Battle of the Day - Lodz to Poznan mini campaign, 1813

Mini Campaign - From Lodz to Poznan - 1813

Area of Operations - Objectives

This map shows the layout of the critical objective locations (shown with the red stars), important objectives (blue stars), and the available road network with waypoints (gold stars).
This is a simple quick and dirty campaign, with 2 players :

• Player 1 - in command of a number of Russian Corps
• Player 2 - in command of a number of French units

Its 1813, the Russians are advancing through central Poland on a Westerly bearing.
The rest of the report is strictly from the Russian player's viewpoint.

Smartly Attired Russian Cossacls - 1812+

Regiment of the Day

Smartly Attired Russian Cossacks

A Russian Army needs a good supply of Cossacks.

In amongst my parts box, I found a number of old Minifigs 15mm lancer types, which I suspect are Russian Cossacks.

Bit hard to tell, since this lot of figures comes from another ebay-rescue, with a bag of unfinished bits and pieces covered in a thick layer of flaking black paint and broken parts.

After a ridiculous amount of work, the rescue is complete, and I now have some half decent Russian Cossacks to take to the battlefield.

Russian Horse Artillery 1812+

Regiment of the Day

Russian Horse Artillery - 1812+

New Project for May ... well, same old Project really, painting tonnes of 15mm Russians ready for battle, and writing software to control the whole game.

Thought I would start off a "May Day" Parade to try and get back up to date with the blogging and photography anyway.

So here we go .... welcome to my May Day Parade effort, concentrating on the Russian Army of 1813.

Will try and keep rolling through May to get all my Napoleonic Russians up to date on this blog.

Russian Horse Artillery

Russian Horse Artillery 

Some Russian Horse artillery to go with my Russian Cavalry Brigades.

Figures by Lancashire Games, and the guns are a mix of LG's Russian 6lb cannon, and some Eureka Russian SYW period battalion guns.

Polish Hussar - 1813

Polish Hussar - 1813

Following on from my last post about the Russian Loubny Hussars .... here are some more of the same figure, but this time painted up as Polish Hussars in the opposing forces at Leipzig.

Russian Hussars - Loubny Regt

Regiment of the Day - Loubny Hussars

 

Time for some Russian Cavalry ... and I need LOTS of Russian Cavalry.

For the start of my newer Russian Cavalry collection,  will get into the Loubny Hussars for 1812+

Russian Grenadiers 1807

Russian Grenadiers 1807

And now for something completely different - more Russians !

Another Battalion of 1807 period Russian Grenadiers from Warrior miniatures, shown above advancing to battle in 1-company wide march column.

Russian Musketeers (1812+)

Russian Musketeers (1812+)

Another quick one .. some left over warrior miniatures later Russians in Kiver, enough to make up 2 battalions.

1813 Russians in field cap

Russians in field caps - 1813

Some later (1812+) Russians in a mix of uniforms and field caps, shown here advancing in Closed Column.


Picked up a few bags of mixed of OG Russians in field caps from the TMP marketplace. Ended up with about 100 figures in this lot.

OG always have a good mix of animations and poses in the bag, so they are quite useful to  create fill in bases to pad out a growing army.

Time to splash some paint on them and get them on the gaming table.

Russian Musketeer 1807

Russian Musketeer 1807

Another Battalion of the wonderfully formidable Russian Musketeer line regiments, shown above in 1-company wide march column.

This time in their earlier 1807 period uniforms, complete with regimental facings.

Russian Grenadiers

Russian Grenadiers (1813)

"Russian Month" is going so well, that I now have a significant backlog of Russian units to blogged about. A serious backlog !

Lets get rolling then ...

Russian Grenadiers for 1813.

Main differences for the Russian Grenadiers for this latter period are :

- Reduced unit size. Most battalions are now down to 2 bases worth of troops by the time they take the field at Leipzig.
- Reduced grading. 1813 sees the average Grenadier battalion drop from grade 'Grenadier' in 1812 down to 'Elite' ... not a huge change.
- Simplified uniform. All units in standard kiver, large but thin plume, and standard red facings.

Russian 5th Jaegers - Eylau 1807

Regiment of the Day

Following up from the last set of 1812+ Jaegers, here are some of their earlier cousins from the 1789-1810 period.

Russian Jaeger - 1812+

Russian Jaegers (1812+)

I better get this thing Napoleonic before we get way off track.

Here is a quick one then - some 1812 Russian Jaeger Battalions.

French Infantrie de Marine 1813

French Infantrie Artillerie de Marine - 1813

Finally got some Battalions out for the French Infantrie de Marine for Leipzig 1813.

After digging around for resources on these guys ... and finding the usual mix of conflicting details from different sources, I settled on this "interpretation", which I reckon fits the feel of these units well.  See what you think.

All of the line troops have greatcoats, and are still equipped in bicornes. Note that all the leather cross belts are black as well.

All pompoms are red, and to distinguish them from regular troops in greatcoats, they have a little brass anchor insignia on the left sleeve.

Finally, the flag is standard French tricolor, with a gold anchor symbol. OK, I made that up, but it works for me :)

ActionFront - Leipzig Nord -Initial Setup

Battle of the Day

A step by step run through of a test game using my new Computer Moderated Napoleonic system - ActionFront !

This is taken from the Leipzig-Nord scenario, with the French III Corps vs the Prussian III Corps in 1813.

Prussian Brigade begins its deployment for the Battle.

To make it even simpler, will start off with the initial contact between a single maneuvre element from each of these 2 Corps sized units.

On the Prussian side, we have the 5th Brigade, on the French side we have the 11e Division.
....

Lets have a look at the 2 forces involved for the initial contact, and how that translates to the tabletop  :

French Legere - 1813

Tour de France - Stage 16

Oh dear ... running well behind schedule now, and only just made it in before the next stage starts.

Here is a single battlalion of French Lights from Lancashire Games .. photographed without the aid of sunlight.

eeeks !

View of the climb up through the "Circle of Death".

Late war French - 1813

Tour de France - Stage 15

2 more battalions of late war French roll off the production line ...

French Division - 1813

Tour de France - Stage 14

Great stage race last night with huge amounts of drama ... sabotage on the course, killer hill climbs at 18%, death defying descents down wet slopes, chaos, drama, and sportsmanship.  Wiggo is a true British champion !

Good stage to pull out some masses now and look at a Division on the table, all based up on battalion sabot bases.

Here is what an 1813 Division roughly looks like at 1:60 scale.  This is modelled on the French 6th Division / II Corps on the Southern front at Leipzig in 1813.

Lucky for me ... the French units are quite 'understrength' for this campaign.

The leading brigade - 3 battalions of Legere with 3 battalions of ligne in the 2nd wave.  3 Battalions in column of divisions on each flank, and 2 batteries in the centre.

Note the lack of cavalry at the Division level.  Not much more at Corps level for this unit either.

French Brigade in Greatcoats

Tour de France - Stage 13

Here is the 2nd Regiment of French Ligne in Greatcoats ... paint is still wet on the basing !!  Only just made it.

French in Greatcoats - Regiment

Tour de France - Stage 12

3rd Battalion in Greatcoats ready for the storage box

That makes up the 1st Regiment in Greatcoats