Sunday 24 March 2019

Blücher - First attempt at Scharnhorst

Another game of Blücher this afternoon. This time a 200 point game of Scharnhorst. We were playing British (Ed) vs French (me) and chose the Peninsular as the theatre of battle.

Ed won the Intelligence and decided to come on from one of the short edges. At the end of day 1 two of our columns had met in the middle of the battlefield at the town of Estacia.


I had collected a lot of VPs on the way in, so Ed had first choice to declare a battle. He chose not to. I did however choose one as I'd worked out how I could get all my columns onto the table. Ed ended up having one column coming on as reserves, though right into my flank.

The end of Day 2 was like this...


The battle was declared in the area marked in black below...


We then spent quite a while setting up the terrain. This took longer than I had expected. Anyway, it ended up like this...


Ed's other column would be coming over the river at the top of the photo above. Though with a factor of 5 it could be quite a while before we saw it.

With the Morale as it was, Ed would need to kill 5 of my units. I just needed to kill 3 of his. I needed to hit hard and fast before his reinforcements arrived.

I pushed my large II Corps forward along with my Cavalry Corps to assault the troops in front of the village. They were ripe for killing. In the end I found they were very weak. A Horse Artillery unit, Ed's heavily fatigued Portuguese Cavalry which he'd used for Recon and some Heavy Dragoons. Light Infantry had garrisoned the village.



As I advanced they fell back beyond the river, except the Light Infantry which were safe in the village from the cavalry on my right flank.


I had to push across the river to fight his centre troops. Victory looked assured. Those reinforcements better not arrive!

I only needed to rout one more of his units to win!


And then the reinforcements arrived...

Heavy Dragoons slammed into the flanks of my uncommitted VI Corps and Foot Guards started to assault the town. Suddenly his army looked a lot tougher and started to rout my units. Nevertheless I still had the upper hand... there was hope!



But it wasn't to be. A bad MO roll for me and a couple of good ones for Ed followed and my army was in shreds. Victory to Ed's British forces... again!



A wonderful game and it's got us chomping at the bit for more Scharnhorst!

I'll sign off with a couple of photos of my entire French army and commanders. There's still a lot more that I have to paint!








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