250 Point Blucher Battle Report - Austrians vs French

Last Friday I played a 250 point game of Blucher, my French vs Austrians. My mostly veteran French army was significantly outnumbered by it's Austrian counterpart which was comprised mostly of conscripts with a core of elite troops.

Break points for the 2 armies were 6 for my French and 8 for the Austrians.

 The deployment in the centre of the field, the Austrians are deployed in three large chunks whilst my French are deployed mostly in a long line with 2 small groups of mobile reserves.

The Austrian first thrust is sent between the urban areas and the forest and is met by French cavalry and allied German Infantry. Horse Artillery also closes in to punish the Austrian infantry who faced with cavalry will have to form square.

Whilst more Austrian Infantry move up on the other side of the urban area to engage the main French line the Austrians in the gap are pushed back, but not without dealing heavy damage to the French Chevaux-Legers.

The very central advance of Austrians has got in range of the main French line now, the French have much better of the initial skirmishes due to their supremacy in this department.

In the background the right flank of the Austrian army prepares to swing in on the French left flank, threatening to stretch the limits of the smaller French army. In the foreground the French continue to take their toll on the Austrians at close range.

On the other flank a stalemate begins which would remain largely unchanged for the rest of the game, mostly featuring long range bombardments of artillery.

The Austrian right flank finally lands on the French left, Austrian Cuirassiers trading blows with the French Dragoons but the Austrian Chevaux-Legers fare much worse, being repulsed with heavy losses.

An overview of the battle at this key point, the disparity in the number of Austrian Infantry is apparent, but at this point 3 Austrian units have been broken to 0 French. Austrian numbers are going to need to start making a large dent in the French lines soon in order to take back control of the game.

The battle towards the right flank continues at a slightly lower ebb, with heavily weakened units from both armies falling back towards the rear .

The far right objective remains under no pressure. These units would be far more useful in the centre for the French than for the Austrians.

 

French units slowly try to move behind the line to reinforce the heavily outnumbered left flank.

The Austrian General looks on at the cavalry stalemate in the gap, both sides are extremely thinned out by this point.

Austrian Cuirassiers have dislodged the French cannon on the hill, forcing the French reinforcements behind the ridge into immobile squares. The elite infantry on the French left would continue to punish the Austrian infantry, but now had no hope of reinforcement. 

By this point the right flank Austrian cavalry have been replused, 2 Cuirassier units, one Chevaux-Legers routed, and 1 light Hussars reduced to 1 strength point for the loss of 2 French Dragoons and 1 French Chevaux-Legers, 1 unit of French Dragoons was able to break into the Austrian rear lines, threatening weakened infantry who had been moved out of the action. 

towards the end of the battle the Austrian attack in the French centre had finally collapsed the entire lot. By this point the French Break point of 6 has been reached, with the help of some Austrian Cavalry on their left flank finally breaking the deadlock to rout some weak French artillery.

The French had one last chance to force a mutual break, but were stopped short at 7 Austrian units, with the Dragoons which can be seen in the backfield routing a very weak unit of infantry.

In this final image we can see the final body count.

Austrian Losses came in at; 2 Cuirassiers, 1 Chevaux-Legers, 2 Veteran Infantry, 1 Conscript Infantry, and a massed battery of Heavy Guns (7/8).

French Losses were; 2 Dragoons, 1 Chevaux-Legers, 1 Line Infantry, 1 Allied Infantry, and a massed battery of Medium Guns (6/6).

Overall the game was extremely close, a 14/16 loss for my French boys under the clubs scoring rules, and could have gone either way up until the very end where my opponent managed to prevent my reinforcements from reaching the left flank whilst also keeping the pressure up so that the units trapped there could not simply get away from danger.

6mm Austrians - 200 point Blucher Army

As I said when I posted my 200 points of French, my next task was 200 points of Austrians to match them an now here they are.

I really do love how colourful the Austrian Hussars are especially.

The Army.

I Corps - 4 German Infantry, 1 Conscript Grenzer, 2 Artillery.

II Corps - 4 German Infantry, 1 Conscript Grenzer, 1 Artillery and 1 Cheveax Leger.

III Corps (Cavalry) - 1 Cuirassier, 4 Hussars.

The plan is to add on another 100 points to both the French and Austrian armies in time, but I haven't decided what the make up of this will be yet.

6mm French - 200 Point Blucher Army

After pausing for Christmas and Boxing day I've completed my French 6mm army up to 200 points in the Blucher rules. I will be of course making this army bigger than it is, but first I will be doing 200 points of Austrians.

This has been my first foray into 6mm as a scale, using Baccus 6mm figures, and I'm really pleased with how quickly painting the figures is and I really like how they look all based up.

The Army so far.

I Corps: 1 Elite Infantry, 3 Line Infantry and 1 Foot Artillery.

II Corps: 1 Elite Allied Infantry, 1 Elite Infantry, 2 Line Infantry, 1 Allied Infantry, and 1 Light Cavalry (Hussars).

III Corps (Cavalry): 4 Dragoons, 1 Horse Artillery.

The army is in fact the same as the list I have been using in 10mm just for ease of use and because I have found it fun to play. I will be adding more units up to 250 and then probably 300 points which should distinguish it.
I'm really pleased with how these have turned out, and in only just over a week.

Next, on to the Austrians!

6mm Beginnings - French Elite Infantry

I recently received my first orders from Baccus 6mm for my French and Austrian armies. I plan on using these to play Blucher at my local club. The units will be based on 60mmx30mm bases like my 10mm figures. 

 The contents of the delivery will enable me to create 2 reasonable sized armies for the Blucher rules.

So far I've painted up 3 units of infantry (2 elite infantry, and 1 elite allied infantry in Blucher terms) and I'm very pleased with how they look combined with the basing.

Volley! At Farnborough, After Action Report

 Today I attended a Blucher tournament at my local wargames club and I took a bunch of photos. I played as Peninsula French, and had a great time.

Game 1: 
In game 1 I was attacking my Ottoman opponent.

My opponent has set up with all his infantry, artillery and his 2 objectives behind a river. His masses of cavalry are set up in the top right. I wan't confident in attacking across the river, so I deployed to try and wipe his cavalry, if I could break them his army would probably reach it's break point.

Large numbers of Turkish and French cavalry would engage around the forest on the right flank, but it would remain fairly indecisive.

My dragoons have fallen back after heavy combat with the now much dispersed Ottoman cavalry and reform behind reinforcing Badenese Infantry in squares, and fresh Westfalian Chevaux-Legers. On the far right Turkish cavalry remain immobile in front of a line of French infantry, neither wanting to advance upon the other.

At the end of the game the fighting has been very inconclusive. Sporadic infantry fighting across the bridge and all the cavalry fighting on the right actually resulted in 0 broken units on either side when the time was up. The result is a draw, with a slight advantage for my opponent holding more objectives, which he began with for rolling the defender.

Game 2:

In my second game I was matched up against against the Hundred Days British, and rolled to defend. This was an extremely short match and so I only have 2 images.

The centre of the map is dominated early on by my dragoons, preventing the British advancing off their hill.

The only other image of the battle shows 2 British corps stuck between my 2 main corps. The fighting was fierce, but at the end of the fighting 5 British units had been routed to 2 French, and the British army had broken. A convincing win for the boys in blue.

Game 3:

In my third and final game of the day I faced a very different British army. This one was from the Peninsula and so featured a number of Spanish and Portuguese allied units. 

On the left flank I have a corps of Infantry deployed forwards of one of my objectives in order to defend from the hill. My opponents Heavy Dragoons have forced my leftmost infantry into squares but my own Dragoons are forcing the British infantry in the centre into their own squares, both sides would be punished by artillery for this.

On the right flank I have taken the role of defender slightly more liberally and am pressuring hard. I am pretty sure forcing my opponent to spend his precious momentum points dealing with this flank made defending my left far easier.My Dragoons and horse artillery continue to dominate the centre, forcing any attack to halt.

My Dragoons here have charged in to destroy a weakened battery of Heavy Artillery in the centre (already removed). A unit of British Infantry have already been broken by the Horse Artillery in the centre, whilst my foot guns on the hill deal heavy damage to the Brits forced into square to their front.

Several turns later 3 of my Dragoons have moved to support my right flank infantry. The allied Spanish and Portuguese cavalry have been moving back behind the infantry squared unable to stand up to the French cavalry. This has allowed me to reorganise the infantry who had been taking punishment from British musketry.

Towards the end of the game the French left flank is thinning out, but the Heavy Dragoons remain wary to advance into squares and musketry. By this point artillery is too exhausted to really threaten the squares, and so attacking will have to be by brute force.

However the both players focus has been on the right flank, where French Dragoons have made it behind the squares to threaten the Allied horse behind, whilst French infantry trade long distance shots with the infantry (French infantry are just out of shot to the left). The French Dragoons would charge with mixed success, but neither player would gain the advantage and soon the game would end. The result was a spirited draw, although a minor win for my French, with 2 British units broken to 0 French whilst maintaining control of 2 objectives.

At the end of play I won an Arc of Fire marker for coming 3rd out of the French commanders. I had thought there were 14 participants, though on retrospect their may only have been 12, and I think we all had a great time. Lance did a great job hosting the event, and though I felt the rules were fairly advantaged for the defending player I don't think it affected the enjoyment of the games at all.

I have a selection of Photos from other games, although I am not sure what most of them are they are

they all look like good close games.

Shots of Other Games

French (left) vs Ottomans (right)

I think this is Prussians (left) vs French (right)

French (left) vs Russians (right)

French (left) vs Prussians (right)

French (left) vs British (right)

The Finished Brits - The completion of all 3 armies.

Having now finished the final army at Talavera, the British, the project as planned lies completed.

In the future I may make a game board/the relevant terrain for the battle and maybe even get some friends together to play it, but for now this is all. Unfortunately all my units have their Kings and Regimental colours the wrong way round, this was an error I realised early but I decided that uniformity would be best, maybe I will fix them at some point.

I'll post some pictures of the British, and a few where I've laid all the troops out on my bed, which is the only space of roughly the right size for the game that I have currently. Coming in at a little under 1.5k troops, I really like how the whole thing looks.

Thank you for reading, if you want to see the French army click here and for the Spanish click here.

The British

The British Army

The armies laid out on my bed

The French viewed from behind the British Lines.

Half the British - The Penultimate Milestone?

In the past couple of weeks I haven't been able to get that much painting done, but I have crept over the 50% line for the British. This is probably the last real milestone before the final completion of the British army, and unless I decide to make a terrain board, for the whole Talavera project, except for playing the battle of course.

 Some Pictures of the progress since the last update.

Donkin's Brigade, featuring the 60th Rifles, incorrectly given grey rather than blue trousers by myself.

Half the British army at Talavera. Much smaller than the French and Spanish Contingents!