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!