More Great Northern War with Blucher

 Colin got over earlier today,so we could have another bash a the Great Northern War using Blucher rules. I had expanded the size of my Swedish and Danish armies, so both sides now had 3 infantry commands and 2 of cavalry.

The pre-game mini campaign finished with a fairly typical deployment. We each had 4 commands starting on the table facing each other and one command entering as reinforcements. The reinforcements could make things interesting, I had a cavalry command following up on my left flank and Colin had an infantry command reinforcing his left flank. Unfortunately they were going to enter to the rear of my right flank!

It was an interesting, hard fought game and a lot of fun. We each started off with half our forcing facing each other across a stream. With neither side wanting to risk a crossing under fire, they spent most of the game looking at each other.

My cavalry reinforcements turned up early and with their support I was able to disperse the Danish right flank and swing around onto the flank of the Danish centre. They had punched a hole through the Swedish centre but were unable to exploit it before being over run. The Danish reinforcements were late in arriving and a Swedish regiment, holed up in a small village, prevented most of the units from rushing forward to catch the Swedes in a pincer manoeuvre.

The Danes belatedly attacked across the stream, but lost the cavalry fight, which took their army morale to breaking point!

Here is a few pictures from the later part of the battle.

The Swedes Left Command starts to flank the Danish Centre.

The Danish Left starts to cross the stream.

But the infantry are held by the Swedish Guard.

The beginning of the end, the Danish Centre starts to collapse, leaving a forlorn-looking infantry regiment rather isolated.

The Swedes start to win their bloody melee in the stream.

The final situation on the Swedish right as the Danish army breaks. You can see the first units of the Danish reinforcements moving up, but too late to take part in the battle.

Great fun to play. It was much closer than it seems from the final pictures. The Danes had lost 8 units routed/destroyed to the Swedes 4, but I had 4 more units who just needed 1 hit to rout them. It could easily have swung the other way.

I have been playing around with the (limited) unit traits in Blucher, as well as the commander's abilities, to give a National flavour to the opposing forces, which seem reasonably balanced to me. In our previous game the Swedes had been given a right royal kicking by the Danes!

Trying Blucher for The Great Northern War

 First a bit of background:

Around Lockdown I picked up  a bucketload of plastic 10mm-ish 18th century miniatures. I think these were originally were made for a verson of the boardgame Risk. I had intended to incorperate them in my 10mm WSS armies, but the plastics are more 12mm and tower over my metal armies (mainly Pendraken).

So I put then aside for a bit, then I decided to make up some GNW armies. This would take minimal painting as these plastic had already been basically painted as Swedish and Russian forces, I would just need to repaint a few units for Danes and add cuff turnbacks to the rest. I now have nearly half done, to make up basic Swedish and Danish armies for the later part of the war, around 1711/12.

I am already using Black Powder for my WSS armies and wanted to do something different, when I came across a Blucher varient for the WSS, which I thought would be fine for the Great Northern War, as they overlapped in time for most of their duration. I had already played a few games of Blucher (by Sam A Mustafa) and enjoyed them, I found the 18th century variant, Eugene, somewhere online (sorry I am not sure where).

One with the game:

After a couple of false starts I finally got Colin around to give the rules a go. Due to time constraints, and being Colin's first time with the rules, we skipped the pre-game mini campaign (usually one of the best bits IMHO) and straight on with a meeting engagement.

Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures of the initial deployment (and I really need to finish basing some of the units). I deployed my Swedes with cavalry on the left and infantry on the right and centre. Colin mixed his columns up, so unintentionally deploy in mirror image to me! My cavalry advanced as did Colin's centre, our other infantry flank advanced a bit, then both just took a break and watched the action for a while.

The view of the infantry battle. The Danish centre is closing on the Swedes, but taking casualties from muskets and accurate artillery fire. The Danish guns had attempted to soften up the Swedish unit on the right as they advanced, but failed. In fact I think the Danish artillery only caused 1 Morale Point all game.

Away from the infantry the cavalry clash...

....indecisively at first, both sides having units bounce back and forth (as cavalry melees tend to go!).

Now the Danish infantry charge, but are thrown back. A counter charge by one of the Swedish brigades routs the Danes in front of them.

On the far flank the two side exchange musketry at long range.

Some unbelievably good dice for the Swedish cavalry break two units of Danes, making a hole in their line....

...which the Swedes exploit and the Danish cavalry starts to melt away. Colin managed to retire one unit on the point of routing off table (units voluntarily retired off table do not count towards losses for the army morale).

Swedish cavalry now wheel across to threated the flank of the Danish centre.

Too late, the Danish right wing launch an attack.

But the centre crumbles as the Swedish infantry attack and the cavalry charge into their flanks.

The view from the Danish side of the table, "Why are my men facing the wrong way?"

An over view of the final situation, an outstanding victory for the Swedes. A lot of laughs in this game, and we will be doing again soon!