Wednesday 30 March 2016

Leipzig (first day) 1813

 As requested by my father we played Leipzig with him leading the allies and  the french. I'll divide the report in the two separate theatres, the north and the south. The villages are, clockwise and starting north of the bridges: Möckern, Schönefeld, Stötteritz, Probstheida, Connewitz and Leipzig, the big height it's the hangman's hill where the french great battery is located
 In the south the russian masses face off against the french garrisons of two villages with some austrian help. Pashol!
 The emperor of Austria, the Tsar and the king of Prussia have the overall command of this multinational army
 Their french counterpart reviews the Garde in the center
 French garrisons: conscripts on Probstheida
 And poles on Connewitz
 The french reseve cavalry remains hidden behind Probstheida 
In the north, masses of prussians and russians face off against half their number of imperials 

 Von Yorck's corps
 And Langeron's
 The allies got first trun and made my guns limber in the hill
 Austrians ad russians rushed forwards
 As did their comrades in the north

 The imperial forces on both fronts opened up

 The forces on the north began to retreas as the south held their ground (protected by the two villages)

 Schöonefeld occupied by poles
 The guns moved to form a gunline with the garde garrison in Leipzig
 Expecting an inminent attack on the south villages the cavalry reseve got close to protect them

 The russian great battery blew up the french guns on the hill who did not fire a single shot during the battle so far
 The northern allies kept moving onwards
 But the south instead hold and fired on the french garrisons
 The poles moved to Stöteritz while french line kept retreating over the Parthe river
 Since the south allies wouldn't come at me I had to come at them with my cavlry before they shot me to pieces: multiple charge!
 I unlimbered the guns near Leipzig
 The charged russians reacted firing
 The monarchs joined the fray but were wounded
 They sacrifice did little service as the victorious french swept over the first russian line and closed on the imperial guard
 Opening a gap in the center in the truest french tradition
 The allied south forces evaded the threat on their center while moving both their flanks forward

 Multiple charge on the guard, that fired causing some damage on the chasseurs

 Vörwartz! prussian gun move towards The bridge over the Parthe

 A russian unit climbed the hangaman's hill only to come into a violent crossfire from two french units
 Napoleon himself joined the combat agains the ruassian guard but was unfortunatelly wounded
 The guardsmen managed to repel the dragoons but were cut to pieces by the chasseurs
 Poniatownsky was also wounded
 The russian center is no more! Eylau II
 In the north, the french reached the riverbank but found that they had nowhere to retreat further!
 The dragoons charged a russian unit that had advanced recklessly and was now isolated
 While the chasseurs charged the guns
 The cowardly russian gunners however retreated behind their cossaks
 The grenadiers fired on the charging dragoons
 Who ignoring the lead buzzers anihilated the lone russian unit
 Their chasseur comrades didn't have the same luck, Murat was wounded
And they routed

At this point I had to go to my friend Oriol's house to give him his saint's present, so we had to leave it here, I was winning with a killed unit of margin but if the battle had continued things could have gone awry for the outnumbered french. I gave Oriol his gift allright, but great was my surprise when he said that he is giving me all his 1:72 napoleonics as my own saint gift (2 April)! So from here I would like to thank kim for his boundless generosity and say: Vivat Oriol!
Now I'll have to start collecting austrians and mamelukes to get the complete collection, sigh!

Next week we'll take up our Peninsular war campaign again with la Coruña battle

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