General d'Armee: Battle of Weissenfels, 1813

On Saturday I hosted the Battle of Weissenfels at my place.  This scenario is from the General d'Armee 1813 Germany scenario book.  This scenario sees the Russian army attempting to prevent the French from entering the village of Rocken.  The French need to make a successful river crossing then push to the objective.  If the Russian prevent the French from entering Rocken by turn 14, the French loose.

The scenario lasts for 14 turns.  There was no way we would be able to fight the entire battle to completion on the Saturday afternoon, so we pushed through the first 7 turns of the game.

Below you can see the initial table setup.  There are two bridge crossings on the French side of the table.  Additionally there are two fords making it 4 crossing points.  Only skirmishers can cross the stream, all other units must cross at bridges or fords.

You may be asking, where are all the troops?  Well, nothing starts on the table initially.  The Russian note their brigade deployment positions, then the French attempt to scout the brigades.  If a brigade is successfully scouted, it is immediately deployed.  After the scouting, the French deploy two of their brigades, with the rest entering the game in later turns (as space permits).  Then the Russians deploy their non-scouted brigades.  A fun little pre-game event.

I took some nice pictures of the table setup with my zoon lens before the game started ...

So far the Russians are doing well.  That being said, the French have just finally finished crossing the river with all their forces.  The 2nd half of this game is going to be very interesting.  The Russian cavalry continue to be a major problem for the French, but the French cavalry just crossed and can now start fighting back the Russian cavalry on at least one of the flanks.

Next up below are some pictures from the end of "part 1" of the game.  Lots of French infantry squares are under threat.  While there are some Cossacks running around, they can't charge formed units to the front so they are mostly annoying to the French at this point - BUT, the French need to be careful as with so many units now concentrated in the center the Cossacks may find an open flank to charge.

Pictures below using my nice camera and zoom lens ...

Here are some "in progress" pictures, a combination of a larger lens on my SLR with a flash (not a fan of those results) and my phone pictures.  You can see the initial phases of the French crossing and Russian brigade deployment ...

I'm looking forward to the conclusion of this game.  I recall can't tell you at this point who will likely win.  I think the Russians enjoyed most of their success so far due to the French river crossing and difficultly coordinating the bridgehead, but that has effectively come to and end and the remaining French forces are ready to start pushing hard to Rocken.

War of the Ring: Another Wave

Another round of excellent LOTR miniatures painted up by Bohdan are on their way from merry old England.  I expect these will take a little longer to get here given the disastrous situation that is the current state of international shipping for the Royal Mail.

First up is a unit of Osgiliath Veterans for my Gondor army.  At this point the only unit I have left to get done is a large army of the dead unit (9 bases).

These are well timed with all the great Osgiliath releases that are coming out from Games Workshop.

Two more units join my Easterling army.  The first is a unit of Dragon Cult Acolytes.  This is a 3 base, 18 figure unit.  I have a war priest and champion as well.

Below are the Dragon Knights, who are the escort for the Dragon Emperor.  Together they form a 6 base unit - 2 bases either side of the Dragon Emperor that is on his palanquin.

I can see light at the end of the LOTR tunnel.  There are some small odds and ends to get done, a few Harad units, and finally some Ents, then my LOTR collection will be complete in every way I could have possibly imagined many years ago.