The day after Salute Nick and Alan finished off the Scharnhorst campaign and played the resulting Blucher game. I was umpiring and neither of them had played either system before.
We set the campaign up on a powerpoint slide on Google Docs (Vassal on the cheap!) so that we could get some moves done remotely during the week, but we finished it off on paper on Sunday morning. As expected the battle was pretty much in the middle of the map by the big town. Both sides had 3 columns on and 1 column as reinforcements.
The table was quickly laid out using Hexon and the blinds deployed. We were using the Along the Danube orbats - but neither side knew any detail about the other.
The big surprise was when the lead French units (bottom centre of the photo) turned out to be Nick's Reserve Cavalry Corps! Alan (Austrian) surprisingly sent his cavalry off down the opposite flank, so the battle quickly settled into one of two halves, Nick pushing left in the south, and Alan pushing right in the North. There was some stout Austrian defence on the southern ridge, and their garrison in the village at its foot never got attacked. By about turn 16 we got to the point where both sides had lost 4 of their 6 units needed to reach break point, but the Austrians were looking the more precarious. Neither sides reinforcements had arrived, but around turn 16 the third French Corps arrived on the North edge - right on the Austrian flank and it was pretty much game over.
Overall everyone enjoyed the game. By the end Nick and Alan hardly needed the rules or my help - it is a very simple system. There are certainly still oddities, but not as many as I had in my initial game. The Scharnhorst system is great, and they both liked the blinds and M0 approach, and I think we'll be playing it again. My sabot bases to turn my 6mm battalions into brigades worked superbly - especially the double wide strip at the back for the damage and capabilities chit.
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| The French move against the Austrian ridge in the South |
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| Austrian Kurassier trying to outflank in the North |
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| Damaged, but outflank complete - a poor French cavalry unit is for it! |
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| Alan deep in thought as a French Corps arrives on his flank! |
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| Newly arrived French push into the big wood |
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| Endex! |
And some photo's from Nick:
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| Me setting up, Alan looking on |
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| Starting positions - with blinds. French on left. |
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| Most of the forces revealed |
Enjoyed it - although I think my head is in more need of flocking than my Austrians. Look forward to another go. Need to figure out how my sabots need to be constructed to fit in with my bases. Think the vanilla rules are worth another couple of goes before we think about any refinements.
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