Battle of Möckern AAR

The other week we finally got to give the Battle of Möckern another try. Before I start with the AAR I shall show you the force compositions, so know which forces faced one another:

French OOB
Battle of Möckern
Republic to Empire rules
[EDIT: Please note there is a typo in the name of Maréchal Marmont]

Prussian OOB
Battle of Möckern
Republic to Empire rules

Deployment was quiet straight forward. The French Troops under Lagrange were deployed inside the village of Möckern, with the Légère being deployed behind it as reserves. They could only be released after the first Prussian assault on the village itself. The troops under Buquet were deployed on the fields east of the village. The French artillery was positioned in between these two formations.

The Prussians under Klüx were deployed opposite the village, with the Leibgrenadierbattalion being kept back as reserves. They could only be released after the first unsuccessful assault on Möckern. The Second Detachment was deployed on the fields east of Möckern opposite the French lines. The Prussian 6pdr. batteries were deployed between the two formations with the cavalry behind them. Th horsemen would stay in reserve until von Yorck saw the moment fit to unleash them. At the earliest this could happen on the fourth round (they would be released on a roll of 6+ on a D10 with each previous attempt giving them a +1). The 12pdrs. were not deployed on table but off table and would start firing on the fourth round.

Möckern (French side)

The Prussians won the first initiative (they would actually did so each round) and began a general advance. On their right the Gardejäger had deployed the whole unit as skirmishers and it was behind them that the Landwehr advanced, with the Ostpreußisches Infanterieregiment to their left, both in line. On the fields Two regular and the reserve battalions were at the front deployed in Collums of Attack with the Landwehr battalions advanced behind them in line. The artillery opened up on the closest French infantry on the fields, without doing much damage.

Prussian Skirmishers advancing on Möckern

Initiative passed over to the French. While the troops inside Möckern naturally stayed put and those in the fields advanced slowly in line. The two French batteries split their fire between the Westpreußisches Grenadierbattalion on the fields and the Ostpreußen near Möckern. They too only inflicted moderate damage.

French Artillery firing at the Prussian lines

Now it was the Prussians turn once more. The troops opposite Möckern continued their advance with the Gardejäger opening fire at the defenders doing the first damage. On the fields there was a further advance with the 12te Reserveinfanterie preparing to charge. But before they could do so it was the artilleries turn. The left battery had to shift its fire to the French artillery on account that part of the Prussian lines now obscured the French and managed to put the crew for two of the French guns out of action, while their companions still created more damage for the infantry. Now the reservists charged the French to their front. The French fired a defensive volley at point blank range, but still they went on. Both sides already inflicted heavy casualties on the other, but not enough to send one running. But after continued heavy hand to hand combat the French broke and ran, never to return. But at a heavy price with the reservists having lost more than half their number. But still they stood fast.

First contact

On their next turn the French in Möckern still just held their ground. The troops on the fields contented with just firing at the Prussians to their front without doing much damage or with sending some infantry to re-crew the French guns. Only the French battalions from the second line (now front) opposite the 12th Reserveinfanterie charged them. The Prussians were still disordered from their own attack and while they managed to get some defensive fire off they were unable to break the French impetus and after short combat broke themselves. They would still be retiring at the end of the game. Again the French artillery fired at both the Grenadierbattalion on the fields and the Ostpreußen near Möckern inflicting more damage, having found their range.

Battle on the Fields near Möckern

Back to the Prussians the action went. Near Möckern they advanced further, but the Ostpreußen now decided to deploy as skirmishers to lessen the effects of the incoming artillery, which would work out, but at the same time meant they would be less effective assaulting the village.

On the fields the 14te Schlesische Landwehr got into position to charge the French who had just broken the reservists, but faild to get their morale up for the charge. Unfortunately the same happened to the Brandenburgisches Infanterieregiment. The Grenadierbattalion decided to fire at the regiment to their front, since the second artillery battery could now longer fire at the french infantry either. And their fire proved effective enough. With the second Prussin artillery battery now shifting its fire to the French artillery as well, they caused impressive damage, killing all the infantry replacements for the crew plus the crews for another 4 guns!

Landwehr vs. French Infantry

Now the French defender inside Möckern remembered that they could fire back, which they did causing minimal damage ion the Gardejäger.

On the fields most of the French proved happy firing at the Prussians with moderate effect and sending yet more infantry to help redrew the French guns. The French who had previously dispatched the reservists now decided to charge the Landwehr in position to charge them. Their superior numbers and quality proved decisive and after heavy losses of both sides the Landwehr pulled back.. The French artillery virtually did nothing this turn. One battery was in no state to cause much damage and the other failed to make an impression on the dispersed skirmishers of the Ostpreußen.

Advance on Möckern

On their next turn the Prussians did extremely well. Both the line Regiments on the fields charged their French opposites causing both to break and run. Together with the previous losses and those troops send to help the artillery this only left a nucleus of French on the fields. While the Gardejäger caused some further damage on the French defenders of Möckern the real star was the artillery. One of the Prussian batteries shifted their fire to the next French battery taking out the crew for one gun. But the other one annihilated the mauled French battery taking out the remaining crew and damaging the guns before the French infantry even got a chance to redrew them. To make matters worse for the French the next round would also see the Prussian cavalry released. At this point the French player decided to call it a day.

Opposing lines crash

All in all one very entreating game and we more than happy to pal it out this time without too much discussing of rules. Having read them again before the game really helped there! 😉

 

Some Napoleonic game shots

Late November we began our Möckern game. Due to vast amounts of chatting and calling an end early that day we only played one round and decided to pick it up last night. Well… while we played longer (real-time) we only got half a round done, due to rules discussions and discussing what would be historically correct. In the process we found that we had made a mistake during the resolution of close combat, moved the minis back, began the close combat anew, discussed what could be done differently as a house rule, tried that out and so on. Bottom line… we botched the evening up for good! So in the end we decided to reboot and start the game from the beginning either between Christmas and New Years or in early 2014. No matter what… I managed to take a couple of nice photos, that I want to share!

Möckern (Prussian side)

Möckern (French side)

Jäger approaching Möckern

Prussian and French lines closing in

Prussian artillery firing

Prussian left

So what is next? Well tomorrow Curt´s Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge starts. I already have a good amount of British Tanks and Infantry (all WWII), SS end a few Napoleonics cleaned up and primed ready to go. More will follow when we are off to visit my better halfs relatives over Christmas, so there should be plenty of stock to work from (plus I am expecting my Warzone minis any day now).

As I said in a previous post, the first fortnight theme (non-combatants) was giving me some headaches, but I think I shall have that sorted out with a nice Napoleonic entry. So stay tuned!

 

French Officers

So I am still catching up on my Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge entries. Today it is French officers. First is a French colonel from Victrix. And I have to say… for me this is one of the top five Napoleonic minis around if not the best. There is so much character in that minis especially if combined with the prancing horse from the set, you just have to love that mini! It just scream smug aristocratic officer. And I loved it. It is meant to represent a French General de Brigade for my Möckern project. Yes, I know this is a colonel’s uniform, but I simply had to realise I did not have enough minis with the right uniform around so this will have to do. I also added a Grenadier Porte Fannion (Perry) to the base to make sure he does not look too alone.

French Colonel (Victrix)

French Colonel (Victrix)

French Colonel (Victrix)

The other base is a French General de Division and his aide. His is meant to represent Général de division Count Joseph Lagrange who commanded the French 21st Division at Leipzig. The mini is actually a Marechal painted up to represent a GdD. Both he and his aide are Perry Miniatures.

These actually presented me with an interesting problem. I had originally meant the two officers to be facing one another. But the big problem was the base size. I always ended up with the General pushing his bicorn into his aides face. But after a few attempts to rearrange them, I found a way to keep them both on the same base and still look good.

French GdD

French GdD

French GdD

I really enjoyed painting these Frenchmen. One thing I really love to do is paint NMM gold. Now over the past few months I only painted French Légère and Prussians and while those have a lot of silver in their clothing… no gold. But about no one sports more gold than French officers so this was a great remedy!

 

La Bricole Painting Competition (Part 6) / 4th Marine Regiment

There is about one week let to go till the deadline for the La Bricole painting competition but I managed to get the 2nd battalion of the 4ème Régiment d’Artillerie de la marine (the third to be painted) done. So now all three battalions and therefore the whole regiment are finished. I have to say, that I am quiet happy I chose this unit for th competition. Since they wore dark blue coats over dark blue uniforms, they were not the most diverse unit to paint and it became a chore somewhere along the way. I had been sure, that this would be the case and pledging to paint all three battalions as part of a competition was my trick to keep me going. And it worked! Plus I am really happy with the result no matter how they do in the competition.

Without much further ado… here they are:

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine command stand

To keep with the maritime theme for those battalions not issued with an eagle, I carved a fish from a piece of plastic for the finial here. I had planned it to look like the fish used to indicate rounds raced in the ancient Circus Maximus in Rome, but it came out rather longish and looks more like a trout. Unfortunately, I took this photo at an agle where you see it from the front, but it shows on some of the unit shots.

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 1st stand

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 2nd stand

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 3rd stand

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 4th stand

4e - 2 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 5th stand

While these two skirmishers were painted when I did the first battalion, they belong to the second (the only one large enough to deploy skirmishers under the R2E rules) so here they are again.

4e Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine skirmishers front

4e Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine skirmishers back

And last… the whole regiment deployed one battalion behind the other.

4e - Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine, all 3 battalions

4e - Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine, all 3 battalions

In total these are 66 minis. 64 of them are Victrix from the old Guard and Infantry boxed sets with shakos in place of the bearskin caps. Two minis are from Perry.

One last comment one these… Victrix minis have a reputation of bayonets breaking. I have not had a single broken bayonet with any of the 64 Victrix minis here and I did not treat them any “nicer” then I would metal minis. I even dared to put a shako on top the plastic sword of the officer for the first battalion and it did not break off. So if anything I can attest to them being robust.

 

La Bricole Painting Competition (Part 5) / 4th Marine Regiment

I know the past week has been a bit quiet here, but life got a bit in the way of doing much and posting. But I managed to finish the third battalion of the 4e Régiment d’Artillerie de la marine for the La Bricole painting competition. I had planned to have these finished the other weekend, but just the few little things to touch up and basing ruined that timetable. They are done now:

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 1st stand

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 2nd stand

As mentioned in a previous post they were mistaken at Leipzig for Guard Marines or even Guard infantry, due to their dark blue greatcoats. I still assume, that a few of the men wore did not wear the greatcoats over their normal uniform, so I always mix in a few men not wearing greatcoats (about 1 in 5). For this battalion the drummer is one of them. I chose to give him reversed colours for his jacket to add a little colour to all that dark blue. I could not find any information if this was historically correct or not, but I liked the looks and the fact that it broke up the monotony. The mini is a Victrix infantryman converted to drummer with a Perry head by the way.

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine command stand

Since this is the 3rd battalion it was not issued with an eagle. Those always went to the 1st battalions. Now usually the battalions not issued with an eagle used spearhead shaped finials, but I wanted something special. In the end I thought that a trident would be fitting for a marine unit, so I carved one from plasticard. I am thinking about something similar for the 2nd battalion… maybe a fish or something like that. Lets just see!

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine command stand

4e - 3 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 4th stand

The 2nd and final battalion is on my painting table already and are all dark blue right now. I just hope they do not take as long as these guys!

 

Major-General Sir John Byng

Sir John Byng, 1st Earl of Strafford

Now after painting all this blue lately, I needed a break last week, so I turned to something I have had in mind for a long time… I British command vignette for Waterloo. Now this one depicts Major-General Sir John Byng, who commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 1st British Infantry (Guards) Division at Quatre-Bras and Waterloo. His Brigade consisted of the 2nd Coldstream Guards and the 2/3 Foot Guards. He was a bit of an oddity in this Division, since he was the only Major General there not have started his career with the Guards.

He was commissioned into the 33rd Foot (the Duke of Wellington’s former Regiment) in 1793 and served as one of the junior officers under the (then) Lieutenant-Colonel Wellesly at Boxtel in Flanders in 1794. He saw action during the Irish Rising of 1798 when he was wounded. In 1800 he was serving as a Major with the 60th Foot (Royal Americans) in America until he exchanged into the 3rd Foot Guards in 1804. He took part in the Peninsular Campaign as a brigade commander. His finest moment came at St. Pierre in December 1813 when he led his Brigade in an uphill assault on Vieux Mouguerre ridge and personally planted the colours of the 31st Foot on it. As a reward the augmentation of the families coat of arms was authorized be the Prince Regent. At Quatre Bras his Brigade cleared the Bois de Bossu and most of it spend almost the complete Battle of Waterloo with the defence of Hougoumont.

He was appointed CiC Ireland in 1828. After leaving Ireland in 1831 he went into politics and became a MP for Poole in Dorset. He held the seat until he inherited the title Earl of Strafford. He was promoted to Field Marshal in 1855 and died in 1860 at the age of 80, making him the 2nd oldest of the Waterloo Generals (only Kempt was older).

So why him? Well last year I saw the two Foxhounds that came with Eureka Miniatures George Washington and I wanted to use them with a British vignette. There is no information if any of the British Commanders had dogs with him, so I just picked any and which British unit suggested such extravagances more than the Guards. So why not Cooke or Maitland? Well I felt that the Victrix British Colonels set suited my needs the best and doing the background research on these commanders I felt that Byng looked a lot like one of the minis (although the painting seen at the top of this post was made later in his life). So all I had to do was remove the raised parts on his cuffs and collars so I could paint a Generals oak leaves on them and I was good to go. In that sense without much further ado… here he is:

Major-General Sir John Byng, with ADC and foxhounds

Major-General Sir John Byng, with ADC and foxhounds

Major-General Sir John Byng, with ADC and foxhounds

Major-General Sir John Byng, with ADC and foxhounds

Major-General Sir John Byng, with ADC and foxhounds

Major-General Sir John Byng, with ADC and foxhounds

 

La Bricole Painting Competition (Part 4) / 4th Marine Regiment

OK the weather still has not turned warmer here, but I could not stand having nearly finished minis sitting around here for much longer. So I decided that I would not enter by game room for one day (due to the fumes) and (spray-)varnish them indoors. So here is the first finished batch of Napoleonic French Marines for the La Bricole painting competition. Except for the varnish and basing the only new thing is that I painted the flag over even more.

But there are the minis in all their glory, ready to take on von Yorck´s Prussians at Leipzig!

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine

And some shots of the individual stands (I go a bit carried away there, but I do not really regret it ;-))

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 1st stand

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 2nd stand

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine command stand

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 3rd stand

4e - 1 Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine 4th stand

I usually do not paint regimental number on shako covers or ammo pouches, since I want to keep the units generic. Because lets face it… from a normal table distance you can not make out the writing on the flags. On the other hand the numbers on the shakos and pouches are more obvious, since they are bigger and offer a higher contrast. So if I leave them off the lets say 54th Regiment can just as well depict the 77th in the next game. Since the Völkerscchlacht game will most likely be my only use of Marines, I did not care this much here.

To round the pictures off, here are two shots of the skirmishers. As I said before these will not see use with the 1st battalion, but the 2nd. Since they are finished they get their 15 minutes of fame now.

4e Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine skirmishers front

4e Régiment d'Artillerie de la marine skirmishers back

 

La Bricole Painting Competition (Part 3) / 4th Marine Regiment

I finally finished painting the minis Napoleonic French Marines for the La Bricole painting competition yesterday. Well at least the first batch, which is the 1st battalion. So two more and a command stand or in other words 47 minis to go. Now the weather is still bleeping cold here in Germany, so I only managed to glue them to their bases. Before the bases themselves will be done, I still need to varnish them and since I am using spray on varnish, I need to wait for warmer weather. So the pictures here are still WIP. First up the unit itself:

4-1 Marine WIP front

4-1 Marine WIP back

Next up is the skirmisher pair. Now while painting these minis it dawned on me, that only the 2nd battalion will be large enough to deploy skirmishers under the R2E rules, so these will not see use with this battalion. In retrospect this seems to be a common mistake for me. So far I have always painted skirmisher pairs for any unit I have done, but a good number of them are too small to actually deploy them under the rules. Guess I need to pay better attention in the future.

Skirmishers WIP front

Skirmishers WIP back

Last but not least I wanted to go somewhat special with their flag. Since I could not find a proper flag for the unit anywhere online I decided to repaint one. So this is a Victrix 15th Infantry flag (photocopied) and then repainted as 4th Marine regiment. Not the best work, but it should work at table distance.

4-1 Marine flag repaint

So what is next… well I am in the process of assembling and cleaning up the minis for the 3rd battalion (2nd will be done last). I should start on those this weekend at the latest. I will do a write-up on how I do the mud when I paint those. There were a lot of requests for the technique after the last post, so that should answer all questions.

 

La Bricole Painting Competition (Part 2) / 4th Marine Regiment

OK, so after working on a few other subjects over the past week, I returned to my Napoleonic French Marines for the La Bricole painting competition. I made some good progress on these yesterday, finishing their crossbelts, boots, cartridge boxes, the dirt and skin, plus the company Fanion. So all that is left to do is hair, finishing the eyes, headgear, metalwork, Pompom´s and highlighting the black and the first 22 minis will be done completing the first battalion. Here are two troopers meant to give you an idea of how far the unit is:

4th Marine WIP

And since I am really pleased with the freehand work on the Fanion a picture of the Sergeant, too:

4th Marine Sergeant with Fanion WIP

 

La Bricole Painting Competition (Part 1) / 4th Marine Regiment

A couple of days ago I stumbled over a nice little forum called La Bricole, which is completely dedicated to Napoleonic wargaming. Now they are running a painting competition right now, which is more of a friendly contest rather than anything else. All participants need to paint a unit of their choice, any given scale. The biggest rules are that you are not allowed to have started (except cleaning the minis and priming them) before the competition started around Christmas and that everything needs to be finished before the end of March. You can pick any unit as long as it is not elite (no guards, Rifles / Schützen / Jäger…).

I decided to pick the 4th Marine Artillery Regiment. Why… Well most of all, because I need to paint them for my Völkerschlacht / Möckern project anyway and since it would give me good reason to work myself through them at a reasonable pace, since I feel that this might be the unit that might get me bored most easily!

Since I only found the forum last week I am slightly late to the party, but on the other hand I have lots of time right now. So over the course of a couple of evenings I cleaned up the minis for this unit. Right now it is only the 1st battalion, but if I find the time, I shall try to do all 3 for the competition.

Marine Artillerie bei Möckern 1813

Marines and Brandenburg Hussars

Now at Leipzig these men were actually mistaken for Old Guard, since they wore dark blue greatcoats over dark blue uniforms. They had red epaulettes and pompoms, but wore shakos and (judging by some paintings I found) bicornes. Now this made the choice of minis easy. I used mostly Victrix minis from their Old Guard Grenadiers box with shakos from Victrix and Perry. A few men received the heads from the officers with slightly modified bicornes and one bicorne from Victrixs early infantry is in there, too. To add a little diversity there are also two plastic Perry soldiers in greatcoats and three men in normal uniforms. As you might be able to see on these poor shots from the various shades of plastic, all this came from a great number of boxes. They have now been cleaned up (a few slightly converted) and holes filled with greenstuff. After these shots were taken, I also primed them and I hope to put the first colour on them by tomorrow.

Minis before being primed

Skirmishers