1813 Napoleonic Campaign

[thistlebarrow]

I started this fictional campaign in April 2009 to provide interesting battles to wargame.   Since then it has provided 237 battles.

The campaign covers five campaign areas in Germany and Spain.   Each area has a French and allied army.   This allows me to use all of my Napoleonic figures in rotation.

It started as a solo campaign, then changed to PBEM in October 2009 and reverted to solo in February 2016.

The campaign has changed and developed over the years, but has run nonstop since it started.   Each area provides a mini campaign which is designed to last about three months and should provide three to six battles.

The whole campaign has been recorded in a series of blogs, each of which has a summary of the campaign and a report of each battle fought.   The current blog contains links to all of the previous blogs.

The latest mini campaign was based in Northern Spain between Wellington and Soult, and ended in a much needed Anglo Portuguese victory.

You will find the current blog here
http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

[thistlebarrow]

The next phase of the campaign is set in central Germany and involves the French attempt to defeat the Russian army and take the city of Eisenbach.   This is the fourth campaign featuring the Second French Army of Marshal Davout and the Russian Army commanded by General Wittgenstein.   The French lost the last phase and will take the initiative in this phase.

The introduction to the campaign is now on the campaign diary blog.  It contains strategic and tactical maps, photos of the two armies and a short history of the campaign in central Germany.   If you click on the map of photo it will make it slightly larger.

http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

[Red Sveta]

Very interesting thank you. how did you run the solo campaign, what systems did you use?

[thistlebarrow]

I find it easy to run the solo campaign.  It involves me having three roles.  I am umpire, allied player and French player.

All of the administration for the campaign is done on my computer.  I have one folder for each campaign day, and three sub folders, one for each role.   The umpire folder has a master map showing the location of each corps of both armies.   The French and allied player folders have a map showing their own corps locations only, plus their current daily orders, order of battle, casualty and supply position.

Each campaign phase has an attacker and a defender.   I first write the daily orders for the defender.   Having done so I update his map.   I always leave it 24 hours before I write the orders for the attacker.  This makes it easier not to react to what I have written for the defender.   I then update the attacker folder and map.   Next I plot the location of both armies on the master map.   If one or more corps move within one square of the enemy a battle is declared.   I then check the orders for both the attacker and defender.  If one has orders to avoid contact he will retreat.  If both have orders to attack, or one to attack and the other to hold, I set up a wargame to resolve the battle.

It is a very simple method and it requires the minimum of administration.  But I find it works very well.  Obviously I could “cheat” and react to what I know the defender has written.  But that would defeat the whole object of the campaign.

[Red Sveta]

That is interesting. I will have to give it some thought and try it out for my imagination armies.  Thankyou.

[thistlebarrow]

We have just completed the Eisenbach phase of our 1813 campaign. 

This was the fourth phase of the campaign in Central Germany between Marshal Davout and the Russian Army under Prince Wittgenstein.   The French had won the first two phases, but lost the third. 

The campaign lasted 13 days, during which there were seven battles.   The French won four, the Russians won two and there was one draw.   The campaign ended in another French victory.

We started Eisenbach on 22 September 2016 and it ran for nine weeks.

The campaign diary blog contains a daily record, reports of all the battles fought, plus maps and orders of battle.   You will find it here

http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

[thistlebarrow]

The latest phase of the campaign is set in southern Germany and is the fifth phase of the Austrian attempt to take Bavaria and invade southern France.

The Austrians have won all four previous phases and this is a desperate attempt by Marshal Oudinot and his Bavarian/Baden army to turn the tide.

The introduction on the Campaign Diary Blog includes maps, a short background to the campaign so far, photographs of the two armies and a short order of battle.   You can find the blog here

http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

[thistlebarrow]

Our current campaign phase is coming to an end, and I have started work on the next phase, which will be set in Spain.

Each phase is a mini campaign set within the larger 1813 campaign.   There are five campaign areas, each with a different allied and French army.   The current one is set in southern Germany and pits a Bavarian and Baden Army against an Austrian Army.

The next phase will be set in southern Spain and will feature a Spanish Army v a mixed French, Polish and Italian Army.   Given that it is set in 1813 it is reasonable that there is not a lot of difference in the ability of the two armies.   The French Armies in Spain had lost many of their best soldiers to rebuild the veterans lost in Russia the previous year.   

This will be the fourth phase set in Southern Spain.   The Spanish have won two of the previous phases, leading me to ponder whether I have the balance between them and the French correct.

The Spanish infantry are mostly of poor quality, the same as the conscript brigades in the French and Polish corps, and also most of the brigades in the Italian corps.  The Spanish cavalry are also poor, and the French cavalry average.   The gunners on both sides are average.

The campaign is designed to provide interesting wargames to play, rather than to recreate the historical 1813 campaign.  This campaign was chosen because there was much less difference in fighting ability between the French and their enemies.   So it suits me very well that the Spanish are not predisposed to lose every battle.

However I do want to give a phase set in Spain a Spanish feel to it.   To do so I have made the Spanish field army smaller than the French.   But they also have a militia brigade in each town, a total of nine.   This is a lot of infantry, as each corps has only four brigades.   When a town is captured by the French the militia brigade becomes a guerrilla band.   They are poor quality and usually lose against even a poor French brigade.  But they do causes disruption of supplies and have to be countered by detaching brigades from the French field army.

As always a lot will depend on the luck of the dice.  Because the two sides are of similar effectiveness a wargame is usually decided by good, or bad, dice.   However over a campaign of 6 to 8 battles this should even out.

The main advantage of the Spanish in the campaign, as in the historical campaign, is the effect of the guerrilla.   As the French advance they have to detach more and more infantry to guard their lines of communication and supply.   

The task now is to fine tune the difference in fighting ability.   Each infantry brigade is graded on firing, skirmish and morale.  I want the French to have a slight edge, but not too powerful.   That is really difficult to achieve when each combat is adjusted by a dice throw.

[thistlebarrow]

The Cuidad Real campaign has ended in a French victory, but only just.

The campaign took two months to complete and lasted for 13 campaign days.  It  provided four battles to wargame.   The first two were easy French victories.  The third was a surprise Spanish victory.   The fourth was another victory for the French and made them winners of the campaign.

This campaign was used to test run new rules for the Spanish guerrillas.   As the French advanced their lines of supply were under attack, and one garrison was taken by the guerrillas.  The overall result was a real strain on the French supplies.

The Spanish retreated south of the river Guadiana and the French were faced with attacking a defended river or halting and sorting out their supply problems.   To win the campaign they would have to cross the river.  They abandoned their supply lines and risked everything on a final battle.  The risk paid off and they won the campaign.

There is a summary of the whole campaign in southern Spain on the campaign diary blog, which you can find here

http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/   

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Lovely, lovely, lovely. Thanks for sharing your campaign gaming! Campaigns are the bestest things there are. I'd love to ever play one to the end.

[thistlebarrow]

Thanks for your comment.   I am a great believer in campaigns to produce interesting wargames, and my current campaign has provided all of my wargames for the past ten years.   If you are having problems with your attempts to run a campaign you might find my latest series of monthly blogs interesting.   It is called “A Comprehensive Wargames System” and explains how I organised my own campaign.   So far I have dealt with organising the model soldiers and in the coming weeks will deal with maps, wargame tables, campaign and wargame rules.  All with the single purpose of making the campaign work smoothly.   You will find my blog here

http://napoleonicwargaming.blogspot.com/

[thistlebarrow]

The next phase of the 1813 campaign is set in northern Germany and continues Napoleon’s attempt to defeat Blucher.   This is the sixth campaign between the two.  Napoleon won three of the earlier phases and Blucher won two.

Napoleon commands the four corps of the First French Army, one of the corps is the French Old Guard.   This presents an interesting problem from a wargame point of view, namely how to deal with the “superman” elite formations.

One of the first wargame figures I bought was a French grenadier guardsman.   He, and his many replacements, have spent a lot of years collecting dust on my wargame shelves.   

When I started this campaign about ten years ago I was determined that I would use all of my model soldiers in rotation, including the Imperial Garde.   I know that they were used as the reserve of the French Army, but I wanted to use them regularly on the wargames table.

In each of my ten campaign armies there are four corps.   Each has a different combination of infantry brigades which are either elite, average or poor.   Most corps have one elite and either two average or two poor brigades.

Obviously the Old Guard had to have a larger proportion of elite and no poor brigades.   I eventually settled for one elite and three average infantry brigades.   The cavalry are also elite, but the artillery average.

To balance the entire army each of the other three corps lost their elite infantry brigade.  Their order of battle was now two average and two poor brigades.

Napoleon now has one above average corps and three below average corps.   
Blucher has four average corps,

As a result Napoleon is no more likely to win a campaign than is Blucher.   As explained above out of the five campaigns already gamed he had won three against two to Blucher.

The introduction to the Wolfsburg campaign is now on the campaign diary blog, and it includes a shortened order of battle.  The full order of battle can be found by clicking on label 11 and label 12 on the right of the blog.

http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

[thistlebarrow]

The Wolfsburg campaign ended in a decisive French victory.   

Napoleon won six of the seven battles fought, routed the Prussian army and captured all of their depots.

The campaign started on 8 May and ended on 24 July 2017

This was the sixth campaign fought in Northern Germany.  The French won three and the Prussians also won three.

The current blog has a summary of the whole campaign and links to orders of battle, daily summary and battle reports.  You can find it here:    
http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/

[thistlebarrow]

The Erfurt campaign is the twenty fifth phase of our 1813 campaign, and the fifth set in central Germany.   The French have won three of the previous phases, and the Russians only one.   The Russians lost the previous phase and have retreated east to Erfurt.   

The campaign opens with both armies at full strength and fully supplied.  The Russians hold Erfurt and are deployed over a wide area to maintain their supplies.  The Russian objective is to hold the line of the river Saale and, of course, the city of Erfurt.

The introduction to the campaign is now on the campaign diary blog.   It includes the five maps used to plan the campaign, plus photos of the two armies.   There is also a short history of the whole campaign in central Germany, campaign objectives and a short order of battle.

You can find the campaign diary blog here
http://1813pbemcampaigndiary.blogspot.com.es/