Update

Its been a busy week.

The 2nd battalion of the 12th Line is done and moves on to the Sand Pit for basing.  I've started my test figure for the Silesian Hussars and have excellent source material between the knotel plate: http://www.grosser-generalstab.de/tafeln/knoe02/knoe02_29.html and Centjour Mont St. Jean.

In other news Mount and Blade has incorporated one of its many mods Mount and Musket and released Mount and Blade: Napoleonic Wars.

I haven't purchased the new DLC yet, but M&B is an excellent game and infinitely moddable which makes for great longevity. The original is a medieval/dark ages setting with great combat.  The real strength of M&B is its use as a modding platform where communities of players bring the game to new eras, locations and often improve on the games core mechanics beyond what the developers created.

Announcement Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPv56deYrsQ

Gameplay will likely mirror Napoleonic War's predecessor which there are some interesting videos:
French forming square:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPV3urKEV64

Its a multplayer game so experience will vary... such as the below! 2e Grenadiers & 2e Chasseurs take on some Brits:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHYxBYe6SJs
(WARNING! Mind the Language/Profanity--they are gamers)


Random other Video I came accross:
Mount and Gladius (ROMA VICTOR!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7zd2U3wZg4

Baptism by Fire

I love a brave soldier who has undergone the baptism of fire. 

                                               -Napoleon 

The Prussians got their first appearance on the table on Saturday. Kraft's 6th Brigade and my 4 battalions of 1st Brigade along with 3 foot batteries, 1 heavy foot batter and a horse battery received their baptism by fire.  Although it wasn't a  great day for the Prussians, I don't think the French will be gleefully writing their report to Napoleon either.

July 15, 1815 -- Somewhere in Belgium

Girard's 7th Division with a brigade of Pire's Light Cavalry division and the man himself are hounding the remnants of 1st Brigade across the Belgian country side as Von Steinmetz  attempts to save I Corps Artillery reserve from the disaster at Gosselies where most of 1st Brigade was broken and fled north towards Brussels.  Von Pirch I has sent his leading element, Kraft's 6th Brigade to try to secure the retreat 1st Brigade and the artillery of I Corps towards Fleurus.

The Prussians lack any real cavalry support and have only 1 squadron of the 1st Silesian Hussar remaining from Gosselies.  The Brave and Loyal Prussians turn to face the inevitable French assault and take up a defensive position along a line of hills.

The Field of Battle

Pire and Girard were however not as close on the heels of the Prussians as they thought and entered from the other side of the village.

The French take the Field (of Glory... they Hope!)

The Prussians pivot to meet the French. The three battalions of 1st Westphalian Landwehr, allegedly an untrained rabble militia, and the first battalion of the regulars of 12th Line anchor the right.

General Major Kraft pushes forward the 26th Line, a green reserve unit, and along with a horse battery position themselves at the heights near where the road takes a sharp turn.  The 9th moves up in reserve and the Elbe Landwehr, a trained militia, go to reinforce the Westphalians on the right flank staring down the discouragingly sharp looking lance tips of the 5th Lancers and a horse battery.

General Kraft appears to be taking a surprisingly aggressive posture despite the defensive nature of their strategic position.  General Steinmetz was becoming concerned.  The French it was rumored were rated as Crack infantry and cavalry... despite Napoleon losing 500,000 men in the little Russian adventure and then losing men across Poland, Saxony, Germany, the Rhineland, and to the gates of Paris for 3 years....oh and that whole abdication thing.... the Prussian's were facing the Cream of the French Infantry.

Girard was forced to extend his line and address the threat of the 26th line on his right flank and the rest of the division advanced slowly in the face of the Prussian artillery.  The I/11th Legere (formed from the Tirailleurs du Po) charged the advanced II battalion of the 26th line and were thrown back in disgrace taking  20% casualties and running for the rear.

Further disaster befell the French when (foreshadowing things to come) Freiweilliger Jagers of 6th Brigade shot  General Girard from his horse wounding him forcing his command to take a morale check.  The voltiguers of the 11th Legre, however, did manage to snipe and disrupt the crew of the Prussian horse battery.

General de Brigade De Villier took over for General Girard launched II battalion of the 12th Legre in the French center to clear away the Prussian skirmishers.  These brave souls over extended themselves and were charged by a column of the 26th line and in the flank by the 120 brave souls of the remaining squadron of the 1st Silesian Hussars. The French fled and the 60 remaining men of the Silesian Hussars followed up the French riding in amongst the fleeing soliders even as the French returned to the main French line. 

But the French had an ace of their sleeves. General Pire sent his 5th Lancers into a magnificent charge taking the column in column, clearing the entire front of the French line from left to right flank. The shot and shell beleaguered 12th Legere gave a great rolling cheer as the Lancers cleared the Prussian skirmishers that had assailed them.  The lancers sent the Prussian skirmishers running for friendly lines and caught the heroes of the II/26th celebrating their victory over the 11th Legere and in the middle of forming square.  The 5th Lancers offered no quarter and cut them down to a man, taking no prisoners.  The Lancers then took a nice victory lap around the hill to complete their circuit of the French position.  The 6th Lancers dispatched the exhausted remnants of the Silesian Hussars, but not before the Silesians returned the favor in kind, sabreing down the rest of the battalion of the 12th Legere.

General Pire continued to reshape the field of battle and launched the 1st and 6th Chasseurs a' Chaval against the Westphalian landwehr that had been dancing back and forth between line and square in the face of the French horse battery and cavalry. The 12th line was caught in line as well, and unable to form a hasty square and ran.  This did however buy time for the Elbe landwehr to form a hasty square and the courage of these plucky Prussians cost the 1st Chasseur's 50% casualties before they fell back.  But not before leaving the corpse of General Comte de Pire on the field who had lead the charge on the landwehr.

The Prussian Right as Pire's Cavalry charge

Pire falling to Prussian Landwehr!

Meanwhile the gunners of the Prussian 6lb and 12lber batterys on the heights were ordered to turn their guns on the charging cavalry. Despite the fact that the French cavalry charged some 990 yards to their current positions it was determined that no fire opportunities were to be had and firing on either regiment and that the meleeing 1st chassuers screened the movements of the 6th Chassuers.  Faced with the possibility of their commander firing on his own landwehr to cut down the cavalry, the lieutenants of the battery knocked their captain unconscious with a rolled stack of papers (entitled "the rules") and countermanded the batteries fire orders.

The Prussians slowly began to withdraw and it was determined could make it off the field with their remaining cannon.  

The End Results:

The 9th Line was untouched and were veterans able to stand up to the French potentially.  The Prussians had 4 batteries intact except for one 6lber destroyed cannon. 75% of the Horse gunners made it off the field, though their 8 cannon were captured. Two battalions of Landwehr remained on the field. Prussian losses were lighter as most of the Landwehr (46% of the deployed Prussian infantry) routed from the field intact.

Estimated Prussian Losses:

240 Landwehr

840 Green reserves of the 26th Line

120 Hussars

60 Horse Artilleryman

8 guns captured; 1 destroyed

Estimated French Losses:

General Comte Pire

General Girard (wounded--would recover)

1020 Crack men of the 11th and 12th Legere

240 Chasseurs

Fun game and great introduction for the Prussians.  The Francophiles would say Girard's division gave the new Prussians proper instruction in their future deployments--how to run from the field, fast.  The true and honest sons of Germany however can be confident that they traded blows almost one for one against some of the best men Napoleon could offer and secured the retreat of most of I Corps' artillery.

The artillery would come in handy the next day at Ligny and the riflemen now had Girard's number for round two in St. Amand. 

1st Corps Gets Some Real Teeth (Part 2)

1st Corps Artillery will remain in the sand pit for basing for a little while longer, hopefully to be joined soon by the 1st Silesian Hussars!

Prussian Artillery comes in two fire modes:

French Smasher!

and IRON BACKBONE INJECTOR SYSTEM! (TM)

Iron Backbone Injector System is state of the art German Engineering Morale Improvement  Platform for use with the Landwehr

Mapping the Battle of Ligny

The four Brigades of [First] Corps had been very much mixed up together when occupying the Villages during the night, which will account in some measure for the promiscuous manner in which their several Battalions appear to have been distributed during the battle.

--William Siborne p. 201

Breakdown of locations of battalions per Siborne (the only source I've found that really goes into this level of depth). The brigades of 2nd Corps (on or near the road to Sombref) are deployed in "classic" deployment of "three lines of columns of battalions at deploying intervals".

Also note 4th Brigade is short the 13th Regiment which is garrisoning Mainz (corroborated by Mont St-Jean--link at right). 1st, 3rd, and 4th brigades are all accounted for. I/6th Line from 2nd Brigade's disposition is left out of Siborne's account.  For the battalions defending/garrisoning the villages I just placed column markers.

The battalions and dispositions of 1st Corps are very mixed. Jagow's 3rd Brigade is employed in both St. Amand and Ligny and this explains the confusion of various maps listing Jagow's command in either location depending on the time.

For easier viewing the full size map of the battalion deployments is available here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?3t2umn7ilyk4lih

This second map helps illustrate better at a glance the "promiscuous" dispositions.

Stay tuned next week, same lead-saturated-time, same lead-saturated-channel for Mapping Ligny: Opening Assault!

1st Corps Gets Some Real Teeth

So approximately 2 months later I've finished up my 16 gunners and 4 cannons!  This is enough for four batteries  in our rule set.  Inclement weather has prevented getting them spray sealed and based but for the moment there are no more paint flakes to drive me nuts and they really are just in need of basing now! (I've been telling myself that for 3 weeks). Part of that was work taking up a lot of time and the rest being my ham-fisted painting.

Some teasers until I get them ready for the parade ground.

Horse Battery No. 7 (Silesian)  

Mixture of  two and three coloring techniques.

The other thing this project taught me was another factor to add to the list when evaluating figures.  Calpe's level of detail is amazing, but on the foot artillerymen with canvas bag, giberne, greatcoat roll + ramrod, prickers, etc. the figures were really "crowded"  there was a lot going on and it took 3x as long to paint.  Where as the relatively simple horse artillerymen with just one bag and not a half a dozen overlapping things on their chests were actually quick and fun.... the long and short of this is simpler figures have their virtues as well.

Next up im thinking something simple....warlord games landwehr maybe.

The Fall of the House of Rochambeau

On a little known battlefield somewhere in the Rhineland on a forgotten date sometime between March 1759 and February 1761 when the forces of his Most Christian Majesty, King Louis XV, King of France and of Navarre sought to destroy a force of his Highness Fredrick the Great, Elector of Brandenburg and King in Prussia.

The spat between these two armies appears to have developed over the suzerainty of an impoverished village of woodcutters and subsistence farmers (top left of photo).

Due to poor presence of mind the regimental historian failed to collect a full battle report (or even secure a steady post to take observations from!)

The Battle developed with the Prussians seizing the initiative and never losing it throughout the course of the conflict.  The Prussian horse boldly extended the Prussian right flank while the infantry and freikorps seized the center anchoring their positions around a series of woods and bringing up their heavy 12 pounders.

The Perfidious French seized the heights (soon to be known as the Donner or "Thunder" heights by the locals due to the resounding sound of the numerous french artillery deployed there) and set up their artillery.

The Prussian converged Grenadiers and later 1st and 3rd Infantry regiments made a flank march on the French right.  The rapid evolutions and deployment of the Prussian infantry from Column to Line stymied the French cavalry and artillery sent to secure the French right.  A brave 4 pounder battery stood to the last man in the face withering fire from Prussian Grenadiers at near point blank range and was obliterated--the men falling in clusters around their guns.  The French cavalry attempted a bold flank march against the advancing Prussians but were again shattered, unable to form into line before the disciplined Prussian Infantry wheeled from columns to lines and poured devastating fire into the hapless French.

This brings us to the faithful hour.  Desperate to stem the tide General Claremont orders General de Brigade Rochambeau at the head of three converged attack columns of the Auvergne Regiment (9th) to charge the II/3rd IR advancing in line.  Prussian musketry opened the melee with some success, however the weight of numbers was too much and the line broke and ran in the face of numbers and casualties.

Unlucky for the French a fresh battalion of Prussian Grenadiers were formed an awaiting their arrival.  Two of Rochambeau's battalions charged home after breaking through the line infantry, but the center column after taking 10% casualties advanced with less ardor and in a classic example of French caprice waited to see the results of their comrades bravery.

They of course did not have to wait long.  The Elite Grenadiers broke the french with bayonet.  For a moment it seemed like the French gained the upper-hand; rumors of the death of the Prussian commander began to spread through the ranks.  But the Grenadiers attacked with redoubled effort tempered with vengeful anger and Rochambeau, the French commander, was instead knocked from his horse and gravely wounded.

With that the French right was broken, their position untenable, and they began to retire from the field.

The course of history was course changed this day. Comte de Rochambeau would no longer lead his 7000 man expeditionary force to the aide of General Washington to some backwater called Yorktown and the cause of Independence was crushed.....

Thus it appears appropriate to end with.... God Save the Queen!

Cream of the Silesian Horse

The Cream of the Silesian Horse has arrived!  Now I just need to dig up the lazy 1st Silesian Hussars and get them mounted.

The dapple came out really well i thought. Almost feel bad most of it will get covered by the saddle

A close up of the Palomino