordered - eek!

On the French right, the arrival of Victor's Corps enabled me to reinforce the position at Lobtau. At this point the river could be forded anywhere but that situation was not to last.

The fighting for the garden is in full swing with Prussians already in the grounds while the Marines and 9th legere slog it out on the extreme left of the French line.

The Prussians are swarming into the Great Garden, I do hope they're not trampling the flowers!

Over at Lobtau there is one heck of a cavalry melee developing as the Austrian Hussars mix it with the 5th Lancers. Believe it or not it was the French who eventually came out on top in this scrap.

The curse of the new unit - the Grenzers took some heavy casualties in the fighting for Lobtau and were eventually reduced and removed from play.

Nigel's Prussian Dragoons bounce off the square of the 24th ligne. The square has only stood due to the morale bonus imparted by La Bedoyere who rode forward in the nick of time to steady the ranks. His plume may not be the right colour but he certainly inspired confidence in the men!

The Allied heavy cavalry slams into the poor 45th ligne. In the distance you can see that the Toskana Dragoons have just overrun a French artillery redoubt. The French centre is looking awfully exposed.

The Russians are at the gates!

The Silesian Landwehr move up in support of their commrades engaged with the Young Guard (You know things are getting serious when the Landwehr arrive). In the distance the Eclaireurs and Prussian Hussars are still meleeing - I believe this fight lasted for three turns.

Turn 4 and suddenly the lights went out! Unperturbed we soldiered on by candle light (actually there was plenty of light coming through the cabin windows). This provided a dramatic backdrop to the drawing of the Joker card - a torrential rain storm had occured flooding the River Weisseritz so that it could now only be crossed at the bridge.

The pesky Toskanas ride on and overrun another of my batteries while the 45th ligne are trampled under the hooves of the Prussian and Austrian Cuirassiers.

Nigel continues to push his infantry forward towards Plauen while assembling a grand battery to pummel the place into submission.

At Lobtau the Austrians try but fail to dislodge the 25th ligne. The rather nice building is from Goya's collection.

Finally some good news for the French - the heavy cavalry have arrived and plug the gap in the centre. The Allies decide that discretion is the better part of valour and their own heavies do a quick about face and retire!

At this point we had to call it a day and it turned out to be a French win on points as of all the victory locations only the Great Garden was (partially) in Allied hands. The French Guard had never even made it onto the table.

Despite my optimism that the movement trays would help speed things along we only managed 5 turns which was the same as last year's game. Clearly there were just too many troops on the table as my desire to see all those Austrians/Prussians/Russians in action got the better of me when planning the scenario. It was still a good game though and I think we all thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle.

My thanks to the visiting generals for making the effort to come along and playing in such good humour, and a special thanks to Mrs S whose quick thinking allowed her field kitchen to operate despite the hour and a half power cut!

Getting ready for Vintage Dresden

We're playing Vintage Dresden next week and I've been busy getting things ready, sorting out the troops and setting up the table. Now I'll say this straight off - this is NOT an historical refight but a game loosely based on the famous battle of 1813. I have had to distil the two-day fight into an 8-turn format for use with Muskets & Marshals that I hope preserves the essence of the battle in a playable but fun game. Here are a few snaps of the set-up.

The whole table with initial deployments looking from the allied left. I've configured the table to my maximum 8' x 4'.

The Eclaireurs on Windmill Hill behind the Great Garden. Nice to see them as they don't get out much

The French position around the garden is held by the Young Guard. They are quite thin on the ground but are no doubt hoping for reinforcements. That's the newbie Grenadier Tirailleurs just in shot on the right, paint still drying on their bases. 

The French right. The village of Plauen is this side of the River Weisseritz with Lobtau on the far side.  At the moment the river is fordable along its length but who knows what might happen if it were to rain?

The off-table reinforcements will arrive randomly on the turn of a card. All will be on table by turn 7 but in which order will they arrive? Without the movement trays trying to introduce so many troops during play would have been very slow but I'm hoping this will speed things along.

"The Prussians are in the Woods!" - oops, sorry, wrong battle...

If all goes well my next post should be a full battle report.

Young Guard Tirailleur Mystery

I've been trying hard to get a unit of Young Guard Tirailleurs ready in time for the Dresden game in a couple of weeks. The Young Guard played a prominent part in the fighting for the Great Garden so I thought it would be handy to have an extra unit. They will also come in useful for the planned Waterloo game latter this year.

This is the test figure of FN/71 Tirailleur Guard (charging). I've actually pretty much finished the whole unit (in record time for me).

So here's a bit of a Hinton puzzle for you. I pulled out a casting to convert to a standard bearer and it was clearly marked FN70 on the base which is supposed to be the Young Guard charging officer. I merrily went about adding a flag etc. but when I came to paint him I realised something was wrong.

The mystery FN70 casting now converted to a standard bearer.

The casting has an Austrian style shako and a sash so nothing very French about him at all. I can't think what he is although from the base I can tell it's a Clayton casting. Answers on a postcard please.