Unfortunately, the photo’s don’t do justice to sheer amount of figures on the table.

Above and below: Looking at Sedan (the central built up area) from the north bank of the River Meuse to the south.

The French eastern perimeter edge. This was where the initial Prussian thrust came from. Facing these troops was the massive grand battery in the pic below. The Prussians didn’t have many troops deployed at the start of the battle but huge amounts of reinforcements were pouring in right from the word go.

This massive gun line started delivering casualties right from the first turn and it continued for the whole battle. Unfortunately there was little we French could do about it. We did manage to deploy our own grand batteries on some high ground opposite but it did little to help. We managed to silence some of the Prussian guns and slow down the initial infantry assaults but the weight of Prussian firepower and troops just wore us down.

We managed to hold the banks of the stream for a short while. The first Prussian attack was pretty much repulsed. But subsequent assaults drove us back. We formed a second line but that was driven back, as was a third line.

On our western flank the Prussians were slowly moving into place to try and close the pincers around the French. We had a couple of cavalry divisions and decided to attack with the hope of driving the Prussian infantry back and charging their guns before they had a chance to unlimber. We had limited success. The charges went through but failed to follow up and hit the guns. As a result our counter-attack stalled. We did cause a major traffic jam but by the time we sorted ourselves out for a second push the Prussians got their troops into a decent defence.

This was the Prussian pincer coming from the east. We managed to prevent these troops from getting too far and they were pretty much held for the entire battle. (You can see John’s hand-of-God instructing his troops on how to perform the classic „pincer move.“„

Yet another Prussian gun line pounding our troops from the northern bank of the Meuse. In this sector (north) we had major traffic jams but we put up a good defence for the majority of the battle. However, when the main Prussian push came in this sector our forces pretty much began to collapse. It was more a matter of isolated worn out units getting in the way of the Prussians and slowing them down. By battle’s end the Prussians had pushed through both of the small built up areas that you can see and almost to the walls of Sedan itself.

Still holding the river line to the east at this stage. We did make them pay to get across but, unfortunately, we also paid a high price trying to hold them back.

The western arm of the pincer was getting around our flank. In the photo below we still had a chance to drive into the Prussian guns and then into the big traffic jam. But it didn’t eventuate. The Prussians got their guns deployed and slowly started decimating our cavalry. 

As you can see the weight of numbers in the west was getting the better of us and the Prussians began to push us back. It was a slow grind for them but this sector was where the; „-2 Heavy Casualties“ modifier, really took it’s toll on our troops with several of our brigades either retreating or breaking.

The photo below was our second line of defence. It looked good but collapsed pretty quickly because it was manned by worn and spent units. Also, our line had nothing to anchor itself upon and that huge battery to their front was still pounding away. You can see our own gunline on the high ground behind. Parts of it did good work pinning down the eastern arm of the pincer but other than that it was of minimal effect.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any more photos as the battle became more intense. The French reached that critical „Heavy Casualties“ mark and things just went down hill faster and faster. We surrendered. The Emperor Napoleon III was taken captive and that was the end for the Second Empire.

It was a great game for the end of the year and I’m very happy to have taken part – even on the losing side. A big „Thank You,“ to our host; Andrew who took the time to do the research, create all the unit labels and set it all up. These photo’s really do not do much justice to the vast amount of troops on the table and, as more and more Prussian reinforcements arrived, the numbers grew even larger.