Leipzig 1813 day one. Napoleon's Battles. Eye candy post

I have the sense that once you a a deep veteran of napoleonic wargaming, you begin to gaze at Leipzig 1813 as the magnum opus to your endeavors. After you've collected, painted, built and gamed progressively bigger and bigger battles and campaigns there exists the shining battle on the hill.

Leipzig was the largest battle in the Napoleonic wars and had roughly half a million troops converging and fighting for control of the city. To put this in perspective The battle of the bulge (WW2) (arguably a theatre) was roughly the same. Verdun (WW1) approximately the same size.  Gettsyburg  clocked in a 1/3-1/4.  Stalingrad (WW2) and Kursk (WW2), both clock in about 2 million and are the largest battles in history. Napoleon and his opponents managed to field this monstrosity with horse drawn supplies, foot power, and a fairly recent innovation of canning. Totally bonkers. 

 

 

Also, this game is pretty bonkers for wargamers to put on. It occurs over 3 days and the map is HUGE. The OOB is something larger than huge. Delerious perhaps? 

 

 

 

 

 

Saying all that, some gamers I have known for almost two decades had this one in their targets. Codsticker took on the table creation project. I know not what blacksite mind control technology was deployed to convince him to do this, but he delivered. The boards (which required a fullsize pickup truck to transport) were (and are) amazing. The force collection was a collaboration of 4+ wargamers who all have substantial forces (Nate, Macolm, David, Brian). The logistics I'm barely aware of, but expect they were most complicated and I shudder to think of the labelling project (Napoleons battles uses a lot of tiny little labels - one on every unit, commander, and cannon). 

 

 

 Plus the herding of cats known as wargamers. Somehow, the project was carried through and in mid may 2026 two days (plus an evening of setup) of wargaming occured to play out one day of battle. At accelerated turn speed....and a reduced day as the French used their initiative to end the day early as they were about to get hit hard in a variety of places. 

 

 

What happened in the game? I hardly know myself. I was tasked with the Russians who were cannon rich and infantry poor. It was a fairly static firing line, trying to prevent an opportunistic attack by the french. As the Russian cavalry reserve arrived we opened up a gap up the hill to prepare for a ugly charge which might hit the french pressing on the Austrians to our right. This is, no doubt, one of the contributing factors to the early end. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Across the table....like, across 75% of a portable, so probably 15-20 feet away, the French were pressing hard to try and break the.....Prussians perhaps? Our allies were caught on the back foot and struggled to deploy onto the table edge, such was the french pressure. They managed to avoid a break as the steady growth of troops on the table pushed that sudden death victory out of reach of the French. 

 

 

The allies struggled to cross the river in some of the lesser fronts. One particularly ugly approach (tactically speaking, the board was beautiful) had a swamp and a single road approach to a fortified town, and then a bridge. Tough sledding when the french have cannons pointed down the road you must march up in column.  

 

 

 

 

The obvious question: when do we play the next game? I have no idea. It's a marvel to me this happened at all. Can you get bottled lightning more than once? Despite my doubtful Thomas tone, I must commend everyone involved in the game. Turns were hammered out steadily, lots of gamers not very familiar with the rules showed up, learned, and played. Couriered messages raced across the table and the mixing of wargaming collections was minimized. And it was fun. Well played everyone. 

 

I'd be remiss if I don't share a link to David M's blog.