"Battle of Pont Heinz"

 The battle is named for the bridge in box 57 of the campaign map in Peter's 'One Week Campaign' Napoleonic clash with Craig taking the French, while allies KevinA takes my Prusssians and I control the Russians (combined as the "Ussians").  This was the first and so far largest of the clashes which had high hopes for the Russian commander to pincer and destroy the bridgehead over the border river made by the French Guard and Ney's French Corps.  

While very familiar with these rules (as I helped to create them...), I have no command success with them, having a combination of, let us say, no subtlety in my tactics and bad rolling with the dice. "If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all!"  Needless to say, with the good management of his forces, including having Poniatowski's Polish Corps come to flank my left hook by Tuchov, and having all my artillery eliminated by the accurate French counter battery fire, the Russian heavy horse broken apart and my infantry thrust to the bridge halted, essentially the Russian army was destroyed on the first day.

Poniatowski's Polish made from Muraski Miniatures and Victrix greatcoat plastics with 'campaign' caps from their Guard Lancers pack. I also created a French uniformed Polish brigade with brown trousers and white cap covers as the 4th, 7th, and 9th Polish infantry regiments were recalled from Spain to form a brigade in the 1812 Russian invasion.  The leader himself is a partial creation by me, as are the hussars in the back. 

Peter uses coloured discs to denote losses either permanent (reds) or temporary for Campaign purposes (blues) which can be recovered thereby allowing forces to be available albeit weakened for later engagements. 

However, I still had my 'end-around' attack in which I send Borozdin's Corps on a roundabout two day journey to attack the French capital from the north.  Strategically I was hoping to either a) take his capital by surprise,  b) capture and hold a town for campaign points or c) and, more likely, have some of Craig's reserve formations move away from the Prussians there by allowing Prussian success in the main theatre of action.  This plan worked too well as the French moved Milhaud's Heavy Cavalry Corps and the Imperial Guard Horse (!) against me. While holding off directly attacking me during the latter part of day two at the important French crossroads town, his horse artillery was active while all I could do is form a defensive perimeter maneuvering slowly as my die rolling (of course!) was always low to prevent too much activity - blame it on bad Russian staff work?  

Craig also cleverly moved the Italian Corps onto my rear in the morning of the 'next day', cutting off supplies (thus my important ability to recoup attrition losses) thereby completely destroying the surrounded Russians.  While the strategic goal was only partially achieved having some of the Italians hurt, so ended the Battle of Quartre Jambre.  

The campaign continues with the Prussians engaging the French

Chattanooga - Napoleonic style

 Having the guys commit to a full weekend, I set up a secondary game should we need in addition to the larger affair earlier (see post: the big game  ).  I set up a 'bathtub' version of the American Civil War version of Chattanooga.  

In this scenario, the Union would have the advantage of not only the numbers historically but with the rules, multiple commands giving much better tactical maneuver.  The Confederate commander would, regardless of the position of his General, have most of his spread out troops out of command radius and thus less likely to be allowed tactical positioning.  He would be always be forced to only command those troops most needing and leaving the others to the tender mercies of the opposition. 

The scenario roughly follows that of the historical battle.  The Confederates had the Missionary Ridge position in the centre with slightly forward positions of Lookout Mountain on the left and Tunnel Hill on the right held by, in our game by the Brunswickers and Highlanders respectively. While the Dutch-Belgians held the centre ridge. To represent the unexpected rapid collapse of the Confederates on the ridge, I had their combat rating undetermined until contact so even their commander would not know how much they could be relied upon. 

The Union were in three commands: Hooker with his Westphalians would attack Lookout Mountain; Sherman and his Napoleonic Minor States contingent would attack the Highlanders representing the steady troops of Cleburne.  In the middle under the fortifications of Chattanooga was Thomas and the artillery.  In the actual battle a portion of the troops would make a demonstration on the lower slopes of ridge, get shot at and as a un-commanded response charge up the hill and rout the Confederates! I had Thomas' troops ability to do the same (but in future games restrict him even further as this push made all Confederate resistance futile)

We ended up playing two games of this. One Friday night and the other Saturday.  Both followed the historical narrative.  The boys seemed to have quite a bit of fun with these smaller 'fast' games.

part of "Hooker's" Westphalians 

Westhphalians vs Bruswickers defending Lookout Mountain (my command...and my favourite Napoleonic army..love the somber black. Converted plastics)

a mid-battle overview with Thomas's troops in the centre having left their entrenchments and attacking the Ridge (right of photo), and 'Sherman's' troops slowly marching to assault the British Highlanders on Tunnel Hill (upper right).  Lookout Mountain is off-camera lower left.

You can view DavidB's blog at  David's narrative  for more on this scenario

Blenhiem - Napoleonic style

 Hosted after the two year hiatus, my big summer game of Napoleonics.  I use the opportunity to do a scenario outside the era, and have in the past conducted Gettysburg and Antietam among others. This year using the War of Spanish Succession battle of Blenheim fought in 1705.  A 'nice' linear battle with large commands enough for the five commands expected. The boys came from four different cities, indeed states, and would travel over 1200 kms to play. My thanks.

So on the Allied side was JamesC coming up from Oregon who was Eugene (using my Prussians), PeterM  from Burnaby, who had Cutts' contingent facing Blenheim using my Saxons, and in the middle using Russians, I was a (poor) Marlborough.  On the French side was SethT from Seattle as Tallard commanding, well, French; and DavidB from Vancouver Island as the Elector using my Italians and every green-clad cavalry unit.

I will add comments to the photos as expose' to the game. 

A couple of early comments.  As it was a battle from the Age of Marlborough, it contained much more horse than the usual Napoleonic affair.  It brought an interest dynamic to the tactics which everyone enjoyed.  Once could use combined arms much more effectively.  The horse elements force the infantry into square, the artillery effectively pounds the squares, the infantry now roll over the weakened and out of formation enemy infantry. Attacking becomes more problematic and takes more thought and time. I did neither and so my grand attack, the attack which won Marlborough his fame and naming of a military era, did not occur.  However, everyone else fought well.  

looking from the south (the usual view of the Blenhiem maps) show Oberglau upper left and Blenhiem lower right. The French on the left, Allies on the right across the Nebel River.

part of my contingent starting to cross the waterway

My Saxons under PeterM's careful command.  The wagon is that from my Dutch-Belgian contingent and represents his LOC if forced to retreat.  The Saxons represent Cutts' mainly British formation of the actual battle going up against the village of Blenheim.

For the Napoleonic Russian fan.  The sticks are our measuring devices.

View showing the early deployments. Each infantry stand represents ~2000 infantry, ~1000 horse. We still manage to put the large battle onto a 8 by 6 foot table with room for maneuver. 

Seth's dispositions very much replicated the actual deployment by Tallard in 1705.  To have some semblance like that of the real battle, the French Victory Conditions were to maintain the villages. Thus they committed a large potion of their infantry to that task as did the French in the historical battle. 

A Marlborough, I ain't...... (The Perry representation of the Napoleonic commander Kutusov actually giving an order!) I used my Russians for my command.

I leave you with a delightful AAR written by JamesC who had to suffer through a two-hour border wait but used the time to compose this wonderful narrative:

"The initial Prussian deployment was based on the feeling that the Franco-Italians would deploy as close as possible. (ed. note: I used a blind to keep the opposition deployments secret for the first time) The four Prussian infantry bases were tasked with crossing the muddy Nebel to capture Oberglau. The cavalry, all 8(!) bases, would swing to the right to hit their flank and also have some Light Horse run deep into the enemy’s rear to capture their LOC. In-between them would sit the paltry Prussian artillery consisting of one foot and one horse artillery bases. 

That plan was undone when the screen was removed and Zeithen saw across the stream, in front of the town, was a mass of Italian Heavy Horse. The foot artillery immediately opened up on the enemy horse, causing a hit but also breaking their guns in the process, cutting the units effectiveness in half. The infantry (wisely?) decided that crossing the Nebel and being disordered within charge distance of some angry Italians on large horses would be unglücklich (Ed. unlucky) and held their place. The cavalry started their glorious advance, supported by the Horse Artillery. 

The cavalry continued their advance over the next two turns while the foot artillery  tried their best to make an impact on the pasta-loving horde. They reduced a base of HC to one pip and promptly decided they had done enough and packed it up for the day. The infantry crossed the stream and immediately found out that was, indeed, a bad idea as the lead left element was charged and pushed back across the river. The other lead element decided to block an HA from going into the Prussian center by moving in and (illegally as it turned out) going into square. The Italians sent a cheeky infantry base in and charged the Horse Artillery making them scramble to the rear. 

On the right, the cavalry continued their pursuit of glory, sending some Italian light horse running and making short work of the cheeky infantry base. 

Things settled into a bit of a stalemate as the Prussian cavalry was stymied by a screen of infantry in square. The infantry was content not to challenge the Italian HA in front of the town. The Horse Artillery moved up to start blasting the squares and soften them up for a glorious charge. A base of light cavalry was sent around Lutzingen for the Italian LOC.

By turn 10, the Heavies had had enough sitting around and two units hit one square and sent it packing. The same artillery softening followed by a cavalry charge was then done in subsequent turns to the remaining infantry base in square between the two towns. 

Some smartly dressed Neopolitans swung around Oberglau to try and hit the Prussian squares. However, they did not count on the infantry across the Nebel doing the very un-Prussian like move of a disorganized charge into their flank. Even though it was an even fight, the sight of a horde of muddy, wet Germanic manhood was enough to make the Neopolitans long for the sight of Vesuvius again and they left the field. 

Everything was going Prussia’s way. That was when a unit of Heavies pursued and destroyed some Italian Lights, but exposed themselves to artillery fire and were destroyed. The ensuing morale check on Turn 15 resulted in a Prussian withdrawal to think things over. This ended up being decisive as it meant the Prussian Light Horse was unable to reach the Italian LOC before night fell and hostilities ceased. 

While, yes, the Italians did technically hold both towns, they were surrounded by vengeful Prussian horse and a largely intact infantry. Of course, the Prussian morale victory was in a tactical defeat for the Allied Prussian-Russo-Saxon side. As the sun set, all Zeithen  could do was throw up his hands and let out an exasperated “Wir haben es versucht.”  (Ed. We tried!)"

Again I would like to thank the efforts of everyone to attend.

    

Franclune part2

The 'French' army in the initial attack.  Wurttembergers on the far right, the Italians, the French Middle Guard, the Poles with the purple crimson flags, and the Croatian contingents fighting the dark-green 

Russians of Wagner's division on the near left.The Harpeth River (top) funnels the French/Confederate attack.. 

With many small commands, the French were able to move most of their forces into the attack of the Russian lines, aligning elements,  as the assault led to an every decreasing frontage.  While some elements of Wagner’s (Wagnasky’s ??) exposed Union Russian division held for a bit longer than historically, it did retreat back to the main line creating disorder and, with its destruction, a loss of the overall army morale. The total loss of a ‘corps’ decreases each other command.  With enough army losses, each command has a more difficult dice roll to make to continue the fight.

However, the field emplacements would cause some loss for the oncoming French  [ As the rules are specifically designed for the rather open and rare use of field fortifications of Napoleonic warfare, I added that the emplacements would offer the defender the victory should both sides have a combat tie. As ties are likely, this proved to be an important factor in the fights ]

Surprisingly, the major breakthrough came as the Wurttemburgers surged over the more extensive ‘stone wall’ defences of the Union Russian left given a +2 bonus [historically it was defended by an extensive abattis]. {the breakthrough probably more due to my dice rolling than anything to be honest!}

The 'Regiment of Joseph Napoleon' the white coated Spanish of the French Army, are again trying to take the Russian field emplacements (the straw fence!), are on their last gasp (the 1 pip showing on the small black dice on their base), but roll a three on the large 'combat dice' - a fortunate result.  However the Russians, also on their last legs, also roll a 3...and as the tie goes to the defender...well, the RJN did not gain a heroic victory this day..... 

While the Russian artillery fire proved to be rather weak { it had very disappointing dice rolling!}on the Russian right, it had enough to weaken the on-coming French foreign troops so the Russian defensive line withheld easily.  The Russian far right division started to move toward the middle to close the gap, however with the immediate Russian reserve coming into play, the French morale started to fail with the losses [ rule note: while the loss percentages are similar between small and large commands, the small French commands (taken from the Confederate OOB) cannot sustain many element losses before being unable to continue attacks.  While I did roll well for all the French morale rolls calling for only holds, rather than retreats, this had the effect of halting any further advances and allowing the Russian to plug and reinforce the gaps.  

The French commander (well, me actually …) had to make the decision whether one more push would gain the Union LOC,  looking very near and which would win the battle; but conversely might destroy his army completely.  (Historically the Confederate commander J.B.Hood, took the later course and would indeed destroy the best part of his army.)

I took the more conservative course and call it a day.  So after four and a half hours of fighting or some 9 game turns (about the same time of the actual battle - from 16:00 to 20:00 hrs.) the game concluded much as the historical battle with the Russians still in control of Franclune, ah, Franklin, and the French badly mauled.   But like most wargames, heck, real battles themselves, a couple of different rolls of the dice could/would make the outcome very much different.

"Franclune"

A “Napoleonics” game but with the set up from another era altogether,  I am calling the Battle of Franclune.  

This photo of a magazine cover with Troiani’s artwork might give you a clue to the game’s scenario….

A view of the Reb French Grande Armee ready to assault the Union Russian forward position  

Some of the deployed units are my newly-painted elements which form the Confederate Bate’s division:

On the left is the 3rd Provisional Croatian Regiment employed in Russia 1812.  On the right, the 2nd Provisional Croatian Regiment in 1813 still wearing old Austrian uniforms with modified Austrian shako with added French pompom and cockade. I used the illustration within the Osprey reference MAA 410 Plate F3 as a guide with the shako created from a British shako minus the badge scraped off and painted on the frontal cockade, gluing a pompom on top. In the rear, the Joseph Napoleon Regiment formed from sympathetic Spanish and used in Russia in 1812.

These overcoat Polish units are also newly-painted using Victrix French Guard marching poses and the covered unique squared-topped Polish chapskas, spares taken from their Imperial Guard Lancer set.  In the middle is one of my rare metal units. Together they form Brown’s Confederate division.

An overhead shot of the deployment of the Reb’s army (bottom) as usually shown on the battle maps looking north.  The Union’s exposed Warner’s Division is the three elements in front of the main Union Russian line.  The stone wall represents the more fortified works of the Union left. 

 Historically the Rebs suffered greatly against the the defences and only made a brief single breakthrough which was stopped by aggressive counter attack by Opdyke’s large brigade, seen positioned in the town.   

We shall see how this plays out.

 

Battle of Vauchamps redux

The Prussians, confident the French army was but a fly to be swatted away on the march to Paris, sends Ziethen as the lead element of Kleist’s Corps with Hacke’s Cuirassiers and Kapzevich’s Russians in support chasing Marmont’s weak corps.  But just west of the village of Vauchamps, Marmont suddenly turns and moves against his pursuers.  The Prussians are puzzled by this until they see the French Imperial Guard horse and behind them the bearskin headdress of the Old Guard.  Oh dear, Napoleon must be here.

The house represents the town of Fromentiers and the Russian field hospital represents the Allies' LOC line of retreat  - an aim point for players to move their retreating elements
Kapzevich's Russians( at left) are moving to support the Prussians.

Now looking opposite from the west, showing Ziethen's command near the town of Vauchamps (lower right) and the bulk of Kliest's near the village of Janvilliers(upper left) with Hacke's Cuirassiers to his right .

Marmont's command turns to face the advancing Allies supported by Lefebvre's Guard Horse.  The French Imperial Guard infantry are still 'off-table'.  

Not only are they unwilling to face the renewed French force, they are soon attacked in the flank by Grouchy’s (Grew-she) large contingent of cuirassiers and French horse which cause panic throughout the Allies formations.  They are thrown back with large numbers in casualties and captured.

Sounds like fun to see if we can create this scenario.

The Old Guard and Napoleon arrive on table 

Grouchy's (pronounced: 'grew-she') cavalry about to fall on the Allies flank

The key is to have Grouchy’s flank attack remain unknown to the Allies. While some precautions for this will be necessary if in group play, as it was a solo game, I simply would forget to remember this as the Prussian player!

Kleist, the Prussian commander (at right) seems to contemplate on how he might get out of this situation with his troops pinned in squares (shown by the cubes) and his Corps Morale about to collapse.

The photos show some of the action of the game, but the outcome was very much like the real event with the Allies commands crumpling; although it must be said that Ziethen showed fine form in resisting the French much longer than anticipated by some adroit tactics minimizing the Guard Horse to a large degree.  However, the Old Guard momentum and the mass of French horse let loose to roam on the right flank of the Prussian column - for Kleist was unable to get much going (a combination of lack of command initiative and congestion) meant disaster for the Allies. Their collapse of Corps Morale led to the conclusion of the affair.

the busy Napoleonic battlefield

 

more Opolchenie

The Opolchenie are Russian militia which served in the Russian armies during the Napoleonic Wars and were especially prevalent in 1812.  While mostly engaged in engineering (...digging) field fortifications but some 10,000 were said to be under arms during the battle of Borodino.
With that in mind I made two elements for our game of that huge battle a few years ago.

However I was given some more sprues of what were Warlord Prussian Landwehr (1st Ed) so I decided to add a third more to my militia force.  It would take only a bit of scraping removing all the "Prussian" bits and putty adding to some of the pants for the fuller Russian look and of course the full beards as shown in contemporary illustrations.

Napoleonic Baggage.

“Napoleonic baggage” is what he brought to his marriage to Marie Louise….
…or perhaps the necessary wagons on which an army must exist.

Needing models for both the grand game and the newer smaller focus of all-cavalry actions, I based both horse and wagon onto thin bases, but then created the thick bases of the grand game for attaching them temporarily.
These are my Dutch-Belgians of the ‘Waterloo Campaign’.  The horses are Essex, the riders plastic conversions, and the wagon is of MDF wood from Warbases.

The double team looks better for the smaller scale game while a single team - below- is more representative in the larger scale game 

Historical battle of Vitoria game

"hey wait for us!" Action from the game.  (Prussian artillery follows the advance of von Hill). 

I host an annual ‘Big Napoleonic Mystery Battle” each summer and invite the regular players of our developing rules of GdC for an all day affair.  I am always pleased that James and Ron from Oregon make the long 250km trek to join me along with DaveB from the Island (also a bit of a trek with the ferry and all) to come to Surrey BC, Canada to participate in my ‘mystery’ historical battle. Unfortunately SethT of Seattle had pressing work commitments and had to bow out shortly before the date.   I kept the scenario in the realm of Napoleonics this time with the Battle of Vitoria, Spain, 1813 but using my Prussians and Russian in lieu of the British, Portuguese and Spanish of Wellington’s army.

Couple of the locals, ChrisP and KevinA took Dalhousie/Picton’s command and D’Erlon’s French together with Joseph’s small “Royal” contingents ,respectively.   The French commands of Gazan and Reille would be DaveB’s.  He is experienced enough to handle these important forces.  James and Ron decided to stay on the same side (so able to trade the war stories on the ride home!) and thus took Colesky (the historical Gen. Cole but as we were using his own Russians….) and Ron, the Prussians under “von Hill” (obviously the British General Hill).  This left Graham and his Russians ‘Grahamsky’ under my usual dubious command.

Colesky moving across the bridge while to the left, von Hill's forces advance between the river and the heights near Subijana.  Gazan's French are doing rear guard action while the majority of that force is already turned about for the withdrawal at Arinez.

The deployments and numbers were kept as historical as possible.  Thus Cole and Hill came in from the east end of the table to try to pin the French while Dalhousie/Picton “von Pikton” came over the eastern most of the northern crossings of the Zadorra River.  Graham, “Grahamsky” , was to take the furthest of the crossings to trap the French in the valley from their escape route to the east.

Unlike the French command in 1813,  the French of the game, looked at the table and concluded the trap was on and proceeded to set up for an immediate general retreat eastward only restricted by my scenario deployments.

Ron and James contemplate the situation. The pressures of High Command!

The height of the battle with the French defence of the "central hill" collapsing.

Despite some initial set-backs, the Allies of James and Ron, aggressively pursued the French forcing them to make a concerted stand near Chrispijana.  ChrisP added his numbers to the attack on this position. The French needed to slow the Allied advance all the while retreating elements east before the door would close from Graham’s force.  Perhaps luckily for the French, I was commanding Graham and, like the historic commander, I could only slowly deploy my forces against the French LOC to Pamplona toward the north east corner of the battlefield. However with the French unable to do much than cover Graham with artillery from coming directly via the Gammara Mayor crossing,  Graham committed forces spread out to the further crossing at Durana but with that, completely cutting off that route to the French retreaters (as was done historically).

....meanwhile in the east, Grahamsky's forces are met with accurate artillery from across the river and Reille's forces crossing the river.  While the town fight for Gamorra Mayor did not occur in the game, DaveB did accomplish much like Reille did to delay Graham's "closing of the door" in the actual battle

While I did much the poor effort that Graham did in 1813, I did manage to block the main retreat road of the French which was enough. Photo of the lead Russian light cavalry.  Infantry and artillery support would follow.

The final turn had us play 20 turns (some 10 hours of battle which started late in the morning real time in 1813) The famous looting of Joseph’s wagons and treasures gathered from all of Spain was not completed however as the French (the wagons under the command of KevinA’s “Joseph’s Spainish Royal” contingent)  were driven away just in front of the pursuing Allies, thereby giving the French some small argument that it was only a minor Allied victory….
But despite the lack of the wagons capture, the battle went basically to historic form with the French to be shortly expelled from Spain.


James playing “Colesky” (the historical command of the British General Cole) provides the following AAR of the action:
“ I thought the Allies would be the aggressors to kick things off, with Colesky coming across the western bridge and von Hill having sneaked up on the dastardly French from the south end of the hills. We should have easily pushed through the French defense, even with Picton dallying around (waiting for double evens(*), which came the 2nd turn!). Colesky made the decision to forgo splitting his command and making use of the hidden ford(^) to maintain a firmer control of his troops as the PiP cost of moving some elements out of command would have impacted the command’s ability to move forward.

James' own Pavlograd Hussars leading the assault

 Gazan surprised us by going on the offensive. The French cavalry stymied our movement, forcing us to deal with them and allowing for a retreat behind the hills east of Ariñez and what looked to be a full-on withdrawal. Gazan was able to check the allied thrust for four turns, causing a loss of both horse artillery bases and making Colesky rethink things (by forcing a moral check which caused a fallback result). Picton was making his presence felt crossing the Zaddora. 

Having absorbed the initial French push, Colesky and von Pikton began their push. In a bit of combined arms, the Pavlograd Hussars forced a French infantry element into square which was subsequently assaulted and destroyed by some Russian infantry. Ariñez was taken the following turn and the race was on, as the three Allied commands began pushing eastward. Picton began taking substantial fire from d’Erlon. Von Pikton screened Chrispijana and advanced as well. Grahamsky decided to show up and began blocking the main retreat line of the French. 

Gazan and d’Erlon massed behind the central hill and at this point, it could have gone either way. The Allies amasses on the opposite side, but the loss of Colesky’s foot artillery (I’m sensing a theme...) caused another fallback. Von Pikton, after a whiff of grape removed the last of the French cavalry, pushed forward and forced Gazan to rout. Colesky finished off Gazan with another feat of combined arms. Grahamsky stubbornly denied the line of retreat. As night fell, the French were in retreat and the Allies the controllers the field. “

(*Note): This was the scenario trying to simulate Dalhousie’s cautious approach. Eventually the historical Picton would be so frustrated and take things into his own hands and order his division into the action (for which I committed the entire force).  ChrisP, being his usual lucky self, achieved the rather difficult dice in a very short time and so went to the attack quickly.
(^Note):  The ford, the location of which was not disclosed to the French, was the one Kempt and his Light Division used upon being advised by a local Spanish peasant. In future, Cole will be given the option to use some of his force for this purpose without hindrance of that distant command for his PiP amount for a historical scenario design.

James's own Russians...looking good in their attack

Battle of Dresden - at Enfilade 2019

Battle of Dresden

This Napoleonic battle of 1813, was the second largest of the wars.  Our developing ‘big-battle’ rules is specifically designed to play these massive affairs but even these are challenged by the size.  However, the Allied command conveniently did not utilize large portions of their numbers and to fit it comfortably into a single game session with a convention table restriction and time restraints, I reduced the element numbers by some third.

As with the dedicated group enjoying these rules, the players each painted up their own command with a common basing which really helps with the look of the game increasing its ‘visual continuity’.  We had DaveB with his commands of Mortier (the French Imperial Guard foot) and Ney (the Young Guard), St. Cyr by James, all the Austrians done and commanded by Seth and the remainder filled in by myself.

viewing from the index area of the above map

The Prussian commander moving his heavy horse toward Dresden and the awaiting French. Later in the battle he would be reversing course!  While not strong, apparently the French artillery did sterling work.  

Overview- looking from the opposite westward view with Dresden on the right, the Allies to the left and the Great Garden (Grosse Garten) the landmark area of this battle made from a piece of hardboard for playability.

As I gave myself the “adjudicator” task, I was not intimate with all the actions of the game, moving from one small judgement situation to the next, but the game kinda followed history compressing the two days into one.  In the game, as on Day One, the Allies attacked in the middle forcing the French back to the artillery emplacements before the city. However, the French sprang back, in this case with good artillery support as per Day Two of the historic affair.  On the French right flank, BobE commanding most of the French cavalry with infantry outnumbered the Austrians who were separated from the rest of their army by a rain-swollen river crossable at only one point at Plausen.  Historically the Austrians were severely defeated in this area…as were the Austrian elements on the tabletop…

Marmont's French move to destroy the Austrians.  Elements of my French army.  While mine, the following photo shows four different painter's collections in action together.  They look good together.

the action in the centre and in the distance the Allies right/French left flank.

On the French left flank, DaveB, used the advantage of the French Guard elements to push back the Russians under Ian and Prussians under BobS to their breaking point.
See DaveB's blog post and his activities during the game/battle at: link with a very well written account.
We ended the game without the need to have the obvious happen having those commands inevitably rout off the board so ending with the situation very close to the historical battle.