Start of Llanes Campaign

Traditional map of Europe

 

My 1813 campaign started in April 2009.  

Since then it has provided 82 campaign phases and 418 battles to wargame.

 

The campaign was created to provide interesting battles to wargame.

It was never my intention to model the actual 1813 campaign.

I choose 1813 because it was the first campaign in which all of the major nations fought at the same time

It was also notable because all of them were of relatively equal fighting and command ability

In previous campaigns the French had usually defeated their opponent

But by 1813 those defeated nations had learned hard lessons and improved their own armies

In the previous year Napoleon has lost an entire army in Russia

In 1813 they were largely replaced by conscripts

 

It was always designed to be a series of campaign phases.

Each one would be similar in size and duration to the Waterloo campaign

Each would also be free standing, and would start with both armies at full strength

It was planned that each phase would provide about 6 battles to wargame

 

The campaign order of battle was based on my existing model soldier collection

I had armies for Austria, Britain, Prussia, Russia and Spain

I also had a much larger French army, which included many allies such as Polish, Italian, Westphalian and Bavarian

 

The campaign was divided into five theatres, three in Germany and two in Spain.

Austria, Prussia and Russian would be in Germany, each with a French army against them

Britain and Spain would operate in Spain, again with a French army against each.

The orders of battle would remain constant for the five theatres

This would allow me to use all of my model soldier collection in sequence.

 

New Military District map of Europe showing each campaign phase

 

The campaign has run nonstop since April 2009

However it has not followed an 1813 narrative

Had it done so it would long since run out of options.

 

There have been six major reorganisation of the campaign

The original was April 2009 and was a solo campaign

Second was October 2009 when I started the first PBEM campaign

Third was June 2013 when the campaign reached 2014 and it entered France

Fourth was February 2015 when I reset the calendar to January 2013

Fifth was February 2016 when I changed back to solo campaign

Sixth was June 2020 when I made new maps based on military districts

 

There have been relatively few changes to either the campaign or wargame rules

The campaign rules were changed when the campaign went from solo to PBEM and back to solo

The wargame rules had minor changes to reflect game play

However throughout the period there was always a game on the table from the current campaign

Llanes Campaign Phase

 

This will be the fifteenth campaign phase between Wellington and Soult in northern Spain.   

The British won 8 and the French 7.

 

In this campaign Wellington commands four Anglo-Portuguese and two Spanish corps

He can also rely on 12 Spanish militia brigades

They are the garrisons of the towns in the campaign

When a town is taken by the French the garrison becomes a guerrilla brigade

 

The French also have six corps, plus six conscript brigades for garrison duty

 

The major difference in this campaign is the fighting ability of the two Spanish corps.   

They are not up to the standard of the four British corps

But are similar to the Portuguese infantry brigades in each of those corps

To is to reflect that in 1813 Wellington’s army included Spanish brigades

These performed relatively well, especially compared with those commanded by Spanish generals.

 

It is always difficult to get the balance right between French-British-Portuguese-Spanish brigades

Particularly when games are mostly decided by the luck of the dice.

But I wanted to get away from Spanish running away at the first sight of the French

This was certainly not true in 1813, when they formed an important part of Wellington’s army