As part of my recent birthday celebrations my friend Mark laid on one of the big Napoleonic Battles - Leipzig. The real battle was fought over 4 days, our refight also accommodated other birthday related activities, so it lasted 4 days as well.
Wikipedia tells me it was the largest European Battle before WW1, so it's a must for any gamer interested in the Napoleonic wars.
Mark set up his games table and I took the Allies. I had a number of strategic towns and villages to capture in addition to Leipzig. There was a scenario option to threaten the French escape route over the causeway at Lindenau , which I took.
I don't have the BBB scenario map, so here's the map from Wikipedia to give some idea of the scale of the battle and the forces involved.
Day 1 pictures here:
Slightly out of focus - the battle for Lindenau.....
Schwarzenberg- held at the river line, with large numbers of troops but too small a deployment area to make their numbers tell.
Schwarzenberg's left, with the 7 strong Silesian Landwehr in the middle attacking the aggressive Poles in the village on the river....
End of day 1 here:
Schwarzenberg slipped troops into the wood to threaten the French left. Mark "that's an impassible river" Colin "not according to the map - the river starts in the wood" Mark "bring me the head of the imperial cartographer...."
Schwarzenberg's left - in the centre the 7 strong Silesians have evicted the Poles and crossed the river, but in the centre the French still hold the river line.
A view of Schwarzenberg's gains and losses. The French still hold the river line in the middle, but with the Allies in the woods to their left and the Silesians across the river to their right, it may be time to withdraw....
Meanwhile, Blucher's army has assaulted the French frontally (mainly shooting rather than assault) which has enabled a mixed infantry & cavalry force to arc left and get over the river line. In the top centre of the picture Mark has sent his reserve cavalry to counter this threat.
Overall, as the sun set on the first day of the battle, the Allies had much to be pleased about. The French river line defence was broken in three places, the Emperor has had to commit all three Guard units already. In the distance more Allied troops can be seen.....
In the scenario the second day is a night move, as both sides in reality had some minor skirmishes as they consolidated the gains made / shored up the gaps in the line. Mark duly readied the Grand Armee for day three......
Day three dawned with the French in new positions, hoping that shorter defence lines will counterbalance the huge numbers of Allied troops advancing from all points of the compass.
Bernadotte arrives
To the left, the French hold the hill. The raw Allied troops occupying the lower left village have opted to "stoutly defend" rather than charge the Middle Guard and 4 batteries on the hill. This increased their chances of getting a medal at the end of the campaign considerably.
Schwarzenberg gets more troops. Mark is stockpiling disrupted markers in the middle of the battlefield....
The Lindenau refight starts again. The blue and white buildings are Leipzig, now full of French defenders.
Finally, Blucher - whose army is now facing an undefended river.....
Day three saw the Allies advance to within musket range of Leipzig, which triggered a die roll to see if the French engineers, worried about the pressure on Lindenau, blow the road on the causeway over the marsh.
The Allies assault Leipzig
The winning dice!
We fought the battle over 4 real days, it was a lot of fun and a great way to celebrate my birthday.
We agreed that there were a lot of troops to manage - with only two players we spent a lot of time moving around the battlefield. It would be an ideal battle for 4 or 6 players - it would probably have gone a little faster.
BBB worked well - there were a number of hand to hand battles that were closely fought, no results were wildly unrealistic.
I would definitely play it again!
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