Battle of Dresden (1813) – 6mm refight

Here are some pictures of the Battle of Dresden game I put on on Friday 17 November 2017, using my collection of 6mm Heroics and Ros figures.

We used my home-made Coup de Grace (version 2.0) rules for large-scale battles. Up to 200 units were on table, and we managed to reach a decisive outcome, as the French (played by Richard, Noel, Pat, and Tim) withstood the Allied army, consisting of Austrian, Russian, and Prussian contingents led respectively by Jonathan, Mal, and Brian. Both sides received reinforcements during the game.

Although Brian with three Prussian corps managed to defeat Noel (who only had one corps initially) on the allied right flank, Jonathan cautiously garnered his Austrian corps and was delayed by hilly terrain and the threat of Tim’s massed French cavalry. Mal attacked boldly with the Russian corps in the centre, but was repelled by Richard and Pat’s French troops – some of them Imperial Guard – manning redoubts in front of the city of Dresden along with the reserve artillery.

I tweaked the rules, which I had used in May 2017 for the Bautzen refight. Skirmishers were made less powerful, high ground conferred only a defensive (as opposed to an offensive) bonus, and movement rates were increased from 6 to 8 inches for infantry and artillery, and from 12 to 16 inches for cavalry. This made the game a bit quicker and more balanced.

With any set of rules there is a limit to how many units can actually be managed by each player. In a game lasting less than three hours, we probably reached the limit with 6mm figures of about 30-40 units per player. Along with massive armies comes the problem of the rules themselves, which have to sacrifice detail and record-keeping for straightforwardness and ease of comprehension without seeming overly simplistic. Coup de Grace does this well, I think, as most players had grasped the game mechanisms during this refight.

With nine players turning up, only seven actually took part, owing to the size of the table I had set out (Phil and Mark observed from the sidelines). Next time, I would make the table longer, to allow all players to take part comfortably.

Noel suggested a Leipzig game some time in the future, which should certainly be possible using my figures, maybe at Rob’s wargames shed.