Blucher With Figures

Having had 'a bit of a day' I just turned up on Thursday to watch and take pictures before collecting My Son The DJ from the station later on. But the main game was Blucher, using figures from Gary's collection on sabot bases. 

It started with a run through Scharnhorst to generate the battle; Prussians faced the French in North Germany. This is the area they ended up fighting over (marked in red) and with the town as the objective.

The French ended up with two columns on table, bottom right and top right, the latter covering the town. Two other columns were off table to the top right as reinforcements. The Prussians managed to get all of their troops onto the battlefield, so whilst the French held the objective they would have to fight against heavy odds until the rest of their army came up in support.

The game started with cards, as all units are hidden.

A Prussian column is revealed.

Before the town more troops are revealed - the Prussians were advancing cavalry on it, only to discover that the only enemy troops in the area were the French cavalry. Much charging ensued.

With most of the troops revealed the Prussians saw that they were facing two columns of French cavalry. Things didn't look good for the French, although bringing infantry to bear on cavalry in Blucher isn't as easy as it looks - if they are moving then they are vulnerable to the cavalry attacking them, but if they go safe and stationary then they aren't attacking.

More action over on the flank with the town.

One of the off-table French columns, which undoubtedly contained the infantry they needed.

This was a conventional 300pt game, but with two player on each side running the army by committee and a couple of people adjudicating and keeping the game moving. With novice players abounding the game didn't move quickly enough to reach a conclusion. However everyone seemed to enjoy the game and picked up enough of the mechanisms that future games should move a little more quickly. And the next 'future game' will apparently be in two weeks time, for the 200th anniversary of Waterloo.

Elsewhere Peter and Geoff played big-battle DBA with Crusaders of some kind taking on Medieval Germans.

Knights abounded.

It was a close game, with both sides teetering on thh brink at the end, but the Crusaders broke first.