Lutzen in the cotswolds

This weekend I ventured into the deepest Cotswolds, to Chris G's wargames room for a refight of Lutzen. Chris was handling the strategic map moves whilst Tony D ran the tactical using his home-brew Napoker rules. 

The game is unique in using a hand of playing cards to run everything with players needing to decide how to allocate their cards between; Initiate, fighting/shooting and movement. As the face value of card matters you must decide do you want to fight well, move lots or go first? It sounds odd but plays easily enough once you have been through a few turns.

Field from my position commanding the Russians right

We played on Chris's custom made terrain and fielded several thousand gilder figures from Tony's collection - so a splendid spectate. The game was into its second day when I arrived on the Sunday, with the Allies having established a defensive position using 4 villages and the French struggling to make headway.

Russians on the west of the field

Russian reinforcements arrive on mass

As Allied reinforcements poured onto the table the French position did not improve much sadly - with their guns mostly off table, they suffered under Allied artillery fire. A couple of spirited attacks did clear two of the villages but they were rapidly retaken by the allies. 

Russian Uhlans advance

Off table the French were moving around the flanks of the Allied lines, but with overall damage light Russian troops were used on each flank to ward-off any potential attacks.  

Tussle over the western village

French Guards survey the scene

By mid afternoon the French had lost many of their troops attacking the Prussians dug-in around the villages on the east of the board. This freed-up more Russians to boost the line.  

Russian Guards

More action at the western village

The game ended after 36 turns (across 2 days) with the Allies in strong position and French on table attacks stalled. Their off table flank units were moving slowly, which would have allowed an allied withdrawal in the night.      

A good fun game and my own losses were pretty light. As you can see from the photos it was certainly a spectacular game hosted by Chris and Tony.