Dave's second game of Blucher using his Peninsular British against my early French.
This time I went for a cavalry corps, an entirely infantry corps, a mixed corps of infantry and cavalry and a similar Italian corps all with supporting artillery (including unusually for me two medium artillery batteries!).
Dave wanted to try Scharnhorst this time so we used the normal Peninsula map. As he won the scouting Dave elected to advance from the east while the French moved on from the west. Dave only had two columns (as he sensibly wanted to try to get all his troops on table) while I had four. After a couple of moves I ended up declaring the battle:
Deciphering my scrawl it can be seen that Dave did indeed get his two columns on table (1 and 2 within the red rectangle which is the battlefield) whereas I had three columns on table (A, C and D) with B hopefully arriving behind Dave's 1st column. As I had 6VP from the assorted towns while Dave only had 2VP he would have to break my army before nightfall, made rather more difficult by the river across the middle of the table.
The actual deployment looked like this, just to the left and out of picture there are four more French units:
The British send forward some cavalry and a mass of infantry heading for the French centre. Initial action includes French Dragoons on the left driving back some British Hussars and the French 3rd Corps in the centre devastating a British Heavy Dragoon brigade with some remarkably accurate fire:
Initial appearances can be deceptive though as the British Hussars return to the fight and drive the French Dragoons back with heavy losses:
However, numbers tell for the French as two more brigades of Dragoons join the fight and some Horse Artillery opens up on a Portuguese cavalry brigade:
With some impressive dice throwing the fresh Dragoons slaughter the British Hussars routing them:
Meanwhile on the French right the Italians have advanced to attack some isolated British units before the rest can get over the river:
On the French left the enemy has taken a battering and looks in trouble:
The British decide to commit their remaining reserves to counter the Italians. If the French corps marching to the sound of the guns arrives soon it will appear behind these men so the British are hoping they will be delayed!:
Action all along the line as the French Dragoons on the left continue their attack charging the Portuguese cavalry. In the centre both sides exchange fire with the French having slightly the better of it with greater numbers. On the right the Italians attack the exposed British:
The Dragoons make short work of the Portuguese cavalry:
Things don't go so well for the Italians though with the British artillery throwing back an Italian infantry brigade and the Italian cavalry being repulsed by an unprepared British infantry brigade:
In the centre the remnants of the British advance to close range where they will have an advantage but they are heavily outnumbered. The Italian attack has quickly ground to a halt and is facing the advancing British column that redeployed from the British left:
The French continue to mop up the British centre sending the Dragoons in for their third charge of the battle and continuing to exchange fire with the British infantry and artillery:
The British Heavy Dragoons are dispersed, they never recovered from the initial fire they took. A British infantry brigade also breaks pushing the British close to their break point:
The Italians have fallen back on the right. Opportunely the French corps marching to the guns arrives on the battlefield behind the British lines:
The British turn to face the new threat but their forces in the centre are almost spent and can't get away. They have an advantage against the Italians but they have largely fallen back out of range:
The Italians continue to fall back. In the centre the heroic Dragoons make one more charge into the British artillery while the rest of the French pour fire into the isolated British infantry:
The Dragoons triumph again dispersing the British artillery and breaking their morale! In the distance one of the newly arrived French infantry brigades has broken but the French can easily afford the loss:
As ever the game showed the subtleties of the Blucher rules. The Scharnhorst pre-game manoeuvring is a simple to play system with three aspects to it (gaining VP, having enough troops present and obtaining a suitable battlefield) that makes the players choices have a real effect on the battle. The balance between these competing aspects is certainly where you can gain a big advantage in the battle but often concentrating on one or even two will make things difficult in the other areas!
The battle rules themselves are also simple to play but again give the player a lot of choices. With limited momentum (and not knowing exactly what you can do each move) you really have to think about where to concentrate your efforts, when to 'push your luck' and take a risk with a move (or not) and when and where to commit troops, especially reserves. Do you want to reinforce success or shore up failure? You may well not be able to do both! Is it worth sacrificing some units to gain time or should you attempt to withdraw them before they are dispersed?
Dave did better than in his first game and actually damaged a lot of my units but as you become more experienced you get better at withdrawing damaged units before they are destroyed which makes you harder to beat. You also get much more of an idea of what you can achieve with the reserve moves and the inevitable situations where you'd like to do something but don't really need to as opposed to where you really have to do something.
In my last two Blucher games despite being on the defensive I've done much more attacking that I used to which has paid off so far and made a bit of a change from just hanging on grimly for nightfall!
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