Battle of Leipzig, 1813

Hello There! In February 2025, The New Buckenham Historical Wargamers put on a part of The Battle of Leipzig. This was using 28mm figures supplied from the collections of a number of club members.

Here is a picture to show the scale of the game. To the immediate left of this picture the table extends further. 

While the overall spectacle is great, there were many small vignettes which also showcased the game well. These represented mainly command figures and some engineering models as well.

Here is one example of a Russian command base.

Part way along the table a town had to be defended/stormed, depending on the side you were on.

One club member had the Austrian Heavy cavalry division in his collection, since put up for sale on e bay 

There was a lot of artillery on the table, as you can imagine, for such a large table.

There were many colourful cavalry units on the table as well. Here the French Cuirassiers are entering the table.

The Guard were also present

The later shako wearing Austrians were present. My collection wears the the earlier crested helmet. 

There were plenty of variations in the cavalry present on the table. Here Russian dragoons join in an attack.

On the extreme left of the table the Austrians were attempting to cross a river as the Polish contingent defended two bridges.

The Austrian attack has artillery support as well.

Here are some more cavalry, this time the French cuirassiers.

Here are some more of the command vignettes.

The French dragoons have some colourful facings and so some colourful buglers.

And some more!

I will leave you with some more photos of the units on the table.

Overall |a very enjoyable weekend, liked by all and a good turnout of membership for the club. Further pictures can be seen here. This is the New Buckenham Historical Wargamers facebook page.

Karabela Publishing

 Hello There! Another period of time where 'Life' has got in the way, but today I have just returned from 'The Other Partizan', and shall post photos from that show once I have edited them.

Meanwhile I have a few pictures of the military prints I have displayed at home.

This is the first print I bought from Karabela Publishing house. This is an illustration of Marshal Lannes. The artist is Ryszard Morawski.

I purchased this at the 201st anniversary of Waterloo, at the museum which is on the battlefield. A small military market was there with the publishers in attendance. I had already seen the two book boxed set of the Duchy of Warsaw Line Infantry and also bought this print.

Karabela Publishing are based in Poland and publish a series of books on the Duchy of Warsaw troops from the Napoleonic wars. They also sell a large number of prints, in different sizes, of many French Napoleonic subjects.

Next up in Crown Prince Jozef Antoni Poniatowski. A suitably ornate uniform for this character!

Here is the man himself who is at the centre of the display

General Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle. The person who has been attributed the quote, 'Any trooper who isn't dead by 30 is a coward, and I don't anticipate exceeding that length of time', who was killed at the Battle of Wagram, aged 34!

This last plate was spotted on a photo of a trade stand, belonging to the publishers, on one of their facebook pages. As I had not seen it before I sent an e mail to them to see if it had been sold or if there were any other copies. It turned out that it was a one off and still available.

Sadly I recently heard that the artist who did these and many more recently died. Very sad news as his work was so good. A real loss to the military fraternity. The Karabela face book page carried the sad news here.

These are highly recommended by myself.

Battle of Maida

Hello There! I have been painting units to refight the Battle of Maida so have decided to write the British and French orders of battle to show progess on the project.

Here is the French now. After referring to a number of written and internet sources I have found many discrepanicies concerning the number of battalions that some regiments had at the battle. For example the 1st Legere is reported to have had either two or three battalions present while the Swiss had either one or two battalions.

Also the number of men in each unit has not been forth coming as there appears to be many vague total quoted for the whole French force but little on individual units. I have listed the hypothetical figures from a copy of 'First Empire' that I have found on the internet.

French Order of Battle

Commander: General Jean-Louis-Ebenezer Regnier, (Reynier)

1st Brigade: General de Brigade Louis Fursy Henri Compere

1st Battalion, 1st Legere                                                                                            600 men

2nd Battalion 1st Legere                                                                                            600 men

1st Battalion, 42nd Line                                                                                              600 men

2nd Battalion 42nd Line                                                                                              600 men

2nd Brigade: General de Brigade Antoine Digonet

1st Battalion 23rd Legere                                                                                            600 men

2nd Battalion 23rd Leger                                                                                             575 men

3rd Brigade: General de Brigade Louis Peyri

1st Battalion 1st Polish Legion, (1st Polish Line Infantry Battalion)                            400 men

2nd Battalion 1st Polish Legion, (1st Polish Line Infantry Battalion)                           400 men

4th Battalion 1st Swiss Line Regiment                                                                        600 men

Artillery: Commander, 'Griois'

1 Company Horse Artillery 2 guns                                                                                20 men

3 Batteries Foot Artillery 18 Guns                                                                                45 men,

                                                                                                                    (I don't think so!)

Cavalry:

 9th Chasseurs a Cheval                                                                                            300 men

Compere's Brigade

Conflicting sources state this brigade consisted of three battalions of the 1st Legere only while the greater majority of sources state there were two battalions of 1st Legere and two battalions of 42nd Line.

I have chosen to place two battalions of each regiment in this brigade.

The 1st Legere had an extensive experience of campaigning in Italy, during the revolutionary Wars and were present at the Battle of Marengo.

The 42nd Regiment also fought in the Revolutionary Wars in Flanders

Digonet's Brigade

The 23rd Legere were formed in 1792 and had fought in Northern Italy in 1805 and been present at the battle of Caldiero.

Peyri's Brigade

Some sources has placed the 42nd regiments battalions in this brigade. I believe that this  brigade only consisted of the foreign troops in French service.

Again the Swiss troops here are described as either one or two battalions 

The Polish troops are repeatedly described as 'poor and unreliable' in Hopton's book and this was put down to the fact they had been recruited from Austrian prisoners of war.

On their initial contact with the British, while they were landing on the peninsular, 400 of these Polish troops drove back the Corsican Rangers but were in turn pushed back by British infantry.

9th Chasseur a Cheval

The 9th Chasseurs were the only cavalry to take part in the battle. They arrived with further Polish troops and General Digonet on the 1st July. 

Artillery

These are described a 'mountain guns' in Hopton but the calibre is not described. Mountain guns are more easy to transport across the mountainous tertain of the area but lacked the punch of larger calibre guns on the battlefield.

Regnier's force was described as deficient in artillery so I am unsure of the eighteen foot artillery guns present in some orders of battle. However the speed of the advance of the French and the mountainous character of the region may explain why they are not present but the mountain guns are.

Initially Regnier is supplied with two companies of horse artillery and two companies of foot artillery and present at the battle itself were 'four light field pieces' I would say these were four pounders.

The calibre of the guns are described as not larger than the four pounders used by the British.

The total 

5100 infantry

300 cavalry

Sources

The Battle of Maida 1806, Fifteen Minutes of Glory by Richard Hopton

Wellington's Switzers by Alistair Nichols

Scenario: Maida 1806 - Honour Scenarios Wiki (google.com)

Murawski Polish Foot Artillery 28mm

Hello there! The latest item I have finished is this Polish artillery battery. There was a delay finishing this when there was a small mix up in my order with some 'firing' figures having made their way into my 'loading' figures. It was soon sorted out and the results are here.

 

The cannon is also from Murawski and was easily put together. The figures were clean casting with very minimal flash.

I have started to glue the cannon to the bases now. Initially I had the option of changing the cannon for different sizes. While this is probably more relevant in the American Civil War period here it is less so.

At different time the Polish troops had Prussian, Austrian  and French guns. Here I have used a French supply.

I have many figures from Murawski, to paint, and if these and the infantry on the previous post are anything to go by they will be a pleasure to paint.

Shako II Scenario Books

 Hello There! I am a member of a number of Facebook pages on a number of Wargaming periods. This includes the Napoleonic Wars and on the 'The Napoleonic Wargamer' Facebook page, here, I contacted the author of these scenario books.

The titles include, Rise of Eagles, 1805, The Roads to Vienna, 1809, Eagles Over Bavaria, 1809,Duel of the Princes, 1809 and Blood Along the Danube 1809.

Each one is a massive amount of work on the period.It includes chapters on figure and ground scale, terrain rules, troop types, playing the game, units of measurement, formation morale tests, national characteristics and finally battles. All have a similar set up except for the 1805 book which has a campaign overview and a shortened version of the chapters listed in the 1809 books above.  

Coming from Canada these took six weeks to arrive but they are more than worth the wait. The offer a wealth of information and can be used for other rules sets with a little modification.

Highly recommended.

Murwarski Polish 28mm 6th Line Regiment Colonel

Hello There! I have started a second Polish battalion, this time for the 6th Regiment. I started by painting the line colonel as I like to keep my hand in doing horses. This is so I do not get bored doing the same thing all the time.

This figure is in the 1807-1809 uniform which has the regiments grouped into blocks of four 'legions' or 'divisions' with different colour lapels, collars, cuffs, piping and buttons. This chap looks resplendant in crimson and is intended to fight the Austrians in my 1809 project.

 

I have recently purchased a wider range of metallic paints and the saddle cloth fringe has been painted in a combination of these newly purchased paints and Army Painter strong tone.

I cannot wait to do the rest of the battalion but have to resist the urge to be diverted from the first battalion I have already started.