Marshall Massena

I have had this miniature for years (decades!) I decided to paint it as there is always a need for more French Generals on the table. It's from one of the Old Glory French Marshals packs.

One of my goals for 2011 is to learn to take good pictures with the camera.

Battle of Dennewitz

We recently played the Dennewitz scenario with Volley and Bayonet. A six player game, we played for 5 hours.

The brave Allied defenders, Chris, Kyle, and Brady.


The bold French attackers, Jim, Ted, and Dan


All of the French allies, except the Bavarians, were supplied by Dan; Italians, Poles, Wurtemburgers, and Saxons. It's been 5 or 6 years since Dan has been at one of our games and we are glad he was able to join us.

Bertrand's IV French Corps pins the Allied left. The French plan was to seize the Windmill Heights and Gohlsdorf and exhaust the Allies as they attacked.
The Allied plan was to reinforce their left before the French could overwhelm it and take the Windmill Heights and exhaust the French as they counterattacked.


Both sides in this game get reinforcements for the first five turns. A meeting engagement of the historiacal kind. Here French reinforcements move up the Leipzig Road toward Dennewitz.


The action was hot and heavy on the Allied right as the two armies fought back and forth.





In the last half of the game, control of the Windmill Heights changes several times. The heights and the town of Goehlsdorf are victory points for the French.




By the end of the game the reinforced Allied left attacks the French as well.


This game ended in a French victory, 75-22. This is one of my favorite Napoleonic scenarios. Created by my good friend, John Holtz, I've played in it five times and GM'ed it once. Each game is different and exciting. It's easy to understand why Frank Chadwick included this one in the rule book.

Johnny Con 3

I attended the first day of JohnnyCon 3. Here's a couple of pictures of me playing in Dean West's Freiburg game.



For a full report of all three days of the Con, see http://pavelft.wordpress.com/

Link to Knotel Prints

http://www.grosser-generalstab.de/tafeln/knoetel.html


I found this link to a nice selection of Knotel prints on Gaming with Chuck,
http://chuckgame.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog.

Might be time to paint some more Napoleonics.

Or at least look at some prints.

Front Royal

I started playing Johnny Reb in the mid '80's. I have probably played close to 200 games of this system, but only a few games since the turn of the century. Since I plan to attend Johnny Con in a couple of weeks, I needed to play a game to refresh my memory of the rules.
My friend Ted had never played Johnny Reb, so I invited him over so we could play a small learning game.
I setup the Front Royal scenario from the original version of the rules. Three Union regiments and one secion of artillery vs. two small brigades of Rebs. The Union troops are protecting the two bridges over the Shenandoah River, (I need to build some bridges!) If they cannot protect the bridges, they should burn them.

The terrain and Union setup at the start of the game.


On turn one, the Rebs march on.
The Louisiana Tigers are here and there is a scenario rule that forces them to roll a d6 each turn to see if a train enters the board. If it does, the Tigers will immediately charge the train and plunder it.

The small Union battalion moves toward the second bridge to cover it; or burn it.

On turn two, as the Rebs continue to advance, the front most US unit disengages. The small Union battalion continues to move toward the bridge.

Turn three, Reb Artillery on First Fire.


The lead Rebel unit comes out of march column and forms on my right flank. I move my unit that disengaged, and is still in disorder, toward the threatening unit. I fire at it and miss!


The 6th VA Cavalry rides on and heads for the northern bridge, (the one the small US battalion is trying to reach.)

On turn four the Tigers charge. They catch the disordered unit forming; never a good thing for the defender. The first US unit routs. The Tigers threw a large charge move bonus, so they hit the second US unit and routed it as well. Both Union units were now routed and within the range of the Tigers charge move. They both picked up.

Here is the situation after the initial routs of my two units.

The Tigers were now positioned perfectly to pounce on any unsuspecting trains to enter the table.

On the other end of the table the 6th Va charged the small 8 figure battalion. Again my opponent rolled very high for his charge movement bonus. I rolled pitiful for my defensive fire; no casualties. My last infantry unit routed and was hit again as it tried to escape.





A quick game and a new player introduced to Johnny Reb. We'll play this one again.

Basing Jaegers

I am experimenting with a new basing scheme for Napoleonic Lights. The first group is Russian Jaegers, early uniform. I am planning to base all of the "pure" light infantry brigades like this; moving in a loose order through some type of tall vegetation.


Some day I will learn to use the camera.

Retreat From Erfurt

We recently gathered at my place for another Volley and Bayonet game; this one a hypothetical battle following Leipzig. War Artizan from the Miniatures Page posted an AAR and I decided to take his idea and run with it.
This battle assumes that the Allies were able to coordinate their pursuit of the French and cut their line of retreat. The battered French aremy must push through the Allies and get Napoleon off the table.
The French corps have all been reduced to divisions. Two corps have been left off the table; detached for one reason or another. The Allies start with one Austrian Corps on the table in a blocking position and two Prussian and two Russian Corps arriving as reinforcements from random roads. The Alloed Corps have all been reduced by 50% from their pre-Leipzig numbers.

The French advance from the top of the picture to the bottom. Prussians and Russians are moving on from the left.


This shows the farthest French advance, still two feet from the edge of the table. Although the French moved well, the Allies were able to close in on the French right and put two strong lines of troops in front of them. One Austrian brigade defended against every attack and didn't move back an inch, (M4 poorly trained at that.) In the end, the Allies held and the French retreat ended.


It was a table full of troops. Perhaps too many. But with seven players, everyone needs 8-12 stands to push.

Fort Caroline

Last Summer, we visited Fort Caroline, the Huguenot fort at Jacksonville, Florida. It was quite something to see a sight from the Wars of Religion here in the US.
Although the actual fight here was too one sided to be much of a wargame scenario, the what ifs are intriguing.
Some day I will build this in 15mm and fight it out with Spanish Fury Actions.