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Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Blucher, a 6mm refight.

Sunday,14th February was the inaugural Blucher 6mm game for me using my re based French and Austrians. I possess very large numbers of 6mm Napoleonic's, representing all the nations that fought in the war. However it is several years since I last used any of them, so Sunday was a milestone for me, as I returned to the scale. 
I had invited Paul Brown over for a game, with Neil and John Reidy, who both know the Blucher rules well, which came in handy, as Paul and I blundered our way through the game.Unfortunately for me, I was not at my best physically, and probably mentally due to a man flu thing, but I was determined to still enjoy the game. Neil and I took the french, Paul and John the Austrians. I opted for a 500 point game, which involved five corps per side.

As a wargame, it looked very nice, as a try out for the Blucher rules and fighting on a grandscale it also worked very well, however it became clear as we progressed through the game, that I had miscalculated the armies, and caused an imbalance, favouring the French. I can assure anyone this was not deliberate, but having to use the entire pack of  French Blucher cards in order to do the refight, I hadn't realised the big difference in the cost of the early and late French forces, which allowed the French to field more units cheaply. 
 As units of the French Reserve, ie the Middle Garde swept up the table to apply the coup de grace to the Austrians, it was clear that I had buggered the game up. I will put this down to experience, but it did sour the day for me, as I wanted to enjoy the whole spectacle and also see how Blucher coped with historically researched corps.
  Anyway, I will make certain next time that I have the armies correctly pointed, and hopefully, Paul will forgive me for making such a fundamental mistake. So did the rules work well for larger game, I believe they did, and once we had worked out how to move using the three dice then I thought the actual game mechanics were excellent. Anyway, next time, I wont be as so ambitious.




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9 comments:

  1. Drew Jarman17 February 2016 at 05:11

    Surely if both armies were equalled points if the game was imbalanced that is clearly a major flaw in the points and card system rather than the actual rules? The old WRG points systems have this issue even today

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    1. Independentwargamesgroup18 February 2016 at 12:02

      Drew,
      I think the error lies with me here, not the rules. I had to use the late French cards to be able to field additional Corps. These troops are a lot cheaper pointswise, and allowed the French to field more units, than the Austrian equivalent.

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  2. Anonymous17 February 2016 at 05:58

    That's a cracking looking game.
    I've been guilty of making the old 'too many troops' error, myself, so I can't really say anything. To my embarrassment, I really should have noticed that I had a football team of 15 miniatures, instead of the correct 11.

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    1. Independentwargamesgroup18 February 2016 at 12:03

      Roy,
      We all do it now and again, we just get carried away.

      Delete
  3. Colin Ashton17 February 2016 at 07:08

    Looks superb. Sorry I had caught your man flu so wasn't able to attend :-(

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  4. Bartek Zynda17 February 2016 at 08:26

    Great looking game Robbie!

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    1. Independentwargamesgroup18 February 2016 at 12:04

      Hopefully the next one will have a more historical context. I still have boards I made for Aspern Essling, and Wagram. Both have interesting problems for the French and Austrians.

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  5. Anonymous17 February 2016 at 11:08

    Having played blucher extensively since release my own groups feeling is that the points system is very suspect which is why we play with historical formations. traits such as skirmish and shock are way too cheap, never the less they are our rules of choice right now and we still thoroughly enjoy them.

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    1. Independentwargamesgroup18 February 2016 at 12:06

      Robert,
      As I have stated, I think it was my inexperience, this was only my third game with the Blucher rules.I do really enjoy the system, and feel it captures the period well.

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