"Lutzen 1813 battalion level" Topic

We played Lutzen 1813 at the club. We focused on the central main action ignoring the flanking moves to see if either side could break the other head on. We played with the Champ d´honeur batallion rules.

Bluchers troops are lining up ready to jump the unsuspecting french. The pussian cavalry under Jurgass is on the way towards Starsiedel. The monarchs are by the windmill on the Monarchenhugel.

The French are preparing soup

Ziethens brigade attack immediately without preparatory bombardment

Klux has joined the attack while cavalry is moving up in support

That's a very impressive looking tabletop!

"Lutzen 1813 battalion level" – you mean the smallest unit is a battalion?

Flickr is down so the next pics are unedited – sorry

Berg is moving towards Starsiedel next to the Brandenburg brigade

Gerard has established a defensive line from Starsiedel to Kaina – covering Compans move

Brennier and Richard moves up

Dolffs Cuirassiers attack

Souham collapses

The action is general. At 15.00 Yorck advances to the left of Gross Goertschen

French artillery has stopped the prussian offensive and a counterattack has been stopped by the prussian guard

The guard cavalry moves up to support Ney

Both sides have deployed massive batteries denying each other the ground between Starsiedel and Gr Goerschen. The russian batteries are being crushed by the guard artillery almost as quickly as they are deployed

At 17.00 both sides were more or less fought to a stalemate between Klein and Gross Goerschen. Like the historical battle, there was to litlle time to force a breakthrough for the french. We had a sceanrio rules denying Napoleon the option of attacking with the guard cavalry and the old gurad – they could only be used against an allied breakthrough.

Hi major B. Yes I mean that it is based on our battalion level rules as opposed to the many brigade level rules out there. We had 90 french battalions in the game which took about 8 hours to play for the 6 hours of "realtime" with 5 players.

Hi major B. Yes I mean that it is based on our battalion level rules as opposed to the many brigade level rules out there.

Ah, OK. It's just that to many of us "battalion level" would mean that each player commands a battalion (as in level of command) rather than the smallest unit is a battalion. Judging by the pictures, I would refer to your game as divisional level or even corps level.

That's absolutely fantastic! What a great looking game; thanks for posting, and I look forward to more.

And regarding the 'level' of the game, I'm used to calling WWII/modern games by the overall level of unit on the table (i.e., if there are ~four platoons on the table per side, that's a company-level game; ~four companies=battalion, ~four battalions=regiment/brigade, etc…), but for Napoleonics I'm used to the idea of referring to the game as the size of the basic unit, as most Napoleonic rules seem to break down into either battalions (usually four to six bases per, to show formation), or brigades (usually one stand=one brigade).

V/R,
Jack

Great battle and great pics

Gorgeous looking game – very effective terrain representation

Size of minis? How are they based?

Looks like 6mm-10mm figures

Great looking game. Our group plays Shako 2 which is battalion level as well.

Thank you for the nice comments. The miniatures are all 6mm Adler based 10 to a base of 10x25mm. 3-4 bases make a batallion. The terrain is matts from hotz with various homemade stuff.

Dear Sir,

Splendid array. What were your sources for order of battle and terrain layout?

Dear James Arnold

How glad I am that you like it. It was your latest book on Lutzen and Bautzen, that prombted us to play these two battles this spring. I used you book supplemented by Hofschroers as reference. I did a lot of research into the maps, since the terrain betwwen the towns was hard to quantify. I ended up using this one, which shows in detail the terrain behind Gr. Goerschen – the outlay of which had tremendous effect on our game.

It was very tricky laying out a command structure. We ended out with Blucher commanding only his corps and Yorck being independent. The remainder was under Wittgenstein, but we introduced random movement and intterventions from the Tzar and the King – inspired by your descriptions – which ended up with Wittgenstein having a hard time making things work effectively.

Also I was greatly inspired by your descriptions of the revitalized prussian army and their new way of dissolving into skirmiishers instead of retreating – like the french – as opposed to the russian veterans. It changed the way we rated the russians – to the better – and prombted us to introduce a whole new skirmish concept. Armies like the french, and the prussian in 13-15 are given the ability to let troops that fall back dissolve into loose order instead, and avoid some morale penalties. This made the units in our game disperse in between the cities and loose momentum like they did in your descriptions.

We have also played the northern front of Butzen, and I will upload the pics soon.

great looking game and also a lot of research and effort was put into it.

Some interesting bits here:

Where did this map come from – is it widely available (ie internet)?

Your treatment of retiring units – how did you make this work in practice, as it sounds really "different" (in a good way).

Thanks

Marc

And looks like I need another book

Thx vW

And hello Mark. The map was found on the internet, I cannot find the original source and it was really hard reading as I could not find a better solution tha the one posted. There was also some interesting detalis with a sunken road just south of Gr. Goerscehn.

We really like the way our rules now present the soultion of units. Originally I was inspired by the "Chef de Brigade" rules, where units that have taken a lot of casualties can dissolve into skirmishers and still do some good.
In our present rules formation morale (usually divisional or equivalent) is affected mainly by fatigue and retiring units. If a formation is not routed units can reform, but when the formation routs, it is removed from play.
At the risk of opening a can of worms, I believe there was a difference between being good at skirmishing as the unit level and the menatlity of fighting in loose order. The prussian had acquired that by 1813.
When a unit with this loose order mentality is forced to retreat, we let it dissolve into skirmishers and it will not impact formation morale negatively. In this way many french formations with poor moral has a tendency to slowly dissolve under pressure but still hang around for skimishing – like D´erlons corps at Waterloo. The russian get higher morale, but when they break they break for good. It only works if you have good skirmish rules.

I believe a copy of the map you are using can be found at the Darmstadt site (though perhaps with less color – one can zoom it though):

tukart.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de

Use the German title to find it.

Plan der Schlacht von Gr[oß-]Goerschen den 2ten May 1813

tukart.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/236

Th

It was by Brügner to go along with a series of battle studies by Wagner, published in the 1820's as "Plane der Schlachten und Treffen in den Feldzügen der Jahre 1813 1814 und 1815".

Wagner's works can be found on Google books. Lützen is in the first volume and has keys to the map, albeit in German. – R

Looks interesting. Would the rules work for 10mm figures?

How could I get a copy of your rules?

Thanks,
Mick

Dear Sir,

I see my friend Ralph has answered the map query (I asked and he answered!) He is the source for all map questions.

Regarding your game: I have found it very hard to play a historic game because, it presumes absence of knowledge. We fought Lutzen, and, when I "told" my opponent, that his plan was going to be delayed, he took it well. He bowed to my research. But, it was clearly frustrating. What to do? I do not have the answer. "Hey everybody: any answers?

James

Gotta love all the bellies, some more bulging than others :)

Ralph – Thx a lot for the link, that is a great ressource I was not aware off. It is even more interesting how many details are missing from most of the Bautzen maps.

James – Our rules allows a lot delay when you poor leadership capabilities to commanders. So the allied orders were immensely slow and their artillry took forever to be deployed.

Bandolier – They work with all scales. I am just finishing the 2. english language version. If you PM me I will mail you a pdf copy.

Hi Sparta,
Thank you very much.
I can't PM you unless you are a supporting member.
Can you please send to yowiedemon At hot mail dot com?

Mick

I will :-)

Sparta, my congratulations, it all looks superb which to me is very important at creating the feeling of Napoleonic warfare. I'm not a "patchs of coloured felt" man myself, I think an authentic looking landscape is really important.

Love the way your battle played out with both sides gathering strength, delays and command friction.

I would also love to try your rules, could I beg a PDF copy too, please? My email is nsolomon99 at yahoo dot com

Nick

Dear Sparta,

I would also be most interested in a copy of your rules; the morale process that you describe seems very insightful and would probably translate well to slightly later periods.

My email address is aberranttheaberrant at gmail.com

Many thanks in anticipation.

I will post a link here for free download when the second english edition is ready :-)

Very interesting, thanks for posting!

Hello Sparta!

Great looking game, really shows off the advantages of 6mm Napoleonic's.

Looking forward to seeing your next game.

Best regards,

Glenn

Hi Sparta, can I ask where the material for the tabletop came from?
The pattern makes a very effective surface for small scale mini's!

The matts and fields are from Hottz matts!

Hi Sparta

I have been trying to think about what I want a Napoleonic game to look like, and how it should play out

I've just seen exactly that in your pictures, wonderful setup

What size was the table ?

Do you find a base of 25x10 mm hard to handle ?

I would also appreciate a copy of the rules if possible

JohnLobster at the famous g mail

Thanks

John

Hi Sparta

Like others have said, the battle looks fantastic. Well done. I'm just starting out on 6mm having done larger scales before and am trying to get the balance right with something that can show large-scale battles, at individual battalion level, that is both playable and feels Napoleonic. So love what you're doing here. I'd also really love to see your rules, as I've not found anything commercial that is quite right for me. I'll keep my eye on this page for your link but if you are able to send it to me, that would be great: mikehewson at gmail dot com. Thanks and keep up the good work!

Hi Jwebster & senormeek

Sorry I only noticed your posts now. Thank you for the kind words about the setup rules will be in the mail, since I am struggling a bit with a website solution.

jwebster seem to get your email wrong. You can try me at
nbfoss at gmail dot com

Excellent – also useful map of the battle in "Die Schlachten der Preußen und ihrer Verbündeten von 1741 bis 1815" by Friedrich Rudolf von Rothenburg
link