"Blucher First Thoughts" Topic

I got my copy of Blucher last Monday and just played my first test game with 4 people last night. Here are my comments:

- We didn't use the Scharnhost campaign system as it was my first time and the first time for everyone else playing the rules.

- We had 20 units (brigades) per side, all of us newbies, and finished the game within 3 hours, 3.5 hrs if you include setup and take down. We could easily finished faster on subsequent plays.

- As you would expect with Sam's rules, the mechanics are straightforward and streamlined, one of the players commented that it played like a more streamlined version of Grande Armee (which I have never played before). There was nothing particularly weird or odd in the rules that stood out.

- Artillery units are fairly mobile, just about as much as infantry and very effective in shooting, however, this is balanced by the fact that you get limited ammunition and they will retire from the field if they receive too much fire.

- The movement is pretty straightforward and easy, so a brigade could easily turn 90 degrees and move it's full movement. Troops can interpenetrate without hindrance as long as they clear the other unit. This makes movement simple and created a fluid game, it also makes sense because we are dealing with a brigade of troops rather than a single battalion.

- The traits and different ratings of the units provide the period flavour and feel, cavalry was pretty powerful when it caught infantry unprepared but would struggle otherwise.

- The MO dice provide a good level of friction, however, as the defender I never found myself short of momentum and was generally able to do what I needed. This would was different for the attacking side. It does mean that you have to plan your movement in advance.

All in all it does what it advertises, it provides good feel for the scale being represented, the rules are streamlined and straightforward, the book is easy to read. I will try the Scharnhost system next, as I think that will add yet more interest and intrigue to our games. Also having the unit cards from the Hundred Days helped a lot with having the stats readily available, we placed the cards under the units, which were on 6mm bases.

I took a good look at the book this weekend and although I have yet to play a game, it did seem like an uncomplicated game to pick up.

I'll be using the 100 days expanison cards for my first game this week.

"- The movement is pretty straightforward and easy, so a brigade could easily turn 90 degrees and move it's full movement. Troops can interpenetrate without hindrance as long as they clear the other unit. This makes movement simple and created a fluid game, it also makes sense because we are dealing with a brigade of troops rather than a single battalion."

It doesn't make sense at all, a brigade is certainly much more difficult to handle than a battlion and to move 90 degrees whould be not that easy

This would was different for the attacking side. It does mean that you have to plan your movement in advance.

Just from reading the rules, It seems like you would want to try larger Corps moves after having used some MO. The idea being to overspend MO as much as you can.

I'm debating if I want to keep my 3" GA bases or switch to bases matching the cards.

von Winterfeldt, I should have clarified, it makes sense for the scale of game that is being represented. You are the army commander and so you are not so concerned with the minute details of how your brigades are manuevring as long as they get to their designated spot. That is my understanding of the abstraction anyway.

That is correct. An army commander should not be involved in the minute details such as brigade formations. That is what the division and brigade commanders are supposed to be doing.

The notion that the C in C is not bothered about the exact positioning of battalions actually doesn't ring true. Since Blucher, the game, has a 100 days supplement it's worth noting that the Duke of Wellington was precisely concerned with the exact placement and actions of battalions and on occasion fought the battle of Waterloo precisely at that level. Does the game replicate that level of control when it's appropriate?

The short answer is yes. The Game allows players to activate units by corps, by unit, and by group commanded directly by the CinC. In the 100 Days supplement, Wellington has a special ability that makes him especially good at "hands on" leadership.

Wow, Dr Mark, Sam thinks of everything!

So to my understanding, the cards are optional, right? And if so, what are the benefits to having them?

The cards give you all the units, French, Anglo-Allied, and Prussian to play the Hundred Days Campaign without figures. Or you can use them under your figures in a way that gives you all the info on the unit you need in an easily available format. I have a number of 6mm units based on 60mm x 40mm bases which can be blue tacked onto a covered card (I Picked up transparent covers for about 85p per hundred) to make very attractive game pieces. So, no you don't need them, you can play the game just using your existing figures, for any Napoleonics campaign, but it is 2015 so, what the heck! I bought them, and they look great.

Mollinary

I'm building French and Russian armies, but I picked up the cards just on the off chance I catch Waterloo fever later this year.

Thanks mollinary!

Waterloo fever! I hope I can avoid it like I did WWI fever, but I am not so hopeful.

Agincourt fever … 600 years

"That is correct. An army commander should not be involved in the minute details such as brigade formations. That is what the division and brigade commanders are supposed to be doing."

I cannot agree on this as well, what is your notion on that?

See the big discussion and reflexions of Napoleon, Soult and finally Soults division and brigade commanders had before attacking at Austerlitz and what tactical formations they would chose to do that – they went down to battalion formations.

An Army commander very well must know how much time it would take, in in case if it would be possible to do such a brigade 90 degrees sweep.

I'm debating if I want to keep my 3" GA bases or switch to bases matching the cards.

If you already have based units I would leave them as they are. Although the cards are 3.5" the standard assumed Base Width is actually 3" so you are good to go as is!

I was already busy building 28mm armies on 90mm wide bases for a "big" version of DBM, but I've now bought Blucher and am pleased to learn I can use my figures "as is" just by using 90mm as the standard "1 base width".

And I can also switch very easily to using the cards with a 75mm 1 base width. I just need to make 2 different measuring sticks.

I also have 6mm figures now crying out to be rebased for Blucher, but I'll wait a bit and see what others do in terms of basing figures while still making the info on the cards visible.

An Army commander very well must know how much time it would take, in in case if it would be possible to do such a brigade 90 degrees sweep.

He'll need to know how long these things take. But you don't need to model that by having all the brigade compnents and move each separately. The whole idea is the commander sends the 9th brigade from A to B but doesn't have to worry about how the individual units make the move.

Level of command control is an interesting problem. My copy of Blucher arrived today so I haven't had much chance to investigate it yet, but I happen to be re-reading Gill's Thunder of the Danube series of books, and he (repeatedly) makes it clear that Austrian army commanders frequently issued orders down to battalion and even squadron level.

Now, Gill also makes it clear that there is a deep divide (called 'reality' I think) that interferes with those orders, but it certainly isn't just the Duke of Wellington that was concerned about battalion placement as an army commander.

"so a brigade could easily turn 90 degrees and move it's full movement."

This is one of those statements that is true but might be misinterpreted as suggesting movement is free-form.

Yes it is possible to pivot a brigade and then move it straight ahead. But note that after the initial pivot, the move must be exactly straight ahead (so no snaking around) which is far more limited than in many games.

You will probably not be able to do such a move in the presence of enemy due to ZoCs.

You need to keep Corp units close together to optimise pips – so unless you have planned carefully, pivoting and moving a unit is often limited by the need to end close to other Corp troops. Turning and moving a Corp together is what really matters, and that can be slow.

Players have a max 15 turns in a day – so say each turn can be up to 1 hour long. I will leave it to experts to judge, but it does not feel unreasonable that in an hour a brigade can pivot and then move say 250-500 yards straight ahead if in open, not in the presence of enemy, and not worried about keeping station with friends.

If anything I suspect players might find the movement in Blucher a bit more rigid than they are used to, particularly due to the uncertainty from hidden pips.

Cam

I think extra crispy nailed it.

"He'll need to know how long these things take."

I agree on this, but surely it make a difference in time if you have to wheel a brigade which is employed in line, to those in a column?

And for Napoleonic warfare, it is more the division than a brigade which is working in tactical support.

Thank's for your comment EagleFarm, this makes much more sense to me.

In general I like Blucher for streamlining some of the elements of Grande Armee & GA Lite. But I think we'll have some house rules to preserve some of the elements I miss from the earlier rules:

There is no fast/slow infantry differentiation and the free pivot bothers me a bit. I will designate some infantry as slow and those slow units who pivot before moving will use the "difficult move" distance that turn, halving their movement.

I thought the GA command table for generating command points and the 6 inch rule for uncontrolled corps commander movement were highlights of the game--I'm thinking of keeping those--and having all corps commanders on the table.

The one difference I was hoping for between GA and Blucher appears to be in the rules, in that the British/Allied armies seem to get a fairer shake.

The abilities granted to mobile commanders look like Wellington's style might get a better representation and the lack of a true Corps structure seems not to be such an issue.

Actually my first impression is that the British units are over rated but that seems to be the case with most Napoleonic rule sets, which is why I do not game the Peninsular Campaign.

I have to confess I haven't looked at the British in direct comparison to the French units in Blucher as yet but if they are "overrated" at this level of command I'm more inclined to accept it.

Although if you mean "overrated" in a shooting or combat sense, I wasn't referring to those regarding GA and "a fair shake" it was the advantages given to Corps based armies over old style Divisional ones which needed to be there to reflect the difference to early Prussians, for example, but Wellington's personal command style largely overcame

Having said that, given the simple structure of "Blucher" there has to be a tendency to lean toward the proverbial "historical results" because the game mechanics themselves are not that complex and so there should be less room for "fine tuning" between nations.

Indeed I think Sam says something to this effect in the rule book somewhere – unless I imagined it!

Regarding Napoleonic rule-sets in general, or at least the ones that deal with lower levels of command where detail can be indulged, I'm inclined agree more.

Unfortunately, rules are generally expected to have some, all be it passing, relationship to reality and the British did tend to win a lot more than they lost.

Where it goes wrong is that rules focus on ways of making this happen from within their structure a lot of the time, rather than giving players the tools to make it happen if they can, and so authors tend to stack the deck.

The alternative from their point of view is a lot more work and a lot more rules for every Nation's way of fighting, so players can do things for themselves.

Unfortunately this often then leads to hefty rules which the majority then label as unwieldy and refuse to buy!

"so a brigade could easily turn 90 degrees and move it's full movement."

Yes it is possible to pivot a brigade and then move it straight ahead. But note that after the initial pivot, the move must be exactly straight ahead (so no snaking around) which is far more limited than in many games.

You will probably not be able to do such a move in the presence of enemy due to ZoCs.

If a brigade was going to change front more than about 20 degrees from initial facing, if in line formation, it would change battalions into columns, march to the 90 degree facing and then change back into line. Obviously if already in column it was faster. But the time involved:

It is simply the time it took to move that distance [300 to 600 yards depending on the brigade frontage], any change in formation and the necessary re-alignment. That could be a 7 to 10 minute operation for the brigade. If we are talking about a formation bigger than a brigade, if that is being represent, then you have a far greater distance for the far end of the line to travel. Such a evolution could take twenty or more minutes to accomplish. You are now eating up a great deal of that hour turn…

And no, such a maneuver wouldn't be done in the presence of the enemy without flank protection. Having a corps change front was a very complicated maneuver. Ney, in his 1803 instructions gives detailed explanation for doing just that.

Unfortunately, rules are generally expected to have some, all be it passing, relationship to reality and the British did tend to win a lot more than they lost.

Where it goes wrong is that rules focus on ways of making this happen from within their structure a lot of the time, rather than giving players the tools to make it happen if they can, and so authors tend to stack the deck.

The alternative from their point of view is a lot more work and a lot more rules for every Nation's way of fighting, so players can do things for themselves.

Unfortunately this often then leads to hefty rules which the majority then label as unwieldy and refuse to buy!

Trajanus:

I think this is where results-driven games fall down. They have the British stronger, but the players have nothing to do with that result. The players are deprived of the decisions that created that superiority. It takes some art and skill to give the players the ability to create and counter British 'superiority' without weighing down the rules.

"I think this is where results-driven games fall down. They have the British stronger, but the players have nothing to do with that result. The players are deprived of the decisions that created that superiority. It takes some art and skill to give the players the ability to create and counter British 'superiority' without weighing down the rules."

I fully agree

I think this is where results-driven games fall down. They have the British stronger, but the players have nothing to do with that result. The players are deprived of the decisions that created that superiority. It takes some art and skill to give the players the ability to create and counter British 'superiority' without weighing down the rules.

Well surely it depends on whether you think that the success (or failure) of a given army was mainly down to the quality of its troops or the quality of its leadership? It isn't obviously wrong to give an advantage to a side if you believe that it has higher morale or is better trained.

Having read (and I admit not yet played) Blucher I'm not sure there is any particular advantage to the British army that can't be modified to suits one's needs. The British infantry are allowed bonuses for a variety of items like musketry and skirmishing which could be removed if you wanted to emphasize the generalship to a greater degree.

I'm not completely sure on this but I believe if you play a historical British/Allied divisional army versus a corps based army without Wellington as commander you are at quite a disadvantage.

Indeed you are!

Walkeren springs to mind!

Was Walcheren a study in why a "divisional"-based army is worse than a "corps"-based army? I don't understand.