Letter to the Centurions Mailing Group

Everyone:

After much discussion and debate Fitz and I have settled on the game for over the weekend of November 21-23 at the Levee Cafe in Hastings MN. Okay so the debate lasted a grand total of 15 seconds, we did however discuss a number of other finer points of our plan and that took time.

We will be playing a rather largish game of Napoleon’s Battles in 15mm using the 3rd Edition if it is available by than otherwise 2nd edition will be used. The game will be set in autumn 1813 Campaign in Central Germany at a point between the Napoleon’s Incomplete Victory at the Battle of Dresden (Late August) and Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Nations Leipzig Saxony (Mid-October). It is our plan to deviate from the historical campaign and setup a historical based what if scenario.

The plan is that Fitz and I will do the initial map movement before hand, with some final map movement to be completed on Friday Nov 21st. After the movement is completed the figures will be placed on the board in their starting position.
The actual game will start on Saturday Nov 22 at 10am and go until either one side or the other is defeated or our personal morale is broken, figure midnight.

The idea is that the game starts about 1 day before a big battle (or series of smaller battles as the case maybe) and that the players will have to maneuver their armies around to get into the best position they can for the actual battle.

Fitz will be the overall French Commander, you know that short dead dude named Napoleon, while I will be the overall allied commander, or at least the person nominally in charge of the allies.

We have a number of sources listing out the Order of Battle for the Autumn Campaign and our plan is to basically ignore them, well sort of ignore them anyways. Rather we will be assembling proto-typical Corps structures using the historical organization that occurred, which means simply we don’t want to argue over the accuracy of the sources so we will just throw out some troops using the real generals, since at least most of the sources agree on who is commanding what.

Our intent is to have 13 French Infantry Corps and 6 Cavalry Corps vs. up to 22 Allied Infantry Corps and 9 Cavalry Corps. There are a couple more French Corps running around Germany at the Time as well as the Hanseatic League which might get pressed into action.

The tabletop battlefield will be about 24 to 30 feet long and at least 12 feet wide. This should allow for some space for the units to maneuver and function without anchoring themselves to table edges; or as Fitz so nicely put it, a reason to have cavalry.

We will be adding a couple of rules for the game:
Fatigue Rules (IE if you march you army all night what penalty do you face).
Supply Rules – Each Division will have a marker depicting it supply train, figure a supply wagon, artillery caisson or other similar marker.
Messenger Rules will be in place.

If you are interested in playing let us know.

We are looking for a large number of allied figures, both French Allied and Coalition Allied for the game. Fitz and I think we have the French Covered (so we can do Vitoria as well as Leipzig at the same time) but the Allies we have a small shortage. Fitz has a few Prussians and Russian and I have a few Austrians, Italians, Prussians, and Russians from the latter campaigns as well as a few Austrians, Saxons, and lesser French Allied for the 1809 Campaign that might fill in if needed. So if you have anything and are willing to bring them let us know.

We will be doing some sort of lunch and dinner at the Levee Café as well as having some beverages available.

I am working on hotel accommodations as even I don’t want to drive back and forth from Woodbury, so further information on that will be forth coming.