Blucher 1809 French v Austrian

After a bit of a break due to visiting Australia and the club venue being closed my return to action was a game of Blucher using French against Simon's Austrians.

Lately I have been choosing large lower quality armies for Blucher games but thought this time I'd go for quality with two French Infantry Corps both supported by Dragoons and Heavy Artillery and a Cavalry Corps with three units of the very expensive and rarely employed Cuirassiers and two horse artillery to provide fire support. The downside of all this quality was that the army only had 12 non-artillery battlegroups which meant it would be broken on only four losses so it had very little margin for error!

We again played the pick up game rather than Scharnhorst with the French as defenders on a fairly open table. I deployed one Infantry Corps on the left, another in the centre and the Cavalry Corps on the right. I was hoping that Simon would not expect me to have so many cavalry and would advance on my right flank without properly scouting it. Simon deployed his much larger army right across the table (He had forgotten his cards) and so far so good his left flank consisted of some rather poor units and immediately advanced! The Austrians also advanced in the centre while holding back on the left:

The plan (so far) having worked perfectly I unleashed the Heavy Cavalry Corps on the unsuspecting Austrians!

Two units of Cuirassiers hit unprepared Landwher while the third attacked the Austrian horse artillery. The French horse artillery moved forward to engage the Austrian cavalry and Grenadiers in support of the Cuirassiers. In the centre the French await the Austrian onslaught:

The Heavy Cavalry corps charge was largely successful with one Landwher unit being destroyed, one badly damaged and the Austrian horse artillery forced to retreat:

In the centre the Austrian's maintained their advance on the French held hill with a large force of infantry. The French Dragoons charged the end Austrian infantry unit inflicting some damage before the Dragoons retired behind the French infantry line:

On the right the situation continued to be fluid with Austrian and French units engaging and falling back as the French attempted to exploit their initial breakthrough:

Meanwhile pressure was increasing on the French centre as the Austrian infantry advanced to close combat aggressively:

On the left flank the Austrians were also advancing quickly now to engage the whole French line keeping the pressure on very effectively. The French had peeled one Infantry Division and the Dragoons off to try to support the centre but this had weakened the defence of the hill:

In the centre the French repulsed the Austrian attack though one Infantry Division was pushed back through the town. Much of the French centre and right had by now taken severe damage but had only lost some horse artillery so far while having broken four units of Austrians. While the Austrian break point of 6 was getting closer the French were also in trouble due to the large number of spent Divisions they had left:

The crisis of the battle now approached with both sides trying to finish weakened units off while protecting their own damaged formations. The Austrians have reacted to the French attempt to filter units from the left to the centre and are about to assault the French left:

The French Heavy Cavalry Corps had trapped two very weak Austrian units on the far right and were poised to charge home to win the battle for the French. In desperation the Austrians threw in everything they could to break the French before they themselves broke:

On the French left the Austrians destroyed a French heavy artillery battery on the hill and the French Infantry Division which had been attempting to reinforce the French Centre. One more unit lost would push the French army to it's breakpoint!

The last attacking Austrian unit was an Infantry Division that charged uphill in the centre into the flank of a French heavy artillery unit. If the battery could hold out the day would go to the French, if it fell the Austrians would triumph. Sadly for the French the battery did not survive and victory went to the Austrians!

This was another great game of Blucher which could have gone the other way easily. My previous  experience of using 'expensive' troops in Blucher was that they were not really worth the points but in this game the Cuirassiers paid off I think. I should probably have rejigged the army to have 13 units giving a break point of five as only having a four breakpoint was challenging as things could (and did) rapidly go wrong!

Simon's very aggressive tactics worked well for him in general though they did allow the massed Cuirassiers to charge home in an advantageous situation. Coming with his Austrian infantry to close range or combat helped negate the French skirmishing ability and showed determination where many players just accept a firefight at long range.

Having played a few 'pick up' games now it does seem different to Scharnhorst in that using a large aggressively handled army works well. 

I suspect that the reason for this is that most Scharnhorst games consist of a small defensive force holding off a larger attacking force until either reinforcements arrive or night falls. From an attacking viewpoint there are a couple of problems with this, firstly that you only have a few enemy troops to aim at most of whom will be a long way away from your units. Secondly as the defender has so few units they can use all their MO on those units making them much harder to destroy. 

The terrain system in the pick up game probably also has an effect in that we do not pick rivers which are common on the Scharnhorst map and it is much more difficult for the defender to set up an advantageous defensive position with less terrain and all troops on the table at the start of the game.

Good to be back in action and looking forward to getting in a couple more games before Xmas.