2014 · Against the Odds
"VAUCHAMPS" is a tactical game in the La Bataille series with a different rule set from those used by the other publishers in the series.
Publisher's information:
For the casual reader who looks into the “100 Days” and the Waterloo Campaign, one of the early questions is, “Who (the heck) is Grouchy?” Followed up by wondering why (on earth) Napoleon would give this guy a third of his army and depend on him to keep Blücher’s Prussians far from Wellington.
In context of Grouchy’s performance then, it’s a very reasonable question. But the answer goes back to February,1814, where - at the Battle of Vauchamps – then-Cavalry-General Grouchy showed he could be extremely good at chasing Blücher.
Vauchamps is one of those interesting battles mostly lost in the blur of “the 1814 Campaign,” where Napoleon kept giving bloody noses to the advancing allied armies but never quite had the strength for a decisive victory. Few Allied noses were as far out in front as that of Marshal Blücher. There, in a small chapter called the “Six Days Campaign,” Napoleon dealt the “Army of Silesia” defeat after defeat. Reeling from this, Blücher tried to disengage from Napoleon’s personal attention and attack an isolated corps under Marmont, with a mostly infantry force that included the names Zieten, Pirch, and Kleist that we would see in 1815.)
But “Boney” anticipated that move and turned the tables on Blücher’s Prussians and Russians, who were advancing with little cavalry. For one time in 1814, Napoleon had more horses engaged and used them well.
