"Blucher rules vs. General d'Armee rules" Topic

I have never played either rules, but my wargaming group is about to play Blucher in a month. How would one compare the two rules? Which plays faster? Which is easier to learn? Is there a downside to playing Austrian, or Russian in either rules? Thanks

Blucher moves brigades about and GdArmee moves battalions. Hard to compare.

General d'Armee is quite a complex set with battalions as units, and to get the best out of the rules you need quite a lot of units. Blucher has brigades as units, each being one base, and is very streamlined. You can fight a big battle in an evening

Yes, comparing apples and bananas I'm afraid. Blucher is all about high command and big battles.

General d'Armee, now in its Second and improved Edition, is for those who like to see individual units of infantry, cavalry and artillery on the table.

So more "traditional" in that sense.

Lasalle vs General d'Armee would be a better comparison. Both are battalion level games. As to your questions, Lasalle plays faster, is easier to learn and IMO, treats the Austrians and Russians just fine.
I feel a better comparison for Blucher would be Napoleon's Battles or maybe Age of Eagles. I've not played Blucher, so I can't give you an informed answer to your questions.

I would have said Apples and Tomatoes :-)
Both good games and reasonable simulations but at different command and representation levels.

In Gd'A you're a division commander controlling brigades and (as the player) moving battalions around.

In Blucher you are a Corps or Army commander controlling divisions and moving brigades around.

Cheers
David

Above all true, quite different. I'd lean towards Armee, if these are two sets of rules in a "we own them" gaming group bubble. My two cents, if they are worth two cents or not:

Blucher – I have heard Blucher described as buying a set of board game instructions with no box or contents. It plays much like a board game. Also does not feel period to me. I think they are well written rules, not difficult to learn, which board wargames do their thing better, and minis rules do their thing better. Played it one time, watched many games, just not for me. It appeals to a certain range of gamer/hobbyist, which is fine, and playing it once you'll know for sure if it is your group or not.

Armee – I like the game, and like the guy who wrote it. It's good. Problem is (just my opinion) there are better battalion level games. If some others did not exist I'd be playing it gladly. It's fine, and in it's way feels more Napoleonic than Blucher. It is not hard to learn at all.

I would still advise playing Blucher once to your group, or any person. Playing different sets refines tastes and helps figure out what you like and don't like, and exactly what those things are.

@DevoutDavout, what battalion rules do you like? For reggie88 and general convo.

I ask because GdA is my goto battalion ruleset. I am on the fence currently on whether to try 'Over the Hills'? I just find a small corps v. corps (9-10k per side) battle to take a monumental 15+ hours to get a result

Like you, Blucher was nice but Napoleonic 'feel or flavor'… idk, probably biased because I like multi-base brigade sets like BBB and AoE. However, Mustafa's Grande Armee was an awesome ruleset and his free 'Le Grande Guerre' is very good and campaign friendly with just 6 pages of rules or so.

Mike

I am currently playing a lot of March Attack. Available on Wargamesvault as pdf. It is just a good set of rules in my opinion, and checks a lot of my boxes with least amount of "opinion friction". I also could play Shako (heck, 1 or 2) forever and be pretty satisfied, although it is pretty gamey, it has a lot of flavor. Also Lasalle 2. The one Mustafa game I really like, although I have not yet tried Guerre admittedly.

I really want to like Valour and Fortitude.I would put it just below GdA. I enjoy a few things about it immensely, but at the end of the game I am left wanting. The army sheets are a mess and require complete house ruling, but that is a secondary matter.

To it's credit, while GdA2 only made a few small changes, I still gladly picked up it up as well when it came out. Good additions.

PS. Never played over the hills. Will pick it up and try it. I am one of those glad to play all different rules, I enjoy it, while it frustrates some others.

I like MA mechanics and blended the rules with Rank and File's simple C&C- die rerolls for generals pretty much. We play-tested and it worked nicely; MA has some excellent mechanics like charges- hello easy!

I disliked the order writing in MA though as mentioned and prefer dice activation type C&C. Try vanilla Rank & File if you get a chance, I think it's the same folks that make MA?

Thanks for the mention on VF. I am hoping that GdA2 can speed up play for our battalion level games though, cause otherwise, GdA1 is almost perfect- for us of course :)

Good gaming DD!

GdA2 is probably worth getting for you. Although it is only a few changes, and you can probably watch their latest videos on it and suss out whats new and change it yourself if you wanted. It's mostly a few additions, rather than an overhaul. One is having two caisson models to represent opportunity to resupply, similar to allocating CnC resources.

Same to you!

Thanks, it's on my radar!

Blucher is faster and easier to learn, but abstract.