Friday 24 June 2016

Solo Blucher Forces

After a few solo games of Blucher, I found they were becoming the same game (with minor differences) over and over. Part of that was because I was laying out the table so it didn't favor one side or the other, also I ended up min/maxing both armies and since I knew what the 1st army had, I  unconsciously designed the 2nd army to deal with the 1st army. I then tried making random armies with the Mythic Games master emulator (see earlier post for details) and while it worked OK it was tedious and but still gave less variety than I wanted.

The army creation in the Mythic Games master emulator post, generated one comment suggesting I make a base force of 150 or 200 points and add random units until I reached the desired points total. It inspired me to make a bunch of 50 point forces on cards and then draw a number of cards equal to the point value I wanted, so for a 200 point army I would draw 4 cards. I tried it out, it works great, it is a bit of up front effort, making each card slightly different but I found it well worth the investment in time. After I had done a set of early war French and a set of Austrians, I can now make an army list for both sides in under a minute.

Most of the cards are exactly 50 points, there a few that are either 49 or 51, if you're over or under on points don't worry about it, same if you have more of a unit type than you are allowed (I tried to put just 1 unit of units that have a maximum number allowed). Exception Sub-commanders; some cards list a sub-commander among their units, and if you draw more than you are allowed to have in your force, after you have drawn all your cards, put all the sub-commanders cards aside then randomly draw a number of cards equal to the sub-commanders you are allowed, then draw replacement force cards from the main pile. None of the cards have a C-in-C, if you want one choose one, then draw a random card from your draw pile and take away troops at least equaling his cost.

Here are the decks I have compiled. They are PDFs, so just print them, cut them out, place them into card sleeves and your ready to go.


50 point Early War French cards (32 force cards)
50 point Austrian cards (32 force cards)
50 point Peninsular British cards (24 force cards)
50 Point 100 days British cards (in Development)
50 Point Russian cards (in Development)
50 Point Prussian cards (in Development)
50 point Ottoman cards (in Development)
50 Point Spanish Cards (in Development)
50 Point Late War French (32 force cards)
When you have your total army drawn, you'll have to organize them into corps.

2 comments:

  1. this is really great. Thanks you very much for sharing!

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    Replies
    1. Rich B. (Hazdrubal)15 August 2016 at 16:44

      Your welcome, I hoped some people would find them of use, but they are in no way balanced. In fact I find the forces that come out are usually light on both cavalry and artillery, and the French end up with a lot Allied forces.

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