Dresden in the Barn

Monday, 20 June 2022

Dresden in the Barn

Off to Francis' for the weekend for the more or less annual "wargame in a barn". This year's subject was the Battle of Dresden (1813), with about 8000 (!) 20mm figures and 20+ players. Francis hates two table battles, so we played on a horseshoe arrangement, with Dresden itself being in the missing middle.

Looking from Allied lines to our Right Flank at STARTEX

I was Marmont on the French right flank. In reality I only turned up on Day 2, but Francis had me turning up from about Turn 3, but for much of Saturday the left flank was so think with my Corps, St Cyr and Victor that we had little room to manoeuvre whilst the enemy (can't call them Allies!) swept in. By mid pm we were beginning to sort things out and starting to go on the offensive. Sunday morning saw St Cyr being pulled off us to go help in the battle for the Grosser Garten (image above, beautiful) which actually gave us even more space so we went all out. Helped that we had about a 4:1 advantage in cavalry. The battle on our flank ended up with three elements, right to left:

On the extreme right we pushed across the stream and a combined arms attack gradually pushed him back behind Drescherdorf so we were right on his table edge and gradually started to roll up the enemies flank.
In the centre there were a series of cavalry exchanges, involving both the Grenadiers a Cheval and Cossasks at various stages, all of which gave my infantry on their left free reign to manoeuvre
On the left I pushed my infantry aggressively forward. There were two gun batteries against me, as well as the infantry, so I adopted a do or die approach. On the left gun I was intercepted by infantry sallying forth from Lodba, but by the time I'd beaten them back the gun had to withdraw as its Brigade got a Retire result. For the other gun I valiantly advanced my infantry in line (to save at least one +1) and the gun luckily decided that the cavalry on my flank was a juicier target. By the time I was in charge range he had just one firing opportunity for each of the gun and protecting skirmishers - and both missed! I crashed into the gun and carried it, and then carried on through at least another battalion. Several other battalions, and even my Hussars did similar excellent service in melees around Lodba.

By game end we had taken Drescherdorf and we had two Bn in Lodba to his one, and we had about 75% of the table spur - so we were happy with our weekends work. Just awating the overall result, but hoping for a Marginal French victory.

The Allies Advance

As ever with Francis' games the terrain, the detailing and the figures (mostly A&M, but we spotted at least one Airfix battalion!) were superb, the company and location great, and the rules a joy to play.