Franco-Prussian War Campaign Finale

A belated Happy New Year to all visitors!

A few months on from when it was originally intended, Simon and I will be fighting the big finish to the FPW campaign this coming Saturday. The table and forces are all prepared and the German commander is devising his no doubt devilish strategy to destroy the French.

This will be the 5th battle and picks up the story from the previous pair of clashes (seeĀ Here). We are going to be playing our game based on an historical battle from another period – namely the great 1813 clash at Leipzig. It’s pretty ambitious, yes, but I’ve tried to distil the core of the battle and battlefield into something relevant for the FPW setting (well, there’s a railway), while still retaining the essence of the actual battle.

There will be approximately 3 German corps and 2 French corps fighting it out. The Germans have numbers on their side, the French have some hidden deployment. There are lots of point-scoring objectives which makes it tough for the French to know what to defend and provides a challenge to the Germans to come up with a battle plan that’s more than just ‘kill the enemy’. Although I’m sure there’ll be plenty of that anyway!

Campaign development has led the French (1st and 7th Corps plus cavalry under MacMahon) west to the foot of the Vosges mountains, where they are forced to turn and delay the pursuing enemy (XI and 1st Bavarian Corps, plus a Baden/Wurttemberg division and cavalry) in order to buy time for their remaining forces in the north to avoid becoming cut off. The big clash will come at the town of Ingwiller (representing Leipzig itself) on the river Model. I’ve used Alex’s Leipzig table from the Scarborough refight as inspiration for mine, which is in the form of a mild dogleg totalling 7 feet by 3-4 feet.

Lots more pics to come after the event!

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