Napoleonic "Battle of Fulda" 26th of October 1813, a fictitious battle after Leipzig part 1!

6 Rejects turned up on Saturday for a 15mm napoleonic game and a fictitious battle after the battle of Leipzig between seven countries, France, Italy and Poland on one side and Prussia, Austria, Sweden and Britain on the other.

"After his defeat at Leipzig, Napoleon retreated to Erfurt with the intention of then moving to Frankfurt, casualties at Leipzig had been severe, 68,000 men killed, wounded or taken prisoner and 300 artillery pieces lost. The French have implemented a plan  to stop the Allies from slowing down the withdrawal by taking various units from their own divisions and forming a rearguard corps with instructions to hold up any enemy troops that are following the main army.
                                                            The Allies not slow on recognising that an attack on the French line of March could be an easy victory, thus detachments from the various armies have been combined into a corps to pursue and attack the French while the rest of the army is attacking various French strongholds and garrisons in the surrounding area. Some corps are quickly trying to outmaneuver Napoleon by cutting off his line of retreat!"

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"The Game: The French have learnt that the fast approaching Prussians are only about half an hour away so have taken up a defensive line blocking their advance at the town of Fulda. The French must stop the Prussian advance to win the game, the Prussians must win so they can fall on the rest of the French army retreating only a few miles away.
                                                 The game is already set up for the battle to start fighting as I know you all want blood and to start the game. Artillery ammunition is limited due to heavy fighting in the last few weeks, thus supplies are low!"

*Kind words and description supplied by our benevolent overlord and all round good guy Postie!

The French (Richard, John and myself) looked at the table and saw our doom, the Allies (Lee, Surjit and Smithy) saw better things but the dice gods saw something else maybe?

We also (French) at the beginning had to roll a dice to see how many of our units were conscript class, I was the only unlucky one with just one Polish battalion being conscript, the Prussians had a lot more due to the make up of their army (infantry and cavalry).......

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Orders of Battle
The French
c/o recently promoted General Ricardo Corps Commander

1st Infantry Division (French) c/o Richard
1st Brigade: 21st (2 battalions)/ d'illyne(1 battalion) both line class/ 24th legere (1 battalion) elite class (french)
2nd Brigade: 4 battalions of the 5th (italian) line class, 2 medium batteries of artillery (one was second class/italian).

2nd Infantry Division (Polish) c/o Francis
3rd Brigade: 33rd line regiment (3 battalions)/  4th legere elite class (1 battalion) (french)  Light Cavalry
4th Brigade: 1 battalion each from the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 8th line regiments (polish), 1 medium and 1 light battery of artillery.

3rd Cavalry Division c/o John
5th Brigade: 1st and 5th Hussars both line class (french) Heavy Cavalry
6th Brigade: 15th Lancers/1st Chasseurs a Cheval both line class (polish)

4th Cavalry Division Reserve c/o Richard but divided with John early on......
7th Brigade: 15th and 23rd Dragoons both line class (french)
8th Brigade: 3rd and 10th Cuirassiers both line class (french)

The Prussians
c/o recently promoted General Smithy Corps Commander

1st Brigade: 3 battalions of the 1st west Prussian line regiment/ West Prussian Grenadiers (1 battalion)/ 1 battalion each of Westphalian and Elbe Landwehr (2) conscript class/ a battalion of the1st schutzen elite class (half strength)/Elbe conscript Landwehr cavalry (prussian), 1 light battery of artillery
2nd Brigade: 3 battalions of the 1st Silesian line regiment/ 1 battalion Silesian Grenadiers elite class/ 2 battalions of Silesian Landwehr conscripts (prussian)/ a battalion of the1st schutzen elite class (half strength)/ Silesian conscript Landwehr cavalry (prussian), 1 light battery of artillery

1st Russian Division c/o Lee
3rd Brigade: 2 battalions each of the Polotek and Elets regiments line class (russian)
4th Brigade: Smalonel Light Dragoons line class (russian)/ Life Cuirassiers elite class (swedish), 1 battery of heavy artillery and 1 battery of the royal horse artillery heavy rockets (british)

5th Brigade: 5th Brandenburg Dragoons line class/ 1st Kurmork conscript Landwehr cavalry (prussian)

6th Brigade: 7th West Prussian Hussars line class/ 1st Westphalian conscript Landwehr cavalry (prussian)

7th Brigade: 1st Kaiser Franz Hussars line class/ 4th Vecsey Hussars line class (austrian)

8th Brigade: 1st Silesian Cuirassiers line class/ 4th Magdeburg Cuirassiers line class (prussian)

1 battery of heavy prussian artillery.

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Some pics of the initial set up, no forces could be moved or changed just dice to see who gets initiative every turn!

A ruined monastery is a focal point of our defence and the italians have made good use of it..........

John and his light cavalry........

The town of Fulda..............

Smithy, Surjit, John and the Despoiler of dreams.......

Richard and Lee........looking hopeful but Lee's is misplaced because he will be facing my Polish boys.......

French cuirassiers and dragoons......

French hussars, chasseurs a cheval and lancers........

French infantry and legere............

My Polish and French infantry with two fronts to defend, the field is no penalty to moving.......

My left flank, the bridge.......and the river is unfordable due to heavy rain the night before.........

The heavy rockets of the RHA, this unit had a chequered game, very funny for the French though.......

The Russian, British and Swedish forces on my left flank..........

The French stand in defence of Fulda, the white markers denote first fire bonus........

The Prussians ready to advance on two fronts.........

Austrian and Prussian cavalry emerge from the tree line...........

The Russians start their advance throwing 4 columns of infantry across the bridge, now we debated whether the cavalry would have been a better idea first but other matters conspired to affect this decision.......

The legere await the onslaught, the bridge could only be crossed in column.......

The Prussians advance towards my division with schutzen out front protecting the line regiments and columns from damage........

My polish regiments backstep to deploy at rear of hill to deploy in a better line for defence......

The log jam at the bridge but the heavy artillery battery is letting it's presence be known.......

John is winding up the Prussians (Smithy and Surjit) with his steady advance towards and through their cavalry, Smithy was the c/o but as the Rejects know Surjit doesn't listen to or take orders whilst wargaming, the bickering was a constant source of amusement to the French and even the Russian player/ally Lee!!!!

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At this point we received a message from the high command to say there were no reinforcements coming and what you had was all you were getting........oh bugger!  

I'll stop here for now as there are more pictures and you're probably bored between all the words/pictures  and run out of tea, there will be a part 2 with the last of the pictures and the result which resulted in Postie having to make it up!