Skirmish at Gembloux - Blucher 100 Days Campaign

Nick and I finally got to play the Gembloux Skirmish for our 100 Days Blucher Campaign this weekend.

The encounter takes place on  the same day as the 2nd Day of the Battle of Sombreffe. A French Division had been pushed out East with the aim of cutting the Prussian supply lines (which would reduce their ability to recover unit strengths after battles). To get to the interdiction points it had to move N up and around a river beyond Gembloux, and it was there, between Gembloux and Walhain that the Prussian Division tasked with protecting the supply lines managed to intercept them.

I have an odd relationship to the encounter since I was Prussian when it was set up, but now with Alan’s death (BTW see his wonderful collection of figures and scenery and buy some it at http://saswargames.blogspot.com/p/the-alan-martin-collection.html), I was playing the French trying to break-through.

The Prussians (Nick) placed their line troops in Walhain, and their Landwehr just N of the river around a small copse. I (French) could have played it purely strategically and just screened my troops with may cavalry, snuck them round the top of the river, and then legged it off the map. But Nick and I had been trying to play this game for ages, and I’d come down a day early from Brum, so to do so would have been a bit of a damp squib.

So my cav took on his, and got the better of the exchange, and my infantry piled into his Landwehr, but got raked by his gun (the only one on the board). His Landwehr held firm and sent my first line packing. With the second line I tried to soften him up with musketry and my Brigade guns (effectively just a +1), but took casualties myself and whilst I managed to see off a couple of battalions the attrition was just getting to much, so it was time to get off the board (in the right direction) whilst still in reasonably good order.

Early moves, most units still on blinds

I can’t say the Blucher rules grew on us any better. In fact there were several incidents that just didn’t seem right, the worse being a French Dragoon unit, more of less undamaged, bouncing off a charge against the REAR of a Prussian infantry unit in column. Very odd.

Congestion in the French ranks as the 2nd wave comes in

So we can now move back to the main maps moves, and probably move towards the final battle – whether my flying column can cover off both supply points remains to be seen. We have though decided to switch to SLS for the remaining battles, Blucher just doesn’t give us the game we want (although we may still use the Momentum dice system as that’s not bad).