Blucher Overview for Mad Lemmey

[Nosher]

Apologies if this is a bit long winded.... I've tried to stick to the game mechanics as most of the general stuff about the rules is already covered on the Blucher Website/Forum

Turn Sequence
1. Information Phase
units within sight (and range) of each other 'discover' hidden units and miniatures are placed on the table

2. Movement phase
The non-active player rolls momentum dice for his opponent. The score remains hidden to the active player and the active player then moves units by Corps by individual unit and by Command in that strict order paying Momentum Points to do so.

The non-active player announces when Momentum is 'spent' and herein lies one of the beautiful aspects of the rules. The active player can have between 2-12 or 3-18 momentum points depending on the sizes of forces involved. Therefore not all of your army is likely to move and isolated units become difficult to control making it imperative to keep your forces in a coherent formation supporting each other.

The active player is forced to plan his movement carefully and strike where he is most likely to gain local success. The non-active player has the benefit of knowing the active players Momentum Score for the turn so a good poker face is essential!

Move distances are kept simple and are either simple or difficult. All measurements are in base widths. Once units are within a specific distance of each other subsequent movement become very difficult to achieve and subsequently units are pretty much locked in combat pinning each other in place.

Reserve moves are large (12 base widths) and can bring reserves into play quickly where they are most needed, even redeploying to another flank (assuming they are not within spotting distance of the enemy)

3. Fire phase
The Active Players Units that did not move may now fire. Units firing receive bonuses and penalties for firing dependent upon the situation they are firing in and casualties are recorded.

4. Combat phase
Units in base to base combat fight hand combat and receive bonuses and penalties dependent upon the situation they are in.

Combat very rarely results in annihilation of enemy units unless they are very fragile due to previous casualties. The winners stand and the losers retire facing the enemy if active or facing away from the enemy if inactive.

Cavalry that fails to beat enemy infantry retires. Artillery that loses to any enemy is either broken or retreats depending upon the differences in scores.

Sub commanders with certain traits can influence combat but are at risk if they do so becoming casualties if a 6 is rolled.

The winners of combat can pursue if they choose. Certain troop types (Conscripts) cannot charge Cavalry. Impetuos troops must always charge an enemy unit in range.

4. Status Phase
The active player rolls for reinforcement based on a reinforcement factor determined prior to the game dependent upon where reinforcements are expected to arrive. If they arrive they are placed on the table but can only move in the turn they arrive. There move distance is limited on arrival to 2 base widths

Army morale is checked (including a recalculation of an army levels morale level upon arrival of reinforcements). Units that have broken or have been voluntarily retired count towards the break point. If an armys morale has collapsed the game ends. Generally the armies moral break point is a third of the bases of its total number of bases. Some CinC's increase this break point to 50% making them very difficult to beat.

Finally the Active player rolls Momentum Dice (keeping them hidden) for the inactive player who is about to have his turn....

Army Lists
There are 13 army lists in the rules covering all of the major nations as well as some of the more exotic armies

Army building is quite simple. 200 or 300 point armies are the norm, but the game is capable of handling much larger and even multi-player games although not unnaturally this extends playtime dramatically!

I find I can fight 200points in 2-3 hours and 300 points in 3-4 hours

A 200 point army typically gives about 16 units per side, 300 points 24-30 units depending on which troop types are taken

There are min and max limits on units and each army list outlines any special limitations. There are even a few flavour rules specific to certain armies. The Spanish for example can spend army points o guerilla tactics - not much use in pick up and play but highly desirable in a Scharnhorst campaign.

Armies have options to include Sub Commanders with special traits and some armies have the option to have better CinC's also with specific traits.

Artillery can be massed or split as attached artillery.

The Scharnhorst campaign system is quick to learn but difficult to master and adds a really fun aspect to games. Straight forward 300 points on 300 points games are fun, but its even more fun when armies have become split marching to the battlefield and its not entirely certain if reserves will arrive or not.

Other points
Its essential to maintain a reserve with which to make a strike at a critical point in the game. Corps wear each other out attritionally and having a reserve to plug a gap or to make a breakthrough is pretty much critical factor in winning and losing.

Once you are familiar with the game concepts, you can pretty much play the game with very minimal reference to the book and even the play sheet.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Thanks Nosher,
I was bitterly disappointed with Lesalle, but these sound decent.
May have to put these on the to buy list... 

[Nosher]

Thanks Nosher,
I was bitterly disappointed with Lesalle, but these sound decent.
May have to put these on the to buy list... 

Ditto with Lasalle. Blucher is very different

[toxicpixie]

Only seen them played, and one side had b*gg*r*d up their Schanrhorst so were in a terrible starting position which kind of makes that experience a bit odd anyway, but what do you feel re:Prepared for Infnantry versus Cavalry? It just seems odd that in scale infantry have to be seriously prepared to repel cavalry, when the cavalry can be literally miles away then go *bampf* into contact.

From a mates email after the game -

"With each card as a division (theoretical historical frontage of about 1,000 yards), the cavalry can charge you from a distance of about TWO AND A HALF MILES away – that's the entire length of the Waterloo battlefield. It seems wrong to me that I can't move an infantry division without being at risk from something that far away. It also seems rubbish that the infantry can't become prepared when they see the attack coming (no hasty "prepared"). French drill manuals reckoned 100 seconds to form square from line and 30 seconds from column and only recommended forming square within 2/3 mile if the enemy were manouvering into attack formation."

I'm not that into the period to know the distances myself, but it did feel very, very odd... I know you're the Field Marshall, not the Battalion commander, but surely you can trust your subordinates enough to sort out something everyone drills at all the time... I am prepared to find more experienced players who've actually used it to push lead have other thoughts

[xccam]

From a mates email after the game -

"With each card as a division (theoretical historical frontage of about 1,000 yards), the cavalry can charge you from a distance of about TWO AND A HALF MILES away – that's the entire length of the Waterloo battlefield. It seems wrong to me that I can't move an infantry division without being at risk from something that far away. It also seems rubbish that the infantry can't become prepared when they see the attack coming (no hasty "prepared"). French drill manuals reckoned 100 seconds to form square from line and 30 seconds from column and only recommended forming square within 2/3 mile if the enemy were manouvering into attack formation."

Except the frontage is actually between about 300-500 yards. If all the battalions of the division were lined up with no depth or reserves maybe it would be 1000 yards maybe, but in reality this was not a formation that was ever really done, even by the British with their famous 'thin red line'. With this taken into consideration the MAXIMUM charge for cavalry becomes around 1 mile, and that's with no difficult terrain and a direct straight line, not completely beyond the 2/3rds of a mile suggested by the French manuals for an enemy already in attack formation.

[toxicpixie]

See, that's what I'm wondering. It feels too low level for me as a general to worry about ordering an entire brigade to form square - unless I have telepathic staff and messengers at any rate. It's a Lower level thing to my mind but - I've ne'er been a huge fan of "hasty square" type rules BUT it's probably warranted but I can't see an easy way to do it.

Roll on Élan maybe?

[Leman]

I don't think Scharnhorst is really fun; I think it's really crap.

[toxicpixie]

It didn't work well in producing a playable battle when I saw the end result (arrived too late to see the process), but... that seemed to be down to the players on one side making a total hash of the whole thing - they'd said they'd happily try again with the benefit of hindsight etc etc.

I'd like to see the cavalry-infantry interaction in a more normal battle; we have a tendency to start tweaking waaaay too early and I suspect the actual result isn't as awkward feeling as I saw when in "normal" play. I still can't shake the feeling it's not your job as a player to order Prepared, though :/

[Nosher]

Horses for courses.

I'm happy with the abstraction of combat in Blucher despite its little foibles. It gives a good game in a reasonable amount of time without having to flick backwards and forwards through rulesbooks and reference sheets.

If you want 100% control over your forces and a whole ream of minute detail then plump for other rule sets.

In terms of Scharnhorst I dont see a particular issue with outmanouvering your opponent to gain a battlefield advantage.

Isn't that what Military Commanders have tried to do since time began?

If you don't want an imbalanced game and want to play with equal forces that's fine by me too. I'm personally fed up with playing matched sides and enjoy the challenge of fighting either as a tactical genius or as the underdog whose found himself vastly outnumbered.

[toxicpixie]

The issue I have with Prepared is that it isn't abstracted ENOUGH It's too much of a lower level detail for the scale and where the player is positioned in the games structure - actual army commander, with multiple corps under him. I suspect I'm jumping at nothing as that's one games worth of experience and that I might find it fine in practise but...

Schanrhorst - it wasn't so much imbalanced as pretty much pointless playing the game. One side had virtually naught but generic infantry on table, mostly pocketed between combined forces of cavalry artillery and infantry so they got clobbered with no chance to do anything but decide which enemy force and troop type was going to butcher them that turn... The other (this time all infantry) couldn't advance over a bridge guarded by a cavalry unit sitting on it...

Needless to say before there was the slightest chance of reserves arriving they got clobbered and game over.

I gather from post game chat they realised they had no idea of the way the campaign system is supposed to work and whils trying to be clever they messed up *everything* possible - hence willing to give it another bash in an attempt to produce a playable game

[T13A]

They play fine for me. No they are not perfect and will not suit everybody. For me they come under the, 'looks pretty straight forward and simple but actually have a lot of hidden subtlety built in', category of rules.

I have now had two goes at Scharnhorst (one with Nosher via e-mail) and again whilst not being perfect they were great fun and made a nice change from lining up two armies with exactly the same number of points and simply getting stuck in. In due course I'm hoping to give the 'Hundred Days', Scharnhorst expansion campaign a go.

For me trying to match what goes on on the table with what I perceive happened in real life (how ever far away that goal may be) and playability is the key to enjoying wargaming and Blucher (for me at least) gets pretty close.

Good gaming!

Cheers Paul 

[toxicpixie]

I actually really liked what I saw, and I want Scharnhorst to be good

There's just a couple of niggling bits, but then if I ever find or even write the perfect rules for any period...

[petercooman]

Ok i'm interested.

How big should the standard table be ? I have 2mX1m so not that wide.

How about the scale of figures? Would the rules work with everything? I have 2 2mm armies for the napoleonic periiods, and it would be fun to be able to try them out right away. They are based individually, but i can easily make sabot bases if i want!

Just checked, and i have individual blocks based on 1 block per 30x15 bases. If i put 4 togheter i can make a 60 x30 brigade wich comprises 4 blocks.Would look pretty good i think.

[Nosher]

I play on 6x4table with bases 60x60 which works well leaving loads of room for manouvres

[petercooman]

Am i right in assuming that you can use a smaller table, if you can reduce the base width? (since the movement is in base widths)

I just took measurements, and the table is 37,5 inches wide and  58" long, so no standard game table, and this results in most games on my table to be played along the length instead of the width.

Also explains why i use many small table rulesets like USE ME (3'x3') and 2by2 napoleonics (you guessed it, with a 2' by2' playing surface)