Capitan Games has released the new supplement for their napoleonic small units game CAPITAN.
New units and officers to play the Liberation Wars 1813, and the Campaing of France in 1814. Napoleon against all the Allies, units from Prussia, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Wutemburg, Bavarian, Hanover, British Freikorps, German Minor States, and the new French Guard Units, and the veterans of the Russian campaign. A total of 392 new units.
Click to download the Units
The battle of Connewitz-Dölitz has finished with a drawn.
That result is really a rout for the Austrians: (1) they have suffered more losses than the defending French-Polish (5 large infantry vs. 3 small and one large infantry units); (2) they were only to one point from their Army Morale breakpoint when the game finished and above all (3) they have not achieved none of their objectives, the crossing points at Connewitz and/or Dölitz.
The main reason behind this failure has been the rough nature of the terrain in the proximity of the bridges, that forced the Austrians to leave behind the supporting artillery during their approaching to the bridges. On the contrary, the French-Polish forces, moving always over open terrain, were able to concentrate the reinforcements in the crossing points, making the most of their artillery, that literally swept away several Austrian battalions located in the opposite bank (See the above picture showing the terrain near Connewitz).
The difficult task given to the assaulting infantry units, forced to use inefficient march column formations (See this post) was also a very significant factor in the Austrian rout. Thus, until four assaults were launched against Connewitz and one against Dölitz and all were easily repulsed by the French or Polish garrisons. However, the Austrian assault against the Dölitz Manor from the west side, succeed at the first attempt.
During the actual battle, the Austrians were also unable to take the bridges at Connewitz although they succeed in crossing the river at Dölitz, only to be repulsed by a French counter-attack, that left General Meerfeldt, the Austrian C-i-C in this zone of the battlefield, as prisoner in French hands allowing him to play a role as messenger between Napoleon and the Allied sovereigns.
Therefore Lasalle almost replicated exactly the actual result of the battle. Using the Rosbif words in a previous post "I find that's the sign of a good rule set, when taking all factors into account, the result reflects reality."
In the next days, I'll upload all the narrative and pictures to the main web site.
The battle of Connewitz has been raging now for 32 Lasalle turns. However Lasalle ruleset does not has a fixed time scale. An enquiry addressed to the the Honour Forums about that topics was answered by Sam Mustafa (a.k.a. Le Grand Fromage) himself!
"... the game is supposed to play in "real time," with the understanding that a 2-3 hour game therefore represents about 2-3 hours of battle. Let's say that you play for 150 minutes, during which you complete 20 turns. That means that one player's turn is about seven and a half minutes.
But of course the turns are IGO-UGO, so we assume that both players are doing things even when it's somebody else's turn. So perhaps it's better to say that a pair of turns (IGO, then UGO) represents about 15 minutes."
I play solo, and my battles last for un-defined and variable time, ranging from days to weeks, so I don't play in "real time" in any case. However, I'll adopt the Sam's sugerence (after all, he is the most authorized voice!) so following his remark, Connewitz has been raged for 4 hours. 'Normal' Lasalle battles are scheduled for a Basic Length of 16 turns (8 turns for each side). After this, 'Bonus turns' are allowed (p 66 of the rules book):
"both sides begin rolling to to determine if there will be another turn. Each player rolls one die. If both players roll a 1, the game has ended; there are no bonus turns. Otherwise, another turn is played. This is called the first bonus turn. At the end of that turn’s Status Phase, players roll again. This time if they both roll a two or less, there will not be another turn.
This procedure is repeated at the end of each bonus turn, until both players roll equal to or less than the number of the upcom-ing bonus turn. (For example, at the end of the fourth bonus turn, the game would end if both players roll a five or less.)"
I'll use this procedure but using D10 instead of D6 dice. In that way, the battle must end after no more than 9 bonus turns. The actual battle of Connewitz lasted from 9 a.m. to 17 a.m., 8 hours, 64 Lasalle turns, but in the game table everything is happening faster than in real life, so my assumption seems very reasonable to me.
I returned yesterday from Antwerp (or Antwerpen) Belgium, a very friendly town although the weather was generally cold and rainy. No Waterloo visit was possible, but we make a rapid train escape to see Bruges (Brugge), "The Venice of the North" and World Heritage Site of UNESCO. Below, you can see a picture of the Belfry or Belfort Tower at the Grot Markt (Market Square) , taken during a small truce in the weather.
On the professional side, the CAC 2010 Conference, was very rewarding: many interesting lectures and posters and encounters with some other chemometricians. Incidentally, my postdoc visiting fellow, the Argentinian Fabricio D. Cid, won the Prize to the Best Poster of the meeting, and I was one of the co-authors of the communication! 
Now the outcome of the freezed Connewitz battle is waiting.
This week I'll be at Antwerp (Antwerpen in Flemish) Belgium to attend the CAC 2010, Chemometrics in Analytical Chemistry Symposium, from 18 to 22 October.
See you next week!
The hours are slowly passing and the Austrians are not achieving none of their objectives.
The terrain in front of Connewitz has become a slaughterhouse, with several Austrian or French battalions reduced to a debris of wounded and killed. The Austrians are still in front of the town trying a last assault, but are suffering staggering losses because of the French direct and enfilading fire.
Only at Dölitz are the Austrians achieving some local success: the Manor is in their hands and a Polish assault has failed before the determined Austrian defense.
The sunset is slowly coming and the battle will fade away.
Below you can see a english translation of the poster "The applications of Geographic Information Systems in the Military Historiography" presented by Sergio Pardo at the International Symposium on "The War of Independence in the Duero Valley: the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida".
The poster and the lecture show the possibilites of GIS as an aid to the study of military actions. The common thread of the presentation is the battle of Salamanca and several events strongly influenced by the topographic configuration of the battlefield: (1) The Wellington's observatory and his riding to order Packenham 'to drive everything before him to the devil', (2) the Tomières's mistake failing to see the advance of Packeham's division and (3) the poor positioning of the French artillery on the summit of the Great Arapil.
I hope the size of the poster will suffice to read the text!
The last week, academic and non-academic specialists on the Peninsular War and coming from Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain and U.S.A., met in Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, to hold the International Symposium on "The War of Independence in the Duero Valley: the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida".
Below you can see some pictures taken by me during the first session of the Symposium (October 5).
The Official Opening Lecture
(left) Emilio de Diego, President of the Association for the Study of the Peninsular War (Complutense University of Madrid) and Agustín Guimerá specialist on Maritime War (CSIC)
Charles Esdaile (University of Liverpool)
My son Sergio Pardo giving his lecture about "The applications of Geographic Information Systems in he Military Historiography"
and the poster of his lecture
The battle is still raging in front of Connewitz. The Austrian battalions have deployed in line to answer the fire of the French artillery, forcing it to limber up and make a hasty retreat behind the arriving French infantry. Meanwhile, more Austrian infantry is forming to attack again the bridge leading into Connewitz. 
In Dölitz, the Poles are maintaining the Austrian infantry at bay with the help of fire of the enfilading fire of the French artillery near the river and over the hill. Several Austrian columns are converging towards the zone, but the Polish infantry is ready to cross the bridge, to take the Manor House from Austrian hands.
The result is uncertain whereas the day is slowly passing by.
THE PENINSULAR WAR IN THE DUERO RIVER: THE SIEGES OF CIUDAD RODRIGO AND ALMEIDA
Date: 5-8 October 2010
Place: Palacio de los Águila. Ciudad Rodrgio. Spain (5th, 6th and 8th) and Salas de la Muralla. Almeida. Portugal (7th)
The Symposium is divided in three general Sessions (simultaneous translation is provided):
I Session: TERRITORY, STRATEGY AND LEADERSHIP
II Session: GOVERNMENTS, ‘JUNTAS’ AND INTERNATIONAL ACTORS.
III Session: WAR HERITAGE, POPULAR CULTURE AND EVERYDAY LIFE
The Symposium will count with the presence of Spanish, Portugese, British, French and American specialists in the Peninsular War, such as:
Emilio de Diego García, Charles Esdaile, Miguel Ángel Martín Mas, António Pedro Vicente, Tomás Pérez Delgado, Luis Oliveira Ramos, Ricardo García Cárcel, Donald Horward, David Gates, Agustín Guimerá Ravina, Francisco Ribeiro Da Silva, Enrique Martínez Ruiz, Antonio Moliner Prada, Gerard Dufour, Emilio La Parra López, Alexandre María de Castro de Sousa Pinto, Gabriela Gândara Terenas, Bertha María Gutiérrez Rodilla, Tereza Caillaux de Almeida, Ángel de Luis Calabuig, Françesc Pintado i Simó, José Ramón Cid Cebrián, Jean René Aymes, Sergio Pardo Iglesias and others.
The Symposium is sponsored by the Junta de Castilla y León (Autonomous Government), the City Councils of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida, and the Universities of Burgos and Salamanca.
The Organizing Committee is headed by Dra. Cristina Borreguero Beltrán of the University of Burgos
The French reaction near Connewitz was short-lived. Under the combined fire of the Austrian artillery and the impassive resistance of the Austrian 'kaiserliks', the hastily built Lefol's bataillon de marche is broken and dispersed.
The Austrian columns form immediately for the assault of Connewitz after traversing the bridge defended by the Erfurt battallions, a mix of convalescent and detachments from different French units. However, the small front and the narrow approach make the fight very difficult for the Austrians, that are repulsed.
A note for Lasalle fans
Lasalle does not allow march columns to fight, so the bridge assaults requiring very reduced fronts are not well represented. There was some friendly discussions in the Lsalle Forum regarding this topics (See Bridges again). At last I have used the Scruf proposal:
"A march column can assault a defile like a bridge. It fights at 1/2 dice and with no previous shooting, adding a -2 for "bad terrain" as they will be fighting in cramped quarters. However the small front, the enemy never halves their dice"
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