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Absolutely the last Waterloo refight

10/9/2015

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On 6 September we played the Battle of Waterloo again. I wanted to use the battlefield one more time before tidying it away and so invited four new players to come along. As in the first refight, this group were all new to the Blucher rules. In addition, only one of them had played a historical war game before: the others drew on memories of playing Warhammer.  They all picked up the rules quickly and we fought the game to a conclusion inside one long day. In this game, the Allies deployed with a strong right flank, expecting a French left hook. The French duly obliged, but held on to a strong reserve including their two Heavy Cavalry Corps. Once the French left had engaged them, the Allies assaulted with their own left flank.  The French screened this attack with a very light force and then launched their reserves against the Allied Centre. Thinned out to right and left, the Allies buckled between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte.  Despite the best efforts of the British 1st Division, the French juggernaut chewed up its opposition and Allied morale broke. While the French had lost a lot of élan points, they had not lost many units so were a long way from their break point at this stage.

It had been a great game and all players said they would happily play again.  With hindsight, it might have been better to use another scenario to introduce the rules, as the players learned some useful lessons to their cost. Unit handling got a lot better in the course of the day, especially by the Allies.  We agreed to meet again soon for another game. Next time we might try the Battle of Montmirail, 1814, a scenario I’ve played several times with Napoleon’s Battles. I’ll be interested to see how this works with Blucher.

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General rules

The Map

The map has the following features:
  1. Named towns (large dot)
  2. Named villages (small dot)
  3. Numbered farms (spotted dot)
  4. Forest hexes. Each patch of forest is lettered for identification purposes.
  5. Main roads (dark brown)
  6. Minor roads (tan)
  7. Rivers (blue)
  8. Railway line (black)
  9. Open hexes. Although ‘open’, these still represent farmland with fields and hedges, streams and ditches.

Hex rows are labelled with letters. Individual hexes are identified by counting away from the left of the row containing the letter (including part hexes). Thus, La Redoute is in hex E7; Saint Michel de Livet is in hex J3.

Assets


Each player has various assets, including fighting men and women, vehicles, technical resources and bases. As the campaign is under way at present I am not listing all of these on the website yet. But examples include
  • German infantry section with Opel lorry
  • Osttruppe section
  • Active Maquis cell
  • Sleeping Maquis cell
  • Arms cache
  • Safe house
  • Etc.

Issuing orders

Every turn, each player receives a briefing on events in the previous turn, along with one or more tasks for the turn ahead.

A turn is not a fixed period of time but an episode in which something happens. Each turn, the players will receive a briefing on the situation and should then issue orders to their assets to allow them to deal with the current challenge. Play is similar to a Dungeons and Dragons approach: they will not be constrained by mechanical rules although these exist in the umpire’s set. The umpire will try to carry out the players’ instructions and will report the outcome at the end of the turn.

That said, the players are given some guidelines:
  • Lorries can reach anywhere on the map using the road net. Their passengers can then disembark and move on foot. I will presume that lorry-borne units will return to base at the end of the turn unless a player orders them to stay in another village or town. The gas powered lorries risk breaking down but otherwise are the same as the Opel lorries.
  • The Steyr heavy car and kübelwagen can reach anywhere on the map, not just on the road net.
  • Troops on foot may walk up to 4 open hexes, either from their base or from the point where a vehicle has transported them. I will presume they will return to base at the end of the turn unless a player orders them to stay in another hex (troops on foot can bivouac in non-urban hexes).
  • The tank can travel up to 12 hexes in a turn and will end the turn where it has been sent (ie it won’t return to base at turn’s end). It derives no benefit from roads.
  • Players may issue contingency orders, for example to lie in ambush or to look out for a signal and then take another action..
  • Home
  • About me
  • Blog
  • Periods played
    • Napoleonics
    • 17th Century Eastern Europe
    • ACW
    • Ancients
  • Scenarios
    • American Civil War scenarios
    • 17th Century scenarios
    • Napoleonic scenarios
    • WW2 Maquis campaign