I have bought the new Epic Battles: Waterloo by Warlord Games and I’m slowly making my way through the painting much like Declan (when I’m not painting those pesky Kruleboyz). However, one thing I’ve noticed (as I’m sure many others have as well), is that the models are epic in scale but the basing and the rules are standard Black Powder. What I mean by this is that a standard unit in Epic:Waterloo is the same as a standard unit in regular Black Powder.
This got me thinking to how you could have truly cinematic and epic battles in Black Powder by converting the inches to centimetres (like many others have done).
By doing this, you can play a regular game of black Powder on a much smaller play area – 2.4 feet by 1.6 feet rather then 6′ x 4′. But also, it gives you the option of playing much, much larger games on a regular table.
The only issue is the basing and miniatures. if you take a standard unit in Black Powder with a frontage of 240mm and divide this so it suits the cm measurements rather than inches (i.e. dividing 240mm by 2.5) you’ll get a standard unit frontage of 96mm (let’s call it 10cm). If we use increments of 20mm then the basing could look something like this:
The great thing about his, is that if you use Baccus Napoleonic 6mm infantry you can get two large bases completed for just £8.00!
But what about different formations. Well these could either be represented by a dice in one of the dice holders on the base (i.e. 3, for line, 4 for square etc) or you could just model some other bases as Square and attack column etc. I’m inclined by the later personally.
The other dice holder can also be used to measure the units stamina. For Dice holders I’m always inclined to use Pendraken.
But I’d like to know the opinions of those experienced in Black Powder and what they think!
Blucher is a tabletop game of the great battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Command an entire army from the first reconnaissance of the enemy to the deployment of forces and husbanding of reserves to the bombardment and engagement, and the final commitment of elite shock forces that will shatter the enemy’s weary defenders.
Blucher can be played with miniature figurines and terrain or with “unit cards” on any flat surface. You may in fact use both in the same game, since the cards provide a wonderful “fog of war” that conceals your forces until they are close enough to the enemy to be identified and represented with miniature figurines.
It has been given a rating of 8.2 on BoardGameGeek from 50+ ratings.
Epic Fox Table Top has produced a series of videos that are great at explaining the mechanics of Blucher.
1. Part One
2. Part Two
3. Part Three
If you’re interested in getting into Blucher. I can’t suggest you start anywhere else but these excellent collection of videos.
Historically the Battle of Ravine-à-Couleuvres also known as the Battle of Snake Gully, was a major battle of the Haitian Revolution on 23 February 1802.
A French division under General Donatien de Rochambeau was advancing down a ravine (the Ravine-à-Couleuvres), towards Lacroix, Artibonite, where they attacked the army of Toussaint Louverture. Louverture’s forces consisted of 1,500 elite grenadiers, 1,000 grenadiers in different Demi-brigades, 400 dragoons. Louverture’s forces resisted the attack strongly, but had to retreat across the Petite-Rivière after suffering 800 deaths.
Prior to the battle on 22 February 1802, the French occupied the heights of Morne Barade and were attacked by rebel troops; the battle raged throughout the night and the French forces successfully resisted the attack. The following morning, the Haitian forces advanced out of the Ravine-à-Couleuvres as the French were travelling down it towards Lacroix, while Louverture rallied his cavalry. According to Bell, the losses of Louverture’s army were minor.
The Gameplan
This would be my first game in Kreigsspiel and as such I was learning the ropes from the other players when I was able to communicate with them during the battle. That said it was an awful lot of fun and made me think of Kreigsspiel as more of an RPG wargame rather than the table top precisely measured game you imagine it to be.
This game took place with six players on each side, an overall General and then five Generals of Brigades. I was placed on the French side and in command of the third Brigade.
Unfortunately there were no accurate maps of the area available and so the game was to be played on a similar landscape using the Fredericksburg map from the Amercian Civil War.
The Battlefield
Our mission was simple, we were to enter from the north and take and hold the river side city as quickly as possible, while the rebels were out to stop us.
Our General issued his orders to us, which involved the Cavalry Brigade scouting the main route down to the city and assessing where the rebel locations were while avoiding combat if possible. My brigade was to follow the route taken by the cavalry as quickly as possible to try and take and hold the southern most part of the city ensuring that we held those bridges. The remaining brigades were to move to the northern part of the city to secure the crossing points there.
My initial orders showing the target positions of where I wanted my battalions to be placed once they reached the city.
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07:45 On our route down our wagons get stuck in mud and I’m forced to lose time ordering our lead battalion to assist in freeing the wagons. At this point I wasn’t quite aware that orders had already not been understood, as my wagons were leading the column towards the enemy!
At 08:00 I assumed that the lead four battalions were well ahead of us this point after our delay freeing the wagons from the mud. So I sent orders to them via ADC advising them where to position themselves in the city until our arrival.
At 08:15 it became clear that all of my battalions were in fact towards the rear of the column.
At 8:30 contact is made with the enemy by the Cavalry screen in front of us.
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08:30 Some frantic ordering in response to the firefight ahead sees me attempting to move my battalions in front of my wagons finally and deploying skirmishers while our General rides on ahead bravely to see whats going on
Brigade makes contact with the enemy and moves to support our cavalry.
08:45 As we were no co-located with the Cavalry commander we were able to get his report on the situation straight from the horses mouth (pun intended). I order my remaining battalions that have not yet arrived to push into the fields on the right as the nearest bridge to he city was just a couple of fields away to our right. We had the intention to punch through the enemy and try and make it to those bridges.
09:00 The initial combats appear to be going in our favour although the cavalry on the right are already starting to suffer casualties and the arrival of enemy cannon does not help our situation. I order my remaining three battalions to move up on the right flank to try and relieve the wounded cavalry elements.
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09:15 My infantry start to gain the upper hand in the combat but the artillery is a worry.
I give orders for my troop movements with the intention to try and push my very slight advantage, I also send a message to the other Brigades to inform them of our plight.
09:30 The fighting intensifies, but my men start to run out of ammunition and are taking casualties at an alarming rate. I order my troops to retreat back along the road until we’re beyond the range of the enemy artillery.
10:00 My men begin to pull back
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10:15 and my men begin to recuperate and rearm, while are Cavalry push back into the fields on the right.
10:30 and our Cavalry route the rebel cavalry and pursue their Generals. Only to be halted by the dreaded artillery. Prompted by this I order my battalions to take the enemy guns as quickly as possible, hoping to remove them from play or possibly even capture them for our own use.
And with that the game was over. While myself and my fellow gamer who was in charge of the Cavalry had managed to smash aside the Haitians, capture their guns and even wounded their commanders (I think)in our little corner of the battlefield. It just wasn’t enough with the 1st and 2nd French Brigades getting badly mauled to the north there was no hope of our little force crossing the river and securing the town.
A victory for the Haitians but a costly victory.
Summary
This was a fantastic introduction to Krieggspiel and I thoroughly enjoyed myself throughout.
It wasn’t anything like I expected, and in the end felt more like a Role-playing game where you’re in charge of a specific General. I highly recommend anyone to take a look at this game and perhaps join the International Krieggspiel Society and dip your own toes in!
I’ll often paint a single test model before batch painting the rest. It lets me take my time on making sure I’m selecting the right colours.
In the case of Napoleonic miniatures I find this is also useful as I will refer to images on my phone about the uniform of the unit I’m painting. Then, once the model is done, I can just keep it in view while I paint the remainder. This prevents me having to keep turning the old phone on and off while I paint.
So here’s the model, this is a phone picture so apologies.
