Levee Cafe' Game Followup - Part 1

To begin with I would like to thank the people who made this great weekend possible, our spouses and significant others. With so many of us married and with children the fact that our significant others have had to spend so much additional time being the good parents to allow us to attend our “geekfest”. Without their support none of us get to come out and game.
Many thanks are also in order for those that provided figures (Fitz, Joe K., Trevor, BJ, Dave, Mark, and whoever else I may have forgotten), the Terrain (St. Paul Irregulars) and Levee Café for putting up with a group of geeks.
Finally I would like to thank everyone who participated in last Saturday’s 1813 Campaign Game at the Levee Café, hearing nothing but good things we already have a tentative plan for the next game at the Levee Café. Gaming to me is a social event and it is almost just as important to have people push figures as it is to have people paint figures.

We had 14 players playing four games on four tables and the possibility of the fifth game on a fifth table. For as complicated as the scenario was it went fairly smoothly, a few tweaks to the system are coming and for those that played if you have any thoughts please let me know.
For me it was an extremely busy weekend as I had to work overnight on Friday/Saturday to bring a crashed server back on line so I was going on 2 hours of a cat nap Saturday. As good as the games were (both visually and competitively) I had very little problem staying awake once the dice started rolling.

Overview of the French Vistory:
And I must say in the end it was a disastrous victory for the French.

The French stopped the Army of Silesia from crossing at Wartenburg, but at the Cost of 2 Infantry Corps and 2 Cavalry Corps plus un-totaled damage to the first young guard Infantry Corps that was marching on. A third French Infantry Corps was well on its way to getting wrecked. The Army of Silesia lost one Russian Corps and One small Russian Cavalry Corps. The rest of the forces in the Army of Silesia were well bloodied would be able to continue the fight. The slow grind of Prussian Artillery Grand Battery destroyed the French IV Corps and the a second French Corps was getting mauled by the repeated movement forward by the Russian Right Wing. If the Russian Grand battery could have been saved (lucky for the French it was destroyed early) the table would have been a huge meat grinder for the french rather than just a large meat grinder.

On the Torgau Board (the one ignored by the Allies) two French Corps were tied up just waiting for the Allies to show up.

On the Dresden Board the Right Wing of the Army of Bohemia captured I and XIV corps a little sooner than historically setup, but the terrain really slowed down the Allies and what Jim was expecting to do in the morning/early afternoon took all day.

On the Erfurt Battlefield Jack and Trevor were locked in mortal combat. Jack had a great plan and did everything right except roll decent dice coupled with the fact that Trevor rolled his equivalent of his decade quota worth of 10’s in one day. By the end of the day the French were planning to pull from the board, two Corps effected wrecked. I didn’t do the finally count on the allies on that board but I think only one Allied Corps was in the “wrecked” state and another was damaged but would be back in the fight in a few days.

So while the French won the day it was at an extreme price, 4 Infantry and 2 Cavalry Corps wrecked, 2 Infantry Corps surrendered out of 12 infantry Corps and 5 Cavalry Corps. Not counting the damage to 1 Young Guard Corps. The Allies lost 3 maybe 4 Infantry Corps and 1 small cavalry corps with 1/3 of the Army of Bohemia not engaged.