French versus Austrians Using Blucher Rules

On Monday, April 27, a state holiday here in Mississippi, a number of us gathered at Jay, Lord Sterling's to play a 25mm Napoleonic game using his venerable 25mm Napoleonic host.  We used Sam Mustafa's new grand tactical rules rules, Blucher and his introductory scenario, "Along the Danube."

Here are a few pictures of the cavalry action in the center of the battlefield.  I was the senior French commander and reserved two French cavalry divisions for my command.  Three other players divided four French infantry corps among them.  Our task was to beat the Austrians and capture two objectives on the battlefield.

Jay's Napoleonic forces are based for Napoleon's Battles which the group used many, many moons ago.  Now we use them with Larry Brom's The Sound of the Guns and with Command and Colors Napoleonic. 

In Blucher, each "unit" (3 stands of troops/guns on a movement base) is roughly equivalent to a brigade of infantry or cavalry or a "grand" battery of 12-18 guns.  The movement bases are 4-1/2" wide and deep enough to allow for the troop stands and the Blulcher troop characteristic card.

Anyway, on to the pictures.

Colorful Austrian uhlans, backed up by cuirassiers and dragoons face off against French lancers, dragoons, and cuirassiers.

One Austrian uhlan brigade is defeated by a French cuirassier brigade and sent scurrying behind its supports (upper left).  In the lower left, the French carabinier brigade advances.  You can just feel the ground shake as they trot forward.

During a succeeding turn, the carabiniers along with other French cavalry attack the Austrians (Hungarian infantry and Austrian cuirassiers), only to be outflanked by some Hungarian infantry backed up by jagers.  Is this the gruesome end of the brave carabiniers?

Nope, their left files just turn and smack the Hungarians, whose commander is measuring their retreat.  The Austrian infantry who were the original target of the carabiniers was also defeated and forced to flee.

The French ended up winning the battle although it was a see-saw affair.  We've enjoyed two games using the Blucher rules and I can see us using them in future games.  What we really liked was Sam's method of command and control.  At the end of each movement/combat phase, the active player rolls three "command" dice under a cup, not allowing his opponent to see them.  That player, now the inactive one, keeps track of the now-active player's command point usage during the next movement/combat phase.  The active player doesn't know how many command points he has to use so must "choose carefully" how he activates his command.  Sometimes you can do want you want and sometimes you can't. Let's the "fog of war" into the game.  We may use this system with other rule sets.