Battle of Leipzig refight pictures (part 1)

This weekend was one of the Deeside Defenders gaming weekends.  Will put on a refight of the Battle of Leipzig 1813 (Battle of the Nations).  The action was to take place on the southern front and to represent the first day of the battle on 16th October 1813, so 200 years less 4 days from the first day of our refight.  I was lucky enough to take part, my dice throwing handing me command of the French forces, although thankfully Martin turned up at lunchtime to take over the left flank.  Will and Ian took on the Austrians and Russians/Prussians respectively.  It was a hard fought game with lots of tooing and froing of fortunes, although the outcome was pretty historical with the French failing to breakthrough the coalition forces.

There was so much going on that I can make no claim to remembering details, but then it was the biggest battle in Europe until the First World War.  I remember the despair of watching three brigades break, two in the centre and the Poles on the right flank, although the situation was easier to recover on the right than in the centre.  I also remember watching 6 units of cuirassiers repulsed by Austrian Hussars.  There were some highlights, mostly breaking Prussian battalions and one particular French brigade beating off successive waves of Russian cuirassiers.

All in all a great game and a big thank you to Will for letting me get involved.

Here are the pictures I took of the first day and they follow game events from 8am to 12 noon in game time.  For more details of the game special rules and scaling, as well as other pictures and a post-action report, see Wills' blog

http://willwarweb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/leipzig-refight-800am-1200am-day-1-of.html